Sound Quality
The sound out of the Medusa 5.1 is nearly flawless... well, after a few adjustments. It would seem that the center and sub-channels are reversed, meaning that anyone without a soundcard that has these channels reversed (the majority of cards do not) must use the extender cables to reverse the center and sub channels in order for the setup to work properly. This is an annoyance, but once you have your setup correctly done the sound quality out of the Medusa headset could only arguably be bested by a true 5.1 surround sound speaker system.
Positioning is slightly offset, as is to be expected in a headset, since you cannot have speakers placed directly in front of you with a headset but it is not noticeable unless you are switching between a 5.1 headset and a 5.1 speaker system for comparison. The bass on the headphones, as with the 5.1 USB, is loud, and we'd recommend testing the volume without the headphones on the ears to avoid bursting anything... when in optimal operation, however, these headphones will rock your head in the best way possible.
With music the headphones picked up on many of the subtleties of tracks that many headsets miss. The same held true for games where the sensitivity of the headphones combined with the excellent positional awareness they provide gives you an excellent audible perception of the world around you.
The headphones really come alive when watching films and as well as being able to provide excellent positional audio the headset is also able to put across very busy sections sound-wise. In this case many other speakers and headsets alike usually miss half of these sounds.
Conclusion
For the price of a mid-range set of headphones, the Medusa 5.1 Surround Sound headset provides the bang of a top-end set of earphones, and we'd recommend them to anyone looking for a decent set of headphones any day. They have excellent all-round abilities for games, music and movies as well as being portable by their fold-up design, if not their wiring (which is more of an annoyance when going to LANs than a problem).
If you have a 5.1 Surround Sound capable soundcard and the money to spend then go buy now or forever live in a world of flat sound.
