How important is surround sound in a gaming headset?

I'm looking to buy a headset to use with my 360 and PC but I'm trying not to spend more than $80. The problem is, I play a lot of FPS's and I know how useful surround sound is when playing games like Battlefield 3, but headsets with 5.1 or 7.1 cost a lot more. Should I spend the extra money to get a surround headset? Is the difference in sound between 2 channel and surround nearly as noticeable in a headset as it is in a home theater?How important is surround sound in a gaming headset?
Depends entirely on the headset. If it only has two speakers, no. Not only are you getting ripped off on the advertising of the headset you're also likely paying through the nose for a proprietary DSP box that won't be doing anything more than your PC/receiver could with a virtual surround mode or downmix. If the headset has multiple speakers, yes it can be noticeable. I can't comment on all the models that have ever been available but I have an older pair of LTB AC97-M (no longer being produced, replaced by the MG-AC97) headphones I swear by. They aren't quite comparable in audio quality to a similarly priced pair of stereo Sennheisers but they do sound decent and their positioning is good.



LTB do not specifically manufacture Xbox 360 headsets but the TRS connectors mean you can hook them up to anything you have that already outputs surround sound (PC sound card, receiver line out, etc.).

Tritton makes one I'm aware of in the TRI-GA611 that is marketed for consoles although I haven't heard them, but they are around double what you were looking to spend. On the Tritton website you can see a cutaway of the actual drivers and how they're positioned in the cup.



Although, most of the higher price for the TRI-GA611 pair is because of the decoder box it comes with. If you already have a sound card with multichannel line out and a receiver with multichannel line out, then the box is superfluous since you could just hit Radio Shack for a few dollars worth of cable adapters to hook up something like the LTBs with their TRS connectors.