Headsets

[suicidal_monkey]

:g:been thinking about getting a better headset and wondering if there's something decent that doesn't break the bank too much. I am currently using and old pair of turtle beach z22's which do pretty well but the fake leather stuff is shedding quite badly and they are a bit "clampy" after a while...

My thoughts on the GSP 600 being recommended of late: more than I'd like to spend (always is I guess! <£100 would be nice if possible though I can stretch if I am persuaded) and the design is a little bulkier than I'd like and I could do without the red accents (I am difficult :narnar:). I definitely need closed-back for minimal leakage and good isolation. Comfortable (several hours usage) and adjustable to a large head (i.e. not ear clamps ). Preferably has wireless option (and if that option is bluetooth then ideally version 5+) and comes with a decent mic (not too quiet or too muffled). Preferably a reasonably discrete (simple, not covered in bright logos) design.

was recently recommended to look at the Audio Technica M50 - though I think I'd need a separate mic - which got me thinking that maybe a separate mic could make sense...

Any thoughts gratefully absorbed

[Chaosphere]

I'll write something up soon, I am a bit snowed under with work atm.

What I will say though, is that is a list of 'wants' for a sub-£100 headset... it may be a case of 'something's gotta give' :flirty:

[suicidal_monkey]

Your work is slightly more important than advising on headphones! :thumbsup2:

[Gorion]

If you want good headphones which are cheap, but sound very good for the price, take a look at the Superlux HD668B.  Used these for years and they are simply good.  
Make sure you change the pads to velour, and you are set until you want to spend 200+ on a set of Beyerdynamics.  Currently using beyer DT880 and they are good, found the sounds to be more refined.  The next ones will probably be a set of DT990 600 ohms.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Superlux-HD668B-Headphones-Black/dp/B003JOETX8/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Superlux+HD668B&qid=1592239836&sr=8-1
https://www.thomann.de/intl/mt/superlux_hd668_b.htm

[Sneakytiger]

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/best-gaming-headset/

[smilodon]

I own the Number 1 entry the HyperX Cloud Alpha (where do they come up with these names). I can't speak for audio quality as I have absolutely no musical ear. They do make games sound pretty damn good. But as for comfort and build quality they are outstanding.

As a gaming headset they are hard to beat. For an audiophile I have no idea.

[Chaosphere]

Yeah so I'm generally not a fan of gaming headsets anymore, but a large part of that is due to a preference to open back cans. If you can live with open, it's the way to go for (most) music and gaming, IMO... but I guess that's a different conversation

If you simply must have a closed headset for gaming, and your budget is around that £100 mark, then sure either go ahead and pick up the HyperX mentioned above, or perhaps get an 80Ohm 770 , which is often found for £100 or just under, and slap a mod mic on it... although this does of course push the price up.

I haven't heard the HyperX so I can't comment on the sound, but the 770 is easily one of if not the best closed back you will find without spending more. The 80Ohm model is also easy enough to drive that you don't really need a dedicated amp beyond what your PC offers and sounds almost identical to the more resistive offerings - don't get the 250Ohm version in this case.

The DT880s Gorion mentioned are also meant to be excellent, but won't isolate you from the outside world as well as the 770s. They're also a bit more expensive, and from what I've read do benefit from higher resistance and amplification (i.e. the 600 or 250 Ohm models). This probably isn't what you're looking for so.. let's keep it simple and say HyperX or 770..

I'm well aware that neither of these satisfy the wireless option, but I really don't see many good options below £100. Most are closer to £200 and remain very gaming focused. I have seen people take decent headphones with removable cables and attach Bluetooth dongles to the side.. but again this will put the price up as you generally get removable cables at £100. I think I'd stay away from wireless with a £100 budget, tbh.

As an aside, I wouldn't touch the rest of the headsets in that PC gamer article with a 12 foot pole.. but that's just me being fussy. :narnar:

[suicidal_monkey]

Thanks for the suggestions. The HD668B are "semi-open" and the first three reviews either mentioned clamping of ears or the cable coming undone so afraid that puts me off. I wish sites would include open/closed in the summary info as people typically want open for quality or closed for isolation. Those HyperX Cloud Alpha do seem to get a lot of pretty positive reviews.

If you simply must have a closed headset for gaming, and your budget is around that £100 mark, then sure either go ahead and pick up the HyperX mentioned above, or perhaps get an 80Ohm 770 , which is often found for £100 or just under, and slap a mod mic on it... although this does of course push the price up.
...
I think I'd stay away from wireless with a £100 budget, tbh.

