Tracking sound in three dimensions with headphones

Those that know me are all too well aware of my weakness for both headphones and surround sound audio.  To this point, I have only been able to enjoy them separately.  This is not because the technology doesn't exist to combine the two, but because it has not been done at a price that is reasonable to me and/or at reasonable quality.  For purposes of gaming, there are several serviceable options; but none of them are even remotely audiophile caliber.

The current state-of-the-art for surround sound processing for headphones is the Smyth Realiser A8.  Not only is the Realiser highly regarded, but it is still unique in responding to even fairly modest movements of your head as you listen - something we do naturally to pinpoint the source of a sound.  No matter how attractive the Realiser is, it is too rich for my blood at $3,000.

However, we may be able to get quality affordable headphone surround sound from DTS in the near future in the form of DTS' Headphone:X.  The element that they are doing "right" is compensating for headphone characteristics, but it is going to take them time to build a library of measurements for all the headphones that are available.  On the basis of what I think I heard on a recent Home Theater Geeks podcast, DTS is not prioritizing even mid-fi headphones like the Sennheiser HD-600 or HD-650 when it comes to getting measurements.  Thus, it may take awhile for Headphone:X to work with any of my favored headphones.  Equally discouraging, is that DTS is licensing the technology to OEMs; and who knows what quality of gear is going to include Headphone:X in it.  From what I heard in the podcast, at least in the near term, none of the gear is going to appeal to audiophiles. 

So. It looks like concerts on blu-ray will remain a non-headphone experience for some time to come.  Still.  At least there is hope that we are not a decade away from seeing a competent pairing of surround sound to headphones in a manner that is satisfying for more than just gaming.