Best Gaming Headset/Headphones?

[Penner]

So, i'm getting a new headset/headphones and as always i'm having a damn hard time picking which one to get.

As the title suggests its primary function will be for PC gaming, and ofcourse alot of movie watching and listening to music..

Just wanted to ask if any of you might have some experience with some and/or any suggestions on what to get?

Price range is around $200...

So far i've read good things about the following:

Logitech G35
Razer Carcharias
Creative Sound Blaster Arena Headset
Sennheiser PC 350
SteelSeries Siberia V2 "Full-Size"

[Assertn]

My ex's dad owns turtlebeach.com
They seem to be pretty well-known for their gaming headsets.

I was supposed to get a free pair of the Ear Force HPA2 but that never happened :[

[Xelbair]

If you got a decent sound card forget about usb headphones - they don't utilize your card.
I've red the review of 35 headphones(but it was in polish) - i'll post what i read here.
Sound blaster headphones - they work well for games but they were awful for music.
PC350 - same as SB ones - but they are better in everything. also don't trust reviews from non-company reviewers - who with sane mind would tell someone that he bought damn expansive headphones and say they are bad? Also they got pretty high resistance - 150 ohms(usually headphones have 32) so without good souncard and/or good headphones amplifier forget about them.
Siberia ones are damn awesome - but they work better with sound cards than on the usb, even on the integrated one.
Razer - meh. i just don't like them.
Try also Roccat Kave 5.1 - I've recently bought them(for about 2/3 of the price(new ones)) and they are damn awesome for games(positioning is great) and great for movies/music. If you get them remember to 'warm them up' - at first they sounded flat but after 1 day of using them they started sounding totally awesome. Rear sounds are quiet - but after you use it for a while you'll get why(they would mess up positioning if they were louder)

Gaming headphones nominated by that review:
Plantronics GameCom 777
Sennheiser HD 555(They just work great with everything)
Roccat Kave 5.1
SteelSeries Siberia V2 USB
Qpad QH-1339 (they are WAY too expansive...)

[darkshadow]

I agree with the HD 555's, pretty much the best mid range headphones you can get, problem is, it's not a pc headphone so no mic.

I don't like 5.1 headphones because I don't feel the effect is worth the extra money ( though I'm prolly saturated by my 5.1 speaker set) and because most 5.1 headphones, or pretty much all (cheaper), pc headphones are closed type.

This may be great for silent gaming at night or something, but for the best audio quality and prolonged comfort you should always pick an open type headphone (which the HD 555's are)

[Xelbair]

Roccat's are semi-closed so its not serious problem, and i got them cheaper than the HD 555. Also i bought them with lan-parties in mind(and the ones i go to usually have also guitar hero/DDR/PIU games.. its good to block those sounds when playing cod4 match)

[Penner]

Yeah i dont really mind closed headsets, cuz its usually ALOT of various noises going on here, which gets annoying fast :P

Also, why does most (all?) USB headsets cost more than the non-USB ones, are they in any way better?

[Xelbair]

USB headsets got integrated sound card in them, and hence the increased price.
As i said - if you got decent sound card forget about them. you'll just waste money spend on card and on headset(because you pay for card inside it)

[Penner]

Actually, the more i think about it.. i pretty much have to get a headset/phones that keep sounds from leaking out, and block outside sounds because most of the time i'm up playing or whatever when everyone else is asleep and its dead silent..

So any noise leaking from my phones is heard quite easily, and during the day theres a tv right outside my room thats pretty much on all day, and i can hear it really well even with my current headphones on and my door closed..

[Buffalobiian]

I prefer open headphones because:

1) I can actually hear when people call me rather than have them barge into my room.

2) They're more comfortable.

3) They have less distortion.

May main issue with my one (plantronics something-or-rather, ~49AUD) is that it lacks bass. It's on the cheap side though, so you'd expect as much.

I close my door when I sleep (or when other people sleep), so noise leakage isn't a problem. My keyboard would make more noise anyway.

[Penner]

I'm kinda leaning towards the Sennheiser HD 555's even tho they might leak sound out because ive read almost nothing but positive things about em, however, one thing worries me... i've read that a bunch of people think they are abit weak in the bass..

Anyone got a pair that can confirm/deny this? ^^

[darkshadow]

Just tried it myself, didn't sound too good when plugged in the headphone out of my speakers, but that's cause my audigy2zs has issues...

Then I tried my onboard audio chip ( which is actually a pretty good one), and it sounded fine, I even forced a bass equalizer setting and it sounded nice

I tested it with linkin park - in the end
BTNH - 1st of the month
Usher - Burn
Usher - dotcom (the bass here was really good)
Xzibit - X
Anouk - Jerusalem

[Penner]

Shit.. from what i've read the Sennheiser HD555's apparently leak ALOT of sound.. which would suck for me

[darkshadow]

Yep, open type headphones tend to do that :P, but I think that would only be a real problem if the volume is so high you wouldn't hear outside noises either.

Unless your walls and doors are paper thin ofcourse..

[Penner]

Well.. except for the load-bearing walls and the main door, the rest of the doors/walls kinda are that weak, i could probably punch a hole straight through any of the non-bearing walls and room-doors without much effort ^^

God damn i always have such problems choosing what things to buy, i hate it!

[Penner]

Btw, my current headphones are Sony MDR-XD200

Not the best ones i know but i actually have no complaints about the sound, the main issue is the thing that goes ontop of your head.. its really fucking uncomfortable, and it gets worse the longer you wear it, and i've had these for like 2 years now so its about time i upgraded to something better :P

[Kraco]

Somehow I think that if somebody in a neighbouring room can be disturbed by the noise from your headphones, you should be already far more worried about your own accumulating hearing loss.

Sometimes I take my headphones off and forget about the music playing and after a while I start to wonder about the vague, barely audible sounds eminating from somewhere before I realise they come from half a meter away from the headphones lying on the table. That's the kind of volume I consider normal. From the other side of my room I wouldn't have a chance of detecting the sound.

[Penner]

Yeah but the only time the noise from my headphones might disturb someone is at night when its pretty much as silent as in space, seriously, the sound isolation in our building is shit, i can hear footsteps from our neighbours that live like 2-3 floors above us and sometimes i hear em pee at night...

[darkshadow]

Kraco, open type headphones spray soundwaves in both directions, so it really doesn't matter if your volume is at "normal" levels, some people find this ambient noise quite annoying.

Plus if his walls are as thin as he says, then open type headphones will definitly disturb people at night.

Sucks dude, there are some quality closed hphones out there but they are generally a fair bit more expensive then an open type counterpart.
Maybe you should look into those roccat's xelbair mentioned.

[David75]

Gaming required a mic
but the discussion derived a bit to headphones without mic.

So why not some in ear headphones?
You can get high quality
You are sure you get no leak
Some models have lots of adapters to feel confortable wearing them (after you get used to the feeling of wearing such headphones)

Thing is most of them isolate you quite a bit (30dB most of the time, which is a lot)

just an example, with accessories, reasonable price and quality:
http://www.amazon.com/iM-590-Enhance...dp/B002E95P3C/

[darkshadow]

Watch out with canalphones though, they have the most potential of destroying your hearing.
Even then you need to get over the treshold of getting comfortable of having something stuck in your ear.