:sad: just went and watched a few reviews and seems that this is the way of things. The 770 seems very similar to the Audio Technica ATH-M50x that Noot recommended to me the other evening... kind of like the idea but gluing a mic on afterwards seems like effort ...and a second search for aftermarket mics . There does appear to be a BT version of the M50x :g:

As an aside, I wouldn't touch the rest of the headsets in that PC gamer article with a 12 foot pole.. but that's just me being fussy. :narnar:

Nothing wrong with being fussy! I am also fussy, just about different things :flirty:

From the reviews I just watched I tended to find I just found a lot of reasons why not to spend any sort of money on just about any set (that or someone who seems too gushing to be trustworthy :sideways:) which is why I find it hard to lay down £200 - as soon as I start digging the issues that it seems you need to accept are not reasonable at that price point and it's hard to tell what extra you are gaining for doubling the price in a lot of cases. The best contenders for something that is "decent enough" seem to be the Fnatic REACT and the Cooler Master MH751 or MH752 though each of those has their own caveats too. Not sure if you've come across those and ruled them out for a reason I've missed? I'll keep 'em on the not-too-expensive-maybe-okay list with the HyperX and carry on looking.

[Chaosphere]

No, sorry, I've no experience with those.

The last gaming headset I had was a Logitech G933. To be fair, it sounded fine when you turned off all of the nonsense and fiddled with the EQ a little - bloated low end out of the box. It was VERY plasticy though, I thought I was going to break it every time I picked it up

I use a desk mic with wired headphones and have no complaints. Maybe worth looking into if you don't fancy attaching a mic to the cups.

[Sneakytiger]

i'm using corsair void pro head set, and i like it as it fits over my ears and not on top of them like some do,mics a bit over sensitive but its ok, great noise canceling,prefer a headset mic over table mic.

[OldBloke]

I have used a Sennheiser G4me One (open) since 2014 and I adore them. They sound great and are super comfortable, fitting nicely over my (large) ears. I purchased replacement ear pads a year or so ago otherwise they've been bullet-proof. The cable is replaceable too. I have an expensive pair of Sennheisers for my 'serious' music listening but I'm also happy to listen to music on these gamers. If and when they fail I will only be looking at Sennheiser models as I think their sound is a match for my tastes.

The G4me Ones appear to be very hard to get but the G4me Zero (closed) can still be found on Amazon

[Chaosphere]

They've been replaced by the GSP line now, which is why you're struggling to find some of them -

https://en-ca.sennheiser.com/gaming-headsets

I have mixed feelings about Sennheiser cans. The 5 and 600 series* are very, very easy to listen to, well built, and fairly comfortable - they have proved immensely popular as a result. For many, they are the gateway audiophile drug (myself included). However, when you start to delve deeper I don't think they hold up that well, especially not for (competitive) gaming where the entire range lacks imaging compared to some similarly priced competition.

For music, of course it is all subjective, but as 'critical listening' headphones I find their bass sloppy and their high end lacking to the point of sounding almost like closed backs - there have been many, many arguments online over 'the Sennheiser veil'. Despite all of this, Jasmine still exclusively uses a 599 - even after trying many other cans that combination of 'easy listening' (which is in part related to those recessed highs and Sennheiser's unquestionably great mids) and comfort make them her preferred headphone - so as I have said, it is all subjective.

So perhaps for mixed use that doesn't include a bias towards competitive gaming the Sennheiser cans linked above remain a good choice. Many enjoy the sound and perhaps feel no need to look further as a result. Nothing wrong with this, it is all about what you're looking for and what you personally enjoy - the most important bit, at the end of the day!  I know plenty in dMw own and love their Senns, and will probably find what I have written above sacrilegious. :flirty: I think as long as you enjoy what you have, there is really little need to start looking elsewhere.

As an aside, as you mentioned expensive Senns... well they did lift the veil for the 800 / 800s, but for most that is too much headphone for gaming and light music. It also really benefits from amplification, unlike the 500 series, and so is normally part of a different conversation entirely. IMO a rather splendid conversation, but be forewarned a deep and potentially expensive rabbit hole awaits any who dare...

*The Game and GSP lines are built around 500 series drivers AFAIK.

[Twyst]

I'm a huge fan of Sennheiser using the GSX1200 USB DAC to drive Game One headphones by the same company. These are open back with an amazing sound signature.
For reference, I used a Game Zero before that as I was working in the living room many years ago and needed the noise isolation. They have all seen a lot of use.
Yes, these are gaming headphones, but made by a reputable audio company where gaming products aren't they're main audio product.

So thanks to the heatwave I have a portable air conditioner in my south facing small study. Unbearable without it, but unbearable with the noise!
So I swapped out my Game Ones for the Zero which I hadn't used for a few years now and while the isolation was good, the sound wasn't as great as the Ones. Plus the leather cups were starting to flake a little and the fixed wire cable turned out to be broken at the microphone.
As the cable is not replaceable (yeah, sucks to be an early adopter - they made it replacable very quickly) I decided to look around.

