I've always noticed that people on Gotfrag always have had trouble with gaming headphone choices so here's a guide :
What to look for in gaming headphones
1.Imaging. How well you can 'see' with your ears. You can visualize the surrounding, enemies, and can resolve them in good detail without seeing them.
2. Soundstage/Audio positioning. How spacious the headphones are. Easier to locate enemies & determine their location to the left, right, forward or back. See it as tunnel vision. A headphone with a small soundstage is like looking straight at a tree.. A headphone with a big soundstage is like looking at forest.
3. Detail. How well the headphone picks up faint background noise, ambiance, & other audio nuances. Being able to recognize & resolve different layers of the sound.
4. Clarity. How clear can you hear the sound. Think SD to HD. Clean window/dirty window. Helps you look deeper into the audio. Headphones with conjestion and veil will mask important audio information.
5. Bass. For competitive play you don't want loud bass that drowns out other frequencies. You want crisp, tight bass..
6. 3D/Full bodied. 2D/3D is an extension of imaging. 2D is flat. 3D is like a pop up book in audio terms. 3D allows you to get a better grasp of the anatomy of the sound. Shape, size, width, length and dimensions. This allows you to do a better job at interpreting the sound, while your brain visualizes what it would look like. Having a full sound fleshes out the audio. It gaves them more weight. The sound feels more real and lively. A gun will have a sense of weight to it. To the point it will feel 'heavy.'
7. Accuracy. Postioning and locating sound through audio cues is only part of the equation. You can locate a sound in a general direction, but the accuracy of the can will enable you to pin point the sound easier and faster.
8. Midrange. How well you can hear others is important for single player campaigns, but essential for co op and on line multiplayer. A good midrange will make dialog more audible and easier to understand. Recessed mids might cause a problem when communicating with a team mate.
9. Transient speed. A headphone with fast transients help to relieve smearing. You hear 6 feet of enemies coming toward you, but the feet seem to be mashed together. A headphone with fast transients will be able to 'break the feet apart' so each pair is seperate from the rest. This is good for allowing you to prepare for a small fire fight, or a large fire fight.
10. transparency. Seeing throgh the notes of the music. No barriers. Think X ray vision but with your ears.
11. Seperation. Seperating audio with a 'distintive' break. Fast transiets can also play a factor. This is especially useful when using a 5.1 surround sound DSP. Better and more distinct channel seperation.
That's just a little snippet from Kool Bubba Ice's blog. He provides really good information. http://base.teamxbox.com/43202/
Here are some suggestions (I added links so you can see what they look like, price and etc):
Gaming headphones ratings 1-5 star performers. Headphones I know little about get no stars. & ratings are based on headphones that are good for Competitive gameplay & price to performance ratio. Top headphones for gaming for each price bracket. * Not recommended for gaming. ** Gets the job done. *** Good for gaming. **** Great for gaming. **** practically made for gaming. Has all the sonic characters you need for gaming, and does them incredibly well. ??? No gaming feedback.
Other Choices. Electrostats. I believe electros are the best for gaming.. All of their sonic strengths are geared towards competitive game play.. Mid range..Great audio positioning.. large sound stage, ultra high clarity, tons of detail, very transparent & little bass..
They’re decent for gaming. Isolation is okay. Durability is questionable. For music they’re decent for non head-fiers . From an audiophile perspective you should get a pair of good cans + a clip on mic. That way you can listen to music with them and the soundstage will make you feel and look "blatant as fck". But if you’re into casual gaming and not using these for music then whatever.
The 777 comes with a built in sound card I believe (unless you bought the usb version for the 7H) and it's more durable. These will mostly be the differences you'll see with both cans. The sound quality is more or less the same. The comfort of the SIberias should be better.
I currently a pair of a4techs, they're closed back which is the only feature I like about them, they have awful sound positioning, frequency response and sometimes sound muddy. the build quality is quite shabby as well.
I read some reviews of the JVC 900s and JVC 700s respectively. I'm more of a closed headphone kind of guy. I'm looking for something in a similar price range to the 900s but more closed since they're labelled as "semi-closed" by many reviewers. Am I just worrying too much because I hated the HD555s due to them being so fully open or should I just go ahead and get the 900s?
#9 For personal peeves like these I would suggest trying them out first before purchasing. It's hard for me to judge because your degree of hate may not be as exaggerated as I perceived it to be and so forth.
Other than that they're very similar. In fact they look like clones of the A900s. Another suggestion would be the Beyerdynamic Dt770 8ohm Pros. If you're lucky you can get these for <$100. They're very good and very comfortable. I think they SHOULD satisfy your closed can needs.
