Getting 7.1 surround audio into headphones

[Arclite]

Hi Everyone.

I'm planning on getting a Blu-Ray player, and have narrowed it down to either the Panasonic DMP-BD60 or the DMP-BD80. My goal is to have the player hooked to two sets of headphones while maintaining full surround sound (I will also run 2 channel audio to the TV speakers for the kid's DVDs). I live in an apartment and don't want to bother my neighbors or wake my children. Both of these players are capable of decoding almost any type of audio codec that is used on a BR disc. The main difference between these two players is that the BD80 has analog outputs, and the BD60 doesn't. The BD80 runs about $350, and the BD60 is about $100 less.

After a lot of reading and discussion, I think I've narrowed it down to 2 choices.

1. Go with the DMP-BD60, run an optical cable into a headset like the Sony MDR-DS3000s DSP which processes the signal into simulated surround sound and listen to simulated 5.1 audio on a 2-channel headset. The advantage here is first simplicity, as I only connect a single optical cable to the head set DSP. Another advantage is cost, as I can get the cheaper player. The disadvantage is I'm downgrading Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD down to their lossier 5.1 counterparts, Dolby 5.1 and standard DTS 5.1. And as for any BR disc with PCM only, I'm restricted to regular old stereo (apparently optical only has enough bandwidth for 2 PCM channels). So the downside is somewhat of a loss of fidelity.

2. Go with the DMP-BD80. I can run the analog outputs into a true 5.1 headset like the Tritton AX 51 Pro. Using a variety of splitters, I can convert the RCA jacks to 3.5mm plugs and run the channels into the dedicated inputs into the headset. The advantage to this is that I'm getting 5.1 audio straight from the player, and all BR discs including PCM will have surround sound output. The disadvantages are the extra cost and the wire mess.

Questions.

1. The BD80 offers 7 channel analog, but most headsets are 5.1, whether simulated or actual. Is there any way to get all 7 channels, formatted for surround, into a headset?

2. What's the sound quality difference between simulated surround sound in a 2 channel headset, and full 5.1 surround sound in an 8 channel headset?

3. There's optical out on the BR player, and there's also an optical out on my TV (a Toshiba 42XV540U Regza LCD TV - 42", 1080p, 120Hz). If I go HDMI to the TV, then optical out, is that a more complete sound source than going direct optical out from the player? I ask b/c the HDMI source will be the full 7.1 lossless, so that might be output from the TV's optical port.

4. Any other thoughts on how to get 7.1 audio feeds into a pair of headphones would be great.

Thanks!