does the headphone setting make any difference ?

[Kimbo]

if i switch between headphone and 5.1 (as i have 5.1) does it really change anything in games ? i mean, sure when i play a game if i use the headphones (late at night) and i remember to, i go in the windows/game setup and switch from 5.1, or less for older games, to headphones. i suppose this is more relevant to current and future games. sure, when i use 5.1 on my speakers it works as it should - so if i then leave the game setup for 5.1 and listen through headphones, do i miss out on anything as opposed to if i choose headphone from the game's options and assume that - that way, it would be optimized for headphones ?!? do i make any sense ? (so when i turn off the speakers and use the headphones, should i also change the settings from 5.1 to headphones ?!? ..or not bother ?)

[Acid8000]

Depends on your sound card. With my Audigy 4, I find that having the wrong setting enabled causes certain sounds to be missing. Also, when using headphones, I leave it at the "2.0" rather than "headphone" setting in both the Windows and Creative control panel, otherwise the frequency response is odd, and when using EAX, the positioning is not obvious (no difference between audio from behind or in front) with CMSS enabled. I only have a 2 channel setup though so your experiences with a 5.1 setup will differ.

[zapionics<alt>]

I use 5.1 speakers and occasionally headphones on an Audigy 2. I have found that using 5.1 setting with headphones causes some sounds to be lost.