Oh crap. Sorry for the confusion. The first post isn't mine. It was written by Kool Bubba Ice. He used to run a blog that helped gamers with their audio preferences. Check out his blog. It talks about DAC choices, amps etc with the average gamer in mind. I just know headphones but I'm too lazy to write up a whole new post when the original was quite good.
They're one of my favorite headphones because of the ear pads. I have these ESW9's right now just for music. They're so sexy with out an amp. I heard it with an amp and came (OFF TOPIC my girlfriend, she's from Melb, always says nob and laughs cause it sounds so similar to noob :S ... is that what it means->cum?).
who gives a fvck. if you have the money for audio technicas/hd595's BUY them. if not, go with the JVC ha-rx700's no need to mention anything about gaming headsets, because ur clearly an idiot if you would buy a headset thats labeled gaming. also, STERO > SURROUND SOUND(for gaming)
Unfortunately a lot of this isn't that useful for PC users unless they have a higher-end sound card. Granted, on-board sound has come a long way, but the subtleties and higher performance can't really be showcased without the sound card to support it.
That's to get the full sound and most of the time ONLY head-fier's care about that. Most of the time, from experience, you're just going to be like wtf there's no difference and then you're just going to pretend that you do because you paid like $500 for it.
Higher-End Sound Cards only matter when impedance/ the above come into play. So if you stick with the $200 or less you should be fine.
It's like the dilemma between getting an amp or not. If it SOUNDS fine why should I pay an extra $500 for a subtle difference.
If any of you have $300 to shell out for a sound card I recommend the Asus Xonar. Great soundcard. It even comes with built in amplification. :D
A lot of stuff you explained was over done. You could of narrowed it down buy saying that a frequency response buffed in the mid range is good for game play. But ideally you would want to get head headphones with a flat frequency response which you neglected to talk about. Its pretty much number one the list. I have flat frequency response head phones but because I can't adjust via sound card the bass is still boomy. So frequency control from sound card is more important than that even. You will find onec you start spending more than 40 bucks or so most headphones provide plenty of clarity, sound stange, all the other fancy words you used. Our computers are pretty good with producing quality sound even if its on board sound. Just like High definition tv isn't anything new. Computer users have been using "high def" for years.... One note you did hit was stereo imaging. This is crucial. But you cant buy stereo imaging, you have to choose it. Mainly because "in ear" headphones rule the land as far as stereo imaging is concerned. I had a cheap pair of Koss in ears once and the stereo imaging was incredible. The sound quality wasn't bad, cheap in ears usually suck with the trebles, but the stereo imaging was like having wall hack. I shot and hit players who were in the b bomb site while I was in a bomb site in de_nuke. Right now I have some over ear headphones because they are for music listening and I like having a 40mm or larger driver so I can really feel that bass. I'd say 40mm is the status quo for over ear headphones. Transient speed? theres not even a rating for that! what? So lets make a list.
Stereo imaging - (in ear is the best, over ear is next best) Flat frequency response - (sound coloring is baaad) Comfort - I play many hours so this is important (in ears can be bother some depending on model) Durability - Sometimes you may appreciate your head phones being able to be dropped a couple times and not break. Quality - You guys understand name brands and what not. Find a quality name.
Having some type of equalizing capabilities on your sound card is the icing on the cake. So much more control over what you hear and how you hear it. On my christmas list is a nice expensive pair of in ears. About 80 buck they cost.
Don't get caught up in the lights and glitter of some these headphones they throw at you. I am a sound engineer and a musician, believe me when i say that if you go over 100 dollars your throwing away money unless you plan on mastering an album you just finished recording... Sony, Pioneer, Audiotechnica, Techniques, AKG, all the regular name brands make plenty of headphones that online can be bought at under 100 dollars. I have ATH-M30 audiotechnicas I got for 45 and they are over kill in sound quality for a video game. Even if you are rich and have the money, spending more than 100 bucks for headphones for a video game is uncalled for. Even when I see a nice looking pair of over ear headphones for 80 with a boom mic on it. I cring cause I know that the drivers in them are crap for an 80 dollar range and just because its a got a boom mic so you can annoy me with your voice in a cs game its marked up to 80 when its worth 45 at best.
Is that too much to ask? Please give us some Stereo-imaged OUT OF EAR headphones. No-one wants in-ear because clearly it's gonna pump your ear drums and over extensive years of use it will cause damage. You don't want to go deaf like half the CS players on Gotfrag by the time you're 30.
And by the way you repeated four stars in the post above. No headphones actually got five stars.
