How do studio headphones work with gaming sound?

look to see what the resistance is on your headphones. low resistance headphones (the ones that you can plug into cd/mp3 players and do not require an amplifier to get sound) should work perfectly fine with your sound card. granted having a portable amp can push your headphones harder (and possibly make them sound a bit better) but this is completely optional. if you have high resistance headphones you might need an amplifier just to get any sound out of them at all.

i own top of the line audiotechnicas (ath-m50) which are on the lower spectrum in terms of resistance but completely blow any low end speakers out of the water. they work great with low power devices such as mp3/cd players and will plug right into a headphone jack on your soundcard. i use a receiver for all my sound output so i would most likely just use the large plug and use the receiver (which has an amp!)

as far as surround sound goes the models which say they have 5.1 or 7.1 offer multiple small drivers instead of large high quality drivers. this means that they often sacrifice in the sound quality department. technically studio headphones are 2.0 but i have heard people claim they can still make sense of 3d sound such as in games. personally i'd rather have the quality sound of good studio headphones over some 5.1/7.1 gaming headset crap. sound volume is often based on 3d location in games so even on a 2.0 set you are likely to know the general direction.

i have had my headphones hooked up to a MMO game for about a week and sound quality was excellent. the lack of any real surround sound didnt sound any better/worse. i cannot say how they would perform for FPS or other games though as i use my 725w klipsh home theatre set for this. based on experience with these headphones i'd say they would sound fine but wouldnt have the surround sound effects of my main set.

good headphones, should be able to play any kind of genre properly, since studio headphones are critically designed for accuracy, there should be fine. only problem is they arent surround.

NO problem in Stereo, ihave the same soundcard and i use a Sennheiser HD 380) pro= closed) or a AKG 240 studio ( open )