Having stuck the Orpheus on the Elite Pro among other CMSS cards, I can say it's no better and no worse from a gaming standpoint than something like the G35 - in fact, for me the G35 implementation might be better. Neither is an actually accurate positioning indicator even in titles I know to be compatible - generic HRTF is generic HRTF. Basically once you get beyond a certain degree of capability (and that is beyond the sub-par AD700 / A700. I dunno why the 'I'm a fauxphile' gamers have recently taken to these) it doesn't make any difference, and in fact, if you want any semi-meaningful degree of positioning capability with generic HRTF it does help to compress down the soundstage so that you get a more manageable sound bubble for CMSS / Dolby effects to take place in. The Ultrasone Edition 8 with the S-Logic soundstaging for example is one previous headphone I've owned that is actually quite a decent gaming headphone. It's also relatively lightweight and tractable and it would make for an incredibly bad-value but fairly effective adjunct to my G35 :tongue1:
One problem of electrostatics is that they can lack the dynamic impact that you'd want from a gaming phone - the Omega II's for example would definitely not be my first choice in a gaming headphone. But for classical / indie / folk etc music-first use I don't see any problems.
Understandable. What we really need is something with personalized HRTFs. So far, I only see MyEars (test a bunch of presets, set a "virtual audio cable" as default audio device and lose my X-Fi's gaming features in the process, may be subscription-based) and the Smyth SVS Realiser (requires a surround speaker room to configure properly, EXPENSIVE, still constrained to 7.1 imaging). But for now, CMSS-3D Headphone will do.
For gaming alone, I wouldn't go out and suggest that everyone buy a Stax setup due to the amp requirement and cost (I just happened to get off easy for just $250, most will have to pay significantly more than that). I don't notice a dramatic improvement over the AD700s for that. Diminishing returns have become apparent, to the point where the generic HRTF system has become the bottleneck. In my case, I didn't buy them just for gaming, but for music and the occasional movie too, and I've found that I just happen to like the way electrostatics reproduce music.
I'm actually not really looking for dynamic impact on my eardrums, which is why I don't mind electrostatics. If I wanted that, I'd probably slip a subwoofer under my chair so my whole body gets hammered and not just my eardrums. Even without it, there's still a bit of thump on my ears with the bass notes (and I certainly don't find the Lambdas anemic there).
As for the AD700s, why do you consider them sub-par? Is it the whole anemic bass thing? Is it because you find them TOO open and spacious for generic HRTF filters to work their best? I didn't buy them with any pretense of considering them audiophile headphones by a long shot; I just wanted something more competent for gaming with CMSS-3D Headphone, and the AD700s did that far better than the other cheap or old headphones I had lying around at the time, so I felt they were worth it.
Ultimately, though, we're just proving again that sound is highly subjective. Not everyone is going to like a given headphone's sound signature, and that's all right because this is an open market and we can get what we want without imposing our choices on everyone else.