Anyway, more examples and more headphones. Steelseries? Razer? Stereo imaged please. Thanks
By the way the only "stereo imaged" headphones I could find were the Sennheiser PC350 --
stereo image is not a feature of head phones, its a quality. All head phones playing from a stereo source has stereo imaging fool. In ear head phones provide the best stereo imaging that no "out of ear" can match unless they figure out how to seal the ear muff to the side of your head. In ear have a danger potential because of there extreme efficiency at delivering sound to your ear drum. Don't wonna go death? Don't turn it up so loud it hurts your ears. I have a pair of Eminence 12 inch P.A. speakers that will make you go death just as fast as any in ear headphones so don't get it twisted. Getting a quality pair of headphones with a boom mic that are actually worth the money you paid for them right now might be a pipe dream. Everything is marked up cause retarded gamers will buy what they think they need and will pay arm n leg for especially when mommy and daddy is the spoiling type with deep pockets
Im going for an in ear, mic on top of monitor type combo... If a mic is good enough you can set it on your monitor, and you wont have "lean" into to it to use it.
#32 I'll get on that (Almost all if not all are headphones). Most people expect to use their gaming headphones for music too as we're not all so fortunate to have spares so I just did it for that atm. I received quite a few headsets recently most notably the pysko audio 5.1 gaming headset and they will be tested and reviewed. That is all.
This comment was edited at 11/11/2009 8:14 PM
#csports #nationvoice #LGN #eoreality
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The Headphones Guide
What to look for in gaming headphones
1.Imaging. How well you can 'see' with your ears.
You can visualize the surrounding, enemies, and can resolve them in
good detail without seeing them.
2. Soundstage/Audio positioning. How spacious the
headphones are. Easier to locate enemies & determine
their location to the left, right, forward or back.
See it as tunnel vision. A headphone with a small
soundstage is like looking straight at a tree.. A
headphone with a big soundstage is like looking at
forest.
3. Detail. How well the headphone picks up faint
background noise, ambiance, & other audio nuances. Being able to recognize & resolve different layers of the sound.
4. Clarity. How clear can you hear the sound. Think SD to HD. Clean window/dirty window. Helps you look deeper into the audio. Headphones with conjestion and veil will mask important audio information.
5. Bass. For competitive play you don't want loud bass
that drowns out other frequencies. You want crisp,
tight bass..
6. 3D/Full bodied. 2D/3D is an extension of imaging. 2D is flat. 3D is like a pop up book in audio terms. 3D allows you to get a better grasp of the anatomy of the sound. Shape, size, width, length and dimensions. This allows you to do a better job at interpreting the sound, while your brain visualizes what it would look like. Having a full sound fleshes out the audio. It gaves them more weight. The sound feels more real and lively. A gun will have a sense of weight to it. To the point it will feel 'heavy.'
7. Accuracy. Postioning and locating sound through audio cues is only part of the equation. You can locate a sound in a general direction, but the accuracy of the can will enable you to pin point the sound easier and faster.
8. Midrange. How well you can hear others is important for single player campaigns, but essential for co op and on line multiplayer. A good midrange will make dialog more audible and easier to understand. Recessed mids might cause a problem when communicating with a team mate.
9. Transient speed. A headphone with fast transients help to relieve smearing. You hear 6 feet of enemies coming toward you, but the feet seem to be mashed together. A headphone with fast transients will be able to 'break the feet apart' so each pair is seperate from the rest. This is good for allowing you to prepare for a small fire fight, or a large fire fight.
10. transparency. Seeing throgh the notes of the music. No barriers. Think X ray vision but with your ears.
11. Seperation. Seperating audio with a 'distintive' break. Fast transiets can also play a factor. This is especially useful when using a 5.1 surround sound DSP. Better and more distinct channel seperation.
That's just a little snippet from Kool Bubba Ice's blog. He provides really good information. http://base.teamxbox.com/43202/
Gaming headphones ratings
1-5 star performers. Headphones I know little about
get no stars. & ratings are based on headphones that
are good for Competitive gameplay & price to
performance ratio. Top headphones for gaming for
each price bracket.
* Not recommended for gaming. ** Gets the job done. *** Good for gaming. **** Great for gaming. **** practically made for gaming. Has all the sonic characters you need for gaming, and does them incredibly well. ??? No gaming feedback.
100.00 or less:
Street price
Koss 75 **
http://www.amazon.com/Koss-KSC75-Portable..
Sony MDR7506 ***
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR7506-Profes..
AKG 81 DJ
http://www.amazon.com/HARMAN-K81DJ-Closed..
Sen 280 ***
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-280-P..
Sen 515 **
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-515-A..
Sen 212 pro **
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-212-H..
Sen 485 **
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-485-D..
Sony SA1000 **
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-SA1000-DJ-..
