Headphones vs speakers
When it comes to gaming and sound, there is an ongoing debate whether speakers are better or headphones. Ultimately, it's a question of preferences, money, and convenience. Sound quality is also a factor since Dolby Atmos becomes more available to Xbox One and Windows PC. When we listen to stereo speakers, we hear both channels with both our ears. With headphones, the left channel is only heard by the left ear, and the right channel only by the right ear. This is one of the reasons why the soundstage seems to be smaller when listening to headphones. Headphones also doesn't have to deal with the sound bouncing around in the room so there are pros and cons when it comes to the sound quality
When it comes to convenience, headphones can't be beat. There is no need to place multiple speakers around the room. We also don't have to worry about running the wires throughout the room. With headphones, we just have to place it over our ears and we are done. Headphones are also less bulky so we can move them around from device to device and room to room. Another benefit of headphones is that you don't have to worry about disturbing others while playing games, the sound is isolated to our ears only. The downside is that we don't feel the bass thumping on our bodies that can only come from subwoofers. Also, if you wear glasses, some headphones don't feel comfortable
When it comes to sound, headphones can't reproduce bass quite like a subwoofer. Speakers tend to give a more realistic sound not only to our ears but to our bodies. The downside is that depending on ambient noise, we may not hear distant sounds as clear as we would with headphones. We may not be able to hear minute sounds using speakers unless we turn up the volume. If you are playing multiplayer games, headphones make a much better choice because you won't get feedback if your are using a microphone. Nothing bothers other gamers like hearing an echo when they talk.
In terms of price, headsets are cheaper. Quality, gaming headsets can be purchased for $100 while you may have to spend four or five times that for similar sound quality in a speaker. If you have the budget, you can spend several thousand dollars on a multi speaker, multi amp sound setup. The most expensive headphones on the other hand, come in at around $5,000 for audiophile headphones.