Can any one suggest a good pair of analog headphones?

adamknox

adamknox

adamknox

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I recently bought a pair of corsair hs1 (usb) and i must admit..they were bloody awful, No bass, sounded poor when listening to music and didnt immerser you into games at all. I ended up sending them back as DOA to eBuyr-Da-da... I have heard that most USB headsets are like this and if you have a good soundcard its MUCH better to go for a 5.1/7.1 analog headset. I have a creative x-fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro soundcard and it cost around £90 a few years back and apart from the rubbish driver support for w7 it's damn good ;). MY budget is £60... but i am willing to go upto £70 at a push. It doesnt have to have a mic, it just has to be epic sounding ;) Any one got any suggestions?

P.s I may have got the term/meaning 'analogue' wrong lol. One that pluggs into the Soundcard rather than into a usb port :)
 
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The HS1A's should fare much better. I can't believe the price of the USB version compared to the analogue. An extra £20-£30 for a crap USB sound thing? You can buy a Xonar DG for that, which will be far superior.

Not saying you should get the HS1A's mind, just saying the analogue ones would be better. TBH, if there hadn't been a lot of Goldring NS1000's issues of late, I'd recommend them. For £60 or so, they are great headphones. Sadly though, too many people have had issues. Goldring DR150's are also great headphones, I have them myself. Again, sadly people have also been reporting issues with the headband breaking. Mine have cracks showing, so I don't know how long they will last. The sound quality of both headphones, is superb for what they cost, it's just a shame the construction is clearly where costs have been saved.

I'm not a big fan of headsets, there is a lot of rubbish, which is fine for people with no experience of decent headphones. Once you have used decent headphones, you realise how crap a lot of these gaming headsets are. That isn't to say there are no good headsets, but normally you need to pay a premium to get anything really decent.

Those Fischer Audio's mentioned above look good. Not easy to find, not when I last looked at least.
 
I know this may sound stupid..but are there any headphones out there that are 5.1/7.1 that would be good for gaming without being headsets? I never use the mic tbh. I rarely speak on mic during gaming. Ill check out the headphones you have said about :D ty

P.s i did look at the Hs1A headsets but some people said the bass was lacking as well. I kinda need the bass for gunfire and grenades going off lol that was the main probley with the Hs1's You would throw a bomb or blow something up and it didnt have any...'UMPH' to it. Even with my 5.1 speakers that are about 3-4years old and cost about £50 it sounded like something had just blown up 6 feet infront of you. They were just all treble and hardly ANY bass :( Id much rather buy a pair of new speakers but seeing how much power they use + i would have to turn them down after 8Pm (moaning flat mates) would be pointless :'( lol
 
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I wouldn't other with a 5.1+ headset. There is no surround sound effect from them at all since the drivers are only 1mm apart at the side of your head. I know, i used a Stereo headset, then went to a full 5.1 headset for a year now i'm back on stereo. I honestly could not tell the different at all in terms of surround sound effect. It's nothing like surround sound speakers i can assure you.

One big downside however is the fact that most 5.1+ headsets sound awful. They have to mega cheap out on parts to build them so cheap. After all, if one headsets costs £100 for 2 quality drivers, someone else won't be making them at that same quality if they need 8 or 10 drivers in the headphones.
 
DarkBahamut said:
I wouldn't other with a 5.1+ headset. There is no surround sound effect from them at all since the drivers are only 1mm apart at the side of your head. I know, i used a Stereo headset, then went to a full 5.1 headset for a year now i'm back on stereo. I honestly could not tell the different at all in terms of surround sound effect. It's nothing like surround sound speakers i can assure you.

One big downside however is the fact that most 5.1+ headsets sound awful. They have to mega cheap out on parts to build them so cheap. After all, if one headsets costs £100 for 2 quality drivers, someone else won't be making them at that same quality if they need 8 or 10 drivers in the headphones.
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do you get ANY sound positioning at all from stereo? Say if some ones sneaking up behind you, or if a bomb goes off infront of you for e.g?
 
Could you not buy goldring dr150's them get a clip on mic for the odd time you do need it?

On another note, would the dr 150s work with dolby headphone?
 
Yes, DR150's are very good with Dolby Headphone. I use my DR150's whilst playing L4D/2, and occasionally with films using DH, and the effect is very good. Not everyone likes DH though, but for anyone that does, the DR150's work very well.

Some stereo headphones are naturally pretty good with sound positioning, without using DH etc. Audio Technica AD700 spring to mind. I can't see plain stereo being as good as a pair of headphones that have a good synergy with DH. However good the stereo headphones might be naturally at providing positional sound, they are still only being fed plain stereo.

It's a pity the headband suffering cracks, seems more a common issue now. For £50, the sound is great, and far better than any similarly priced headset.
 
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I too vote for looking into stereo headphones combined with surround virtualization (DH).

It makes you feel good when people rage quit because you are "hacking" when really you are just tracking them through walls using sound.:D
 
...Well ive just plugged in an old pair of £20 stereo headphones.... and it sounds just as good..if not better than the £60 ones... which is MAD!!! >< I think ill deff look into the strereo route! ty :D
 
adamknox said:
do you get ANY sound positioning at all from stereo? Say if some ones sneaking up behind you, or if a bomb goes off infront of you for e.g?
Click to expand...

You can use things like Dolby headphone, but they are nothing like true surround, but 5.1 headphones give no sound positioning either so it's not like you lose anything really.
 
grrr :( i was hoping because my speakers were oldish and they wernt the bets when they came out 4 years ago the headphones out nowadays that are £80 would be better. :( I guess ill go for a good pair of strereo ones then. As long as things sound like there coming from diff directions.
 
I have the creative x-fi xtremegamer fatal1ty pro sounsdcard. does any one know if that has DH? I cant find anything about it on the net. -_- for the price i paid it bloody well should lol.
 
Creative have their own, CMSS 3D, which is similar to DH, in that it creates simulated directional sound with headphones. One area where CMSS 3D is better than DH is, it can do vertical directional sound, whereas DH is horizontal only. Some things CMSS 3D does better, some things DH does better.
 
HMmmm.. i see!! >< tyvm for explaining it :) Im still on the fence however about 5.1 (real ones) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SP-000-RC

or like you guys say a stereo pair. The problem i have about the stereo ones are they seem to get pretty bad reviews when it comes to gaming (the ones ive researched) untill you get into the £100 mark.

So i think im going to HAVE to go with the first pair lol Im guessing overclockers wouldnt allow me to send them back if i wasnt 100% happy with them? :P
 
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