AKG 501 ***
A500 **
http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-A500..
AD500 **1/2
http://www.amazon.com/Technica-ATH-AD500-..
AD700 ****
http://www.amazon.com/Technica-ATH-AD700-..
AKG 280 ***
AKG 290 ****
JVC 700 **
http://www.amazon.com/JVC-HARX700-High-Gr..
JVC 900 ***
http://www.amazon.com/JVC-HARX900-High-Gr..
Sony XB500 ???
Sony XB300 ???
Yamaha Y1 ***
200 or less
A700 ***
http://www.amazon.com/Closed-back-audioph..
A900 ***
http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-A900..
Beyer DT 770 03 ***
http://www.amazon.com/BEYER-DYNAMIC-DT770..
Beyer DT150 ???
Sen 555 ***
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD555-HD..
Sen 595 ***
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD595-HD..
Sen 580 ***
Ultrasone Pro line 580 ***
http://www.amazon.com/Ultrasone-HFI-580-S..
Sony SA3000 ***
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-SA3000-DJ-..
Sony MDR7509HD ***
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR7509HD-Prof..
AKG 340 ****
Ultrasone 780 ** 1/2
AKG 240 sextett ***
Sony XB700 ???
Bose Triport ???
400 or less
Sony SA5000 ****
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-SA5000-DJ-..
AKG 701 ***
http://www.amazon.com/AKG-K-701-WHITE-HEA..
AKG 601 ****
AKG 271 **
http://www.amazon.com/AKG-K271MK2-K271-MK..
Beyer DT880 *****
http://www.amazon.com/beyerdynamic-DT-880..
Beyer DT990 **
http://www.amazon.com/beyerdynamic-DT-990..
A900 LTD ***
AD900 ***1/2
http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATH-..
Denon 2000 ***
http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AHD2000-Perfo..
Ultrasone 2500 ***
http://www.amazon.com/ULTRASONE-PROline-2..
Sen 600 **
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD600-Ov..
Ultrasone 750 ***
http://www.amazon.com/Ultrasone-PRO-750-P..
Sony MDR F1 ****
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Full-Open-Air-..
Sennheiser 650 ** 1/2. Modded *** 1/2.
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-Audiophi..
Beyerdynamic DT48 ***
Ultrasone 900 ???
http://www.amazon.com/Ultrasone-PRO-900-P..
Beyer 860 ???
Beyer 250 ???
Other Choices. Electrostats. I believe electros are
the best for gaming.. All of their sonic strengths are
geared towards competitive game play.. Mid
range..Great audio positioning.. large sound stage,
ultra high clarity, tons of detail, very transparent &
little bass..
Entry level stax
Stax SR-001 MKII System
200-250.
The 777 comes with a built in sound card I believe (unless you bought the usb version for the 7H) and it's more durable. These will mostly be the differences you'll see with both cans. The sound quality is more or less the same. The comfort of the SIberias should be better.
EDIT: and thanks
I read some reviews of the JVC 900s and JVC 700s respectively. I'm more of a closed headphone kind of guy. I'm looking for something in a similar price range to the 900s but more closed since they're labelled as "semi-closed" by many reviewers. Am I just worrying too much because I hated the HD555s due to them being so fully open or should I just go ahead and get the 900s?
#9 For personal peeves like these I would suggest trying them out first before purchasing. It's hard for me to judge because your degree of hate may not be as exaggerated as I perceived it to be and so forth.
Other than that they're very similar. In fact they look like clones of the A900s. Another suggestion would be the Beyerdynamic Dt770 8ohm Pros. If you're lucky you can get these for <$100. They're very good and very comfortable. I think they SHOULD satisfy your closed can needs.
EDIT: Your Welcome #9
Oh crap. Sorry for the confusion. The first post isn't mine. It was written by Kool Bubba Ice. He used to run a blog that helped gamers with their audio preferences. Check out his blog. It talks about DAC choices, amps etc with the average gamer in mind. I just know headphones but I'm too lazy to write up a whole new post when the original was quite good.
my mate has a dt880 and an uber amp. it was so awesome my nipples exploaded.
who gives a fvck. if you have the money for audio technicas/hd595's BUY them. if not, go with the JVC ha-rx700's
no need to mention anything about gaming headsets, because ur clearly an idiot if you would buy a headset thats labeled gaming. also, STERO > SURROUND SOUND(for gaming)
Higher-End Sound Cards only matter when impedance/ the above come into play. So if you stick with the $200 or less you should be fine.
It's like the dilemma between getting an amp or not. If it SOUNDS fine why should I pay an extra $500 for a subtle difference.
