Well thank god, sounds about a billion times better than what the Devs made already.

@gotmiki Good point. Usually when I'm getting shot at I'm mostly wondering: "Am I taking fire or what's going on?"

@davisath Sometimes gameplay is more important than pure realism + there's no difference between wearing no helmet vs. hearing protection in A3.

@Christian: Unfortunately XAudio2 plays all the sounds according to your Windows settings (7.1 is the limit, headphones are only good for left and right). Even if you have a quality 7.1 setup it can't know where your speakers are placed so it's all very generic. This is made a lot worse if you're wearing headphones. The only reason this sound engine is used is because it'c multi platform, but A3 is PC only so it makes 0 sense to choose it. You can read a sponsored article on it here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131931/sponsored_feature_an_introduction_.php?print=1

@Christian That's how Xaudio2 + X3DAduido (sound engine used in A3) works. This can't get better. You can blame the devs for choosing the worst sound engine ever made.