Stereo sound: Music vs. Movies vs. Games

My earlier post was way too bloated, so now a couple of quick noob questions:

Does stereo sound provide as good an experience in movies and newer, non-FPS games as it does for music?

What (if anything) is lost by having "only" two channels in movies and games?

Thanks!

Thanks guys. The reason I asked was to see if I should get an external soundcard (for virtual effects) or just get a DAC/amp to boost stereo. Only problem is I'm gonna be on a laptop and I need whatever I get to be easily transportable, which cuts down on available options.

The cans I have are not high-end and are easy to drive, so I might just stick with onboard "HD" audio for now (at least it supports X-fi virtual effects through additional software/drivers if I want to dabble).

I had already ordered the Asus Xonar U3 but will probably end up returning it because it now seems little more than a glorified Dolby Digital processor. From what I've read, it doesn't seem like that's so important in movies/games after all. Perhaps I am wrong; I'll try and update once I've had a chance to play around with it :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by trog 

Hmm sub $100 i would look at stuff like the Fiio E10?

I was on the fence about the E10 all of last week actually ;) Decided to go something more budget just to get my feet wet. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought even such an entry level DAC would be wasted on low-impedance (~32) phones.

For example: I got the AKG GHS1s (supposed to be comparable to the Q460s--thanks Lily!). Could I expect a significant SQ improvement those using the E10 versus onboard Realtek audio?

Quote:

Originally Posted by kalston 

High quality stereo (which isn't really that expensive) is far superior to cheap surround for everything IMO. 

 

Even when just downmixing to stereo (rather than post processing with dolby headphones or whatever) films and games don't sound bad with decent stereo headphones. With good headphones you can clearly hear everything (voices, effects, music...). Cheap surround setups often lack details and clarity and frequently have completely overwhelming lows.   

Good point. I've been used to gaming with positional audio for the past few years, so I was worried about losing that, but I might be missing out on a lot more in terms of clarity and details than is worth the surround sound. Seems I definitely need to do some testing to see what works best since it is subjective after all!