Tritton’s AX51 Audio Xtreme is a 5.1 headset for the PC. Its unique feature is the use of eight different speakers (four on each side) to recreate the surround sound home theater experience. Most games these days come with surround sound or at the very least simulated surround so you may be missing out competitively on positional audio cues that good surround reproduction can give you. The AX51 has comfortable headphone pads on the ear pieces that cover your entire ear in addition to an adjustable head strap that will cater to different sizes. For people with particularly smaller heads, we found the ear piece would tend to slide below its intended height even with the head strap adjusted properly. But for average sized wearers, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Our test platform was a white box Windows Vista x64 PC with a SupremeFX II Audio sound card that came with the ASUS Maximus Formula motherboard we used. The headphone came with colored plugs that align correctly with the sound card (to be honest any sound card in the last decade will do). An AC adapter must be used to power the device with the plug being in the back where the cables are so you don’t run two wires to the headphone itself. Plus, the AX51 has a volume control piece that lets you adjust the volume of individual channels as well as mute the microphone or sound. On the hardware side, the set up of the unit was effortless. We encountered a little trouble with the software side due to incorrect drivers and audio software installed. Basically our test PC has always been a 2 channel setup so we never had to deviate from the standard Windows Vista drivers. With a 5.1 setup, we found the default Microsoft drivers could not adjust the individual surround levels properly. The center, subwoofer and rear speakers were basically disabled no matter what the game or application (such as PowerDVD) said. Once the software was installed, we encountered no more problems after that.

The AX51 is able to recreate the spatial qualities of surround sound. The center speaker effect is perhaps the best as it really sounded different from the left and right channels. The rear surround did not fare as well. Whether in a game or movie, the sound effect had to be very pronounced, such as a plane moving from rear to front, in order for us to detect a distinction between the rear and front speakers. This type of effect occurs more in games. It’s more subtle in movies. In a café scene with people in the background, you’re unlikely to tell the difference between the front and rear speakers. The subwoofer is noticeable but we would not say it will rock your ear canals unless it’s tuned a few settings above the other channels. Our preference is always for a lighter bass but those who regularly use things like bass boost may find objections. The rumble effect is more of a gimmick to us than reproducing a deeper cleaner bass.

We used CyberLink PowerDVD Ultra to play several HD DVD and Blu-Ray movies on the headset to give the unit a cinematic test. For the most part, dialogue driven films fared well because of the excellent center speaker reproduction. Action movies seem to dither a bit. For stereo output we found that pop music works fine with the headset but anything requiring a great deal of range sounded constrained; such as classical music. You’re better off grabbing a good pair of stereo headphones in those instances. The AX51 appears designed for games as the surround effects for games are extremely overt and hyper-kinetic action with bullets and lasers whizzing by seem to show the product off best. We tried Call of Duty 4 and with all of its audio cacophony was definitely an upgrade over the standard 2 channel setup.

One note we might want to add is to disable or mute the microphone when it’s not in use. In our dead silence tests, we found that having the microphone plugged in would cause a small amount of hiss to the sound. It’s not as overt as other headsets, like the Turtle Beach Ear Force X3, but it is detectable.

The AX51’s surround sound is not perfect but is a step up from using stereo headsets. Purists might argue that the audio reproduction with the rear and subwoofer channels is a bit off. Given that it is going for $69.99 US at street price, the product should end up on your short list if you’re in the market for some headphones.

Rating •••••80%•••••