Best 5.1s for around £55 but no more

V4nger

V4nger

V4nger

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thought the Medusa NXs looked good but i discovered that they arent over ear only on ear. is this true though?

the 777s look good as well but apparently aren't very good for music.

by the way I would love them to be good for music as well as for gaming. the Medusa NXs are supposedly very good for this but the 777s not so good. what do you think?

also suggest any that aren't on OcUK please as there doesn't seem to be a big range here.
 
No 5.1 phones are good for music. To use 5.1 phones for music is not to care for the quality of the music being listened to. A decent pair of stereo phones will slay 5.1 phones for music quality.

Do you use onboard audio, or do you have a sound card?
 
Goldring NS1000. Scrap the idea of 5.1 headphones, they are a gimmick

and again - What soundcard do you have?

A few years ago i got some medusa 5.1s, i wasnt happy with the sounds quality or build quality so sent them back I got some cheap Sennheiser headset headphones that were much better. Think ive still got them somewhere, might dig them out
 
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ahh ok thanks guys. i wasnt sure about the music side of things to begin with really so thanks for clarifying. i was just stuck between getting a 5.1 speaker system like the Creative set on OcUK or going for a headset. so i spose i should ask "suggest me a gaming headset".

i havent actually got a PC right now as im going to be buying absolutely everything for the setup. all peripherals included. im looking at THIS souncard. good choice? i cant really go over this price.
 
Nah, get a Xonar if you want music. If you want a gaming soundcard then look at the creative gaming cards that come with all their gimmicky stuff. They will have better things like EAX 8 or whatever version its on now. My Xonar does a good enough job of emulating eax anyway.

Does games even use eax now, I havent seen it on game menus for years.

"suggest me a gaming headset". - Something like the reasonably cheap Sennheiser PC130. I had some and they were great. (good mic and good sound quality)
 
great thanks for the reply. how is the xonar in games? i dont listen to tons of music but i do like it to sound good. but i will doing quite a bit more gaming when the summer holidays come for me.

i'll check out the sennheisers.
 
Ive never had any problems with mine, but it is one of the top line of Xonars (Essence ST) I'm pretty sure it has the same gaming features as the lower end of Xonars though.
 
ok great. is there much point in upgrading to the D1? one of the reviews was by a guy that was in the same position as i am. going for the DS but then being recommended to upgrade. i think i could stretch for it but will there be much better sound quality?
 
I would get the Xonar DS over the X-Fi Xtreme Audio. The XA is repackaged Audigy SE. It uses a cheaper chip than found in the original Audigy, which is about 9 years old now. I used to own an Audigy SE, which I got rid of due to it's gimped performance in Win7. I replaced it with a Xonar DS, which soundly beat the Audigy SE in the sound quality dept.

The DS is a good card for someone on a budget, but it is best used with speakers. You can use a headset/headphones fine with it, but it doesn't have Dolby Headphone, which is found on the DX/D1. Dolby Headphone does what 5.1 phones do, basically. 5.1 phones use multiple drivers to give the user sound direction, but this can be achieved using just a pair of stereo phones with DH. Creative X-Fi's have a similar thing, CMSS 3D, bar the Xtreme Audio. In short, the surround sound virtualisation, as it is known (Dolby Headphone & CMSS 3D), fools the brain into thinking the sound is coming from a specific location.

5.1 headphones work to a point, but it's when someone decides to use them for music that they fall flat on their proverbial face. If you take a £50 pair of stereo headphones and a £50 pair of so called 5.1 headphones, the 5.1 phones will have multiple drivers, whereas the stereo ones will have 2. Common sense would say the quality of the 2 drivers found in the stereo phones will be much better than a load of cheaper drivers found in 5.1 phones. With a sound card that has surround sound virtualisation and a pair of nice stereo phones, you can have directional sound placement in games, but also phones that will serve you well for music. You don't have to spend £50 thought to get decent stereo phones, Goldring DR50's cost £20 and provide good sound for their minuscule pricetag. They are over ear too, which I find is much better than on ear when using Dolby Headphone/CMSS 3D.

You can use a headset with DH/CMSS 3D, but one problem is that headsets are designed for chat and gaming primarily, meaning music capabilities are left by the wayside somewhat. There are not many headsets that will perform as good as a decent pair of headphones, the ones that do are £60-£70 and more.

Just some ideas to think about. :) If any of that make no sense what so ever, I'll try my best to explain it better. :)
 
really awesome explanation man! i've scrapped the idea of 5.1 phones and looking at stereos now. and im stuck on them now haha :D

i've pushed for the D1 so i'll skimp somewhere else on the build. but hopefully prices should come down in a few months anyway so i wont have to.

the only thing is i dont know whether to go for a stand alone mic to go with Creatives T6160 surround sound speaker set or go for a headset. i want the speakers for music and movies and the like so i dont want to get rid of them. what do you think?

if i was going to go for a headset which would you go for between the Gamecom 377s or the Ozone Oxid's? the Oxid's are about as far as i can stretch with the D1 soundcard in there.
 
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