Voicemeeter and Virtual Surround audio for gaming

[lunarwolfspirit]

I'm wondering if despite just having stereo headphones, if I need to configure Voicemeeter's audio devices to accept 7.1 audio

i.e. Sound Control Panel > Voicemeeter Input > Configure Speakers > 7.1 etc.

Its worth noting that even if I do so, when I hit the "Test" button, I can still only hear inputs from the Left and Right speakers, so my guess is its negligible.

It is worth noting, I also don't have virtual surround sound enabled within my device (Steelseries Arctis 7, DTS disabled) as this interferes with the surround emulation within the game itself (Overwatch Dolby Atmos).

The reason I'm pondering the above is I seem to have poorer "surround awareness" when I route my audio through Voicemeeter as opposed to using it as-is. Does routing audio through Voicemeeter change the sound stage ever so slightly? Or am I just imagining things?