Looking for good hardware to support 5.1 audio through headphones (1 Viewer)

Recently my girlfriend changed jobs and goes to bed pretty early. I now find myself watching movies at an extremely low volume so as not to wake her up. I like watching movies in my Home Theater at a loud volume, so it's killing me. I want a good headphone setup.

I remember some years back, Dolby Headphone was supposed to emulate 5.1 sound in headphones. Whatever happened to that?

What are my options for good surround-sound in a headphone setup? I'm kind of in the market for a new Receiver anyway.

I have the Senn 555's and 595's and for movies or TV I prefer the cheaper 555's. They have a nice open soundstage and they actually place the action on screen fairly well.
Unfortunately I dont have any real experience with true 5.1 headphone rigs but if you go to headfi.com and do a search you will get all the info you need.

I wonder what the difference between Dolby Headphone and just the 5.1 soundtrack downmised to 2 channels would be? It's not like you have a lot of flexibility with the original 5.1 channels going into the 2 speakers in the headphones. Delay and phase I would think are the other 2 things you can mess with.

One of those things that has to be heard to be believed.

This has a demo page.

Dolby Technology - Dolby Headphone with 5.1 Surround Sound Stereo

And for crying out loud, use headphones to listen to the demos. Otherwise, you won't get the point.

I appreciate everyone's help.

Those demos sound pretty amazing!

Thanks for the links to headfi.com!

It looks like I either need to find a receiver with Dolby Headphone or buy a seperate adaptor like the JVC SU-DH1. Time to start researching receivers.

Those Sennheiser HD-555 headphones look pretty good!