Best Headset for a Dad Gamer

-Aura- · 18 Sep 2010 at 12:13

w3bbo said:
Deffo go for a decent headphone rather than headset. I wouldn;t sacrifice sound for the sake of a £5 mic. I use HD595's which are fantastic both for music and gaming. Paired with a cheap mic they will better most if not all gaming 'headsets'.

This^

Son-in-law bought a pair of these from here a couple of weeks ago as he wanted a set of 7.1s and knows how much I rave about my 3 year old 595s. The 595s beat the 333s hands down in every department; gaming sounds (you don't really need to have rear positional footsteps, if you hear footsteps and ur looking forward, he's behind you

), music, comfort (I found the 333s uncomfortable as they sit on your ears rather than over them