What is better: Dolby surround simulation or authentic, quality stereo?

[rfe777]

I have a sound card(Asus Xonar Essence STX) installed in my PC that can simulate Dolby surround in headphones by a something called Dolby Pro Logic, which gives a good surround effect, nice echo and everything, but is only relevant to movies and computer games, not for music. On the other hand, this simulation looks to me like just compression and mixing of the stereo sound to be as if it came from a 5.1 system, like fooling the ears or something.

And, in order to get a really a good, authentic ,quality stereo sound(both for music and for movies and computer games) you need to use a good receiver and/or amp/DAC(again, for headphones only, not for external speakers).

What do you think?

TIA

 

[professorhat]

I think beauty is in the eye of the beholder i.e. there is no right or wrong answer - go with whichever sounds best to you.