I have recently partaken in a journey to try and discover scientifically, what is the best headphones for gaming and what makes them the best. So i was thinking, maybe if i knew what sort of frequencies i need to priorities for gaming such as; footsteps, gunshoots, reloading etc. Id imagine that these frequencies differ on a game to game basis but if there is some common ground, the new info of prioritising certain frequencies combined with a huge soundstage, i am hoping these will give me the answer to what is the best headphones. If you have any experience, opinions or scientific facts or what not to add to this topic, im sure im not the only one who would appreciate any input, so thank you in advance!
Maybe just record the audio coming from some games and running it through an "Fourier Transform".
The biggest scientific fact to go with here is that the artist or designer made the audio sound a certain way for a reason. Therefore you generally want to reproduce it EXACTLY as it was intended. It is quite rare that someone (say a game developer) just throws something together for the audio experience and sends it out as a finished product. If anything, sound in videos games suffers because gamers tend to buy cheap speakers/headsets and the developer may need to take that into account.
Having certain headphones or speakers for gaming/music/movies is a bit of false concept. From what I gather, this myth has come from people using lower end products that might be passable for one usage, but another might really show how far the product falls short. In essence, a good set of sound equipment should do everything well.
Ideally a sound system (speaker or headphone) should reproduce the sound EXACTLY as it was intended by the artist or designer. In order to do this, the device would have a flat frequency response, or in other words: not colour the sound in any way by reproducing certain frequencies louder or quieter than the source.
That being said, equipment with a flat frequency response is fairly expensive, so it is a matter of finding the best equipment in a price range you find reasonable. Generally aim for a frequency response curve where no dips or peaks fall 5 db off of the average db. The standard for peaks that are not as noticeable is +/- 3db. To answer your questions about gun shots, etc: if you have any drop off in certain frequency ranges more than that (i.e. an inferior piece of equipment) it will not excel at reproducing media where those frequencies are prominent. This is where the myth that certain headphones or speakers are better for certain tasks comes from.
People do have different preferences for sound, however. Some like pronounced bass, others like treble or mids, and some like an even amount of all 3. It is usually best to 'tweak' a good set of speakers using EQ to personal preference. Naturally this is easiest with equipment that has a flatter frequency response.