If any of you have $300 to shell out for a sound card I recommend the Asus Xonar. Great soundcard. It even comes with built in amplification. :D
A lot of stuff you explained was over done. You could of narrowed it down buy saying that a frequency response buffed in the mid range is good for game play. But ideally you would want to get head headphones with a flat frequency response which you neglected to talk about. Its pretty much number one the list. I have flat frequency response head phones but because I can't adjust via sound card the bass is still boomy. So frequency control from sound card is more important than that even.
You will find onec you start spending more than 40 bucks or so most headphones provide plenty of clarity, sound stange, all the other fancy words you used. Our computers are pretty good with producing quality sound even if its on board sound. Just like High definition tv isn't anything new. Computer users have been using "high def" for years....
One note you did hit was stereo imaging. This is crucial. But you cant buy stereo imaging, you have to choose it. Mainly because "in ear" headphones rule the land as far as stereo imaging is concerned. I had a cheap pair of Koss in ears once and the stereo imaging was incredible. The sound quality wasn't bad, cheap in ears usually suck with the trebles, but the stereo imaging was like having wall hack. I shot and hit players who were in the b bomb site while I was in a bomb site in de_nuke. Right now I have some over ear headphones because they are for music listening and I like having a 40mm or larger driver so I can really feel that bass. I'd say 40mm is the status quo for over ear headphones. Transient speed? theres not even a rating for that! what? So lets make a list.
Stereo imaging - (in ear is the best, over ear is next best)
Flat frequency response - (sound coloring is baaad)
Comfort - I play many hours so this is important (in ears can be bother some depending on model)
Durability - Sometimes you may appreciate your head phones being able to be dropped a couple times and not break.
Quality - You guys understand name brands and what not. Find a quality name.
Having some type of equalizing capabilities on your sound card is the icing on the cake. So much more control over what you hear and how you hear it. On my christmas list is a nice expensive pair of in ears. About 80 buck they cost.
http://www.amazon.com/Etymotic-Research-I..
Don't get caught up in the lights and glitter of some these headphones they throw at you. I am a sound engineer and a musician, believe me when i say that if you go over 100 dollars your throwing away money unless you plan on mastering an album you just finished recording... Sony, Pioneer, Audiotechnica, Techniques, AKG, all the regular name brands make plenty of headphones that online can be bought at under 100 dollars. I have ATH-M30 audiotechnicas I got for 45 and they are over kill in sound quality for a video game. Even if you are rich and have the money, spending more than 100 bucks for headphones for a video game is uncalled for. Even when I see a nice looking pair of over ear headphones for 80 with a boom mic on it. I cring cause I know that the drivers in them are crap for an 80 dollar range and just because its a got a boom mic so you can annoy me with your voice in a cs game its marked up to 80 when its worth 45 at best.
There, my list is much better.
Sorry I didn't see my HD-25 ii's listed.
thinking of getting the sennheiser hd555
Clearly we want;
* Headphones with some microphones
Is that too much to ask? Please give us some Stereo-imaged OUT OF EAR headphones. No-one wants in-ear because clearly it's gonna pump your ear drums and over extensive years of use it will cause damage. You don't want to go deaf like half the CS players on Gotfrag by the time you're 30.
And by the way you repeated four stars in the post above. No headphones actually got five stars.
Anyway, more examples and more headphones. Steelseries? Razer? Stereo imaged please. Thanks
By the way the only "stereo imaged" headphones I could find were the Sennheiser PC350 --
http://www.shopbot.com.au/pp-sennheiser-p..
Thanks. They're $270 Australian. Sucks massive d*ck and hella expensive but worth it.
In ear have a danger potential because of there extreme efficiency at delivering sound to your ear drum. Don't wonna go death? Don't turn it up so loud it hurts your ears. I have a pair of Eminence 12 inch P.A. speakers that will make you go death just as fast as any in ear headphones so don't get it twisted.
Getting a quality pair of headphones with a boom mic that are actually worth the money you paid for them right now might be a pipe dream. Everything is marked up cause retarded gamers will buy what they think they need and will pay arm n leg for especially when mommy and daddy is the spoiling type with deep pockets
Im going for an in ear, mic on top of monitor type combo... If a mic is good enough you can set it on your monitor, and you wont have "lean" into to it to use it.
I'll get on that (Almost all if not all are headphones). Most people expect to use their gaming headphones for music too as we're not all so fortunate to have spares so I just did it for that atm. I received quite a few headsets recently most notably the pysko audio 5.1 gaming headset and they will be tested and reviewed. That is all.
Submit Comments
Registered Users Only
In order to post comments, you must be a registered member. If you have not registered, it's free and easy!