In the headset world, it is hard to make a product that stands out. Psyko Audio Labs introduced there 5.1 headphones at CES this year. Apparently, they stood out enough for CES to give them there "Best of Innovations Design and Engineering Award". I took a few minutes to look and listen while I was at CES.
How they Work From the Psyko Audio Labs website "The Psyko 5.1 headphones are a radical departure from any other headphone you have ever seen. For starters the speakers are not placed in the ear cups. The speakers are placed above your head in the bridge of the headphone. Psyko places every speaker in a precise location to create the correct timing and volume differences to both ears just like sounds in a room around you, the resulting audio sounds completely natural. The waveguides direct all the front sounds to flow past the front of your ears, and all the rear sounds to flow past the rear of your ears just like how sounds interact with your ears in a room system. There is no signal processing involved so there is no latency introduced, and because we simply recreate the natural conditions of a room, the headphones will work for anyone, to the limits of their audio acuity."
Without going into a lot of detail (I still have a lot of work to get done to catch up from CES), I found the directionality to be amazing. There must be something to their crazy design. I hope we can spend more time with them in the future.