So I was looking for an isolating (or noise cancelling) over ear headset. I decided to try wireless again because thanks to my FitBit (need to loose some of the middling years!) I wasn't making my 250 steps in the hour due to overrunning conference calls.
Now before the wired Sennheiser setup I was rocking some Logitech G35 Surround wireless from 2009. This was a love hate relationship because of numerous issues:
 * connection dropping even though dongle in 2 feet of headset
 * driver BSOD's
 * shoddy build quality - they weren't isolating after a few months as they no longer had a tight seal
 * very sweaty in the summer
 * surround sound was a pointless gimic in 2009
When I moved from this to the Game Zero's and then to game ones I could not believe I actually liked these at first. The sound in comparison is utter rubbish.

What's more, I'm a huge huge fan of the GSX1200's secondary sound channel for voice comms. While the implementation could do with a lot of work, the core principle is simply a must have so I can use the 7.1 -> stereo ability of the DAC AND have a seperate volume knob for voice comms - although the range of the knob left a lot to be desired at times.
This to me is more desirable than the 7.1 aspect of the GSX1200's because I can no longer get it to work - windows no longer see's it as a 7.1 device
Lastly, times are a touch harder than what they used to be, so this needed to be around the £200 ball park rather than the see it, buy it mentality I normally have for this.

After extensive research, I setteled on the SteelSeries Arctis 7 2019 edition for £159 which I've been taking for a test drive today.
There are plently of reviews on this headset out there, so I won't go into too much detail but ..... the sound signature is close to the game ones - maybe a touch flatter and certainly less ooomph in the bass but it's still satisfying with the big explosions going off. This actually makes over details more noticeable.
Because it's closed back, the sound stage is not quite as impressive but it's not that far off either - unlike the Game Zero's where the sound is too close.
Although it has good noise isolation it's not as good as the Game Zero's, but it's infinitely better than the Game Ones. The big difference (and this is huge right now) is that it filters out the AC noise more than the Zeros, but less so other noises like background chatter.
Unlike my old G35's the connection is fantasic - I can walk around my house and I only had one drop out of half a second - through two walls a steel beam, so it's kind of understandable. This means I can pace around on conference calls and make my FitBit happy
The battery life is about 22 hours which is awesome, but I have a spare aux cable if it's totally out.
I'm still getting used to the Ski Goggle head band design it uses. It's certainly comfortable and fortunately it fits me well. Probably not as comfortable as the Ones (but not by much), much more comfy than the Zero's due to the air weave fabric on the cups instead of the plastic leather.

The secondary audio channel for voice comms is MUCH better than the GSX1200. There is a seperate wheel on the other can for it's volume and has a notch to show it's at half way. This is important as if you give more voice over this it lowers the game audio channel for you.
This is the reason why a lot of people think it's too quiet - they have accidently lowered the game audio by raising the voice audio even if they are not using voice! Correctly positioned this is not a quiet headset by any means!
The microphone in discord self test sounded awful, but it sounded awesome in teamspeak self test. Chatting on a teamspeak server, people said I was more clear, which was surprising as the Sennheisers are supposed to have really really good mics.
I'm in two minds about the mic on the Arctis though. It's nice that it retracts, but I miss moving the boom mic up to mute. The mute button while adequate isn't as practical. But this is a minor nit pick.

The 7.1 virtual sound has really taken me by surprise. It's DTS:X headphone v2. The surpise is how easy it is - basically turn it off in the SteelSeries Engine setup for the headphone and install DTS Sound Unbound from the windows app store. It will see the Arctis and assign a license for free!
Then just enable DTS as a spatial effect in the Windows volume settings. For stereo input it will turn off automatically and turn on for anything more. This implementation works a lot better than the old G35 Dolby system I used before which didn't really add much and somwhat better than the GSX1200 implementation which was hit or miss depending on the game.
I don't see any reason to change this.

If I need to, then I can disable the Windows Spartial sound and use the SteelSeries engine to enable/disable it per game automatically but that's likely to be too much of a faff for me.

All in all I'm well pleased with the SteelSeries Arctis 7 and heartily recommend it to anyone in need of wireless cans.
The only downside is that the line in/out on the usb dongle are very tight. Too tight for my dual RCA -> 3.5mm jack so I had to shave some plastic from the outside to get it to fit. If they made it a flat surface rather than curved this would be a non issue.

[adm]

I've not used headphones for gaming for over a year now since I switched to in-ear monitors.  Previously I'd used Corsair Void Elites which was probably the most comfortable headset I'd ever used, but now I just couldn't go back to clunky headsets.

Up to now, I've had no-name Amazon specials which I originally bought for mobile use, but since WFH from the end of March, I've been wearing them nearly all day then gaming with them later.  Try that with any headset for six months.

Currently awaiting delivery of these well-recommended Shure SE215s:

https://www.shure.com/en-GB/products/earphones/se215cl

[albert]

I use https://kzacoustics.net/ their earbuds have so much tech in them it's unreal. Their 16 driver set is a great audio set, but cheaper sets are way better than full over ear set for streaming, especially if you have a good external mic.