DIY 5.1 Surround Sound Headphones!

Step 3: GO!

Now, pop in your favorite game or DVD and plug the seperate headphones into the proper front, center/subwoofer, and rear speaker jacks on your soundcard. You can either use a stereo to mono adapter on your main headset to combine the center channel and subwoofer into both speakers (otherwise, you'll hear the center on one side and the subwoofer on the other), or, just pull out the jack slightly until you hear them combined on both sides.

Now, open your sound control panel, and adjust the volume sliders until you get a nice, balanced sound. I was pretty amazed at how well this works, as I expected I would have to do a lot more testing of other speaker elements in order to achieve a good result. If your soundcard supports reverb settings, you can also set it on the basic "room" configuration and adjust the level to more closely simulate a true 5.1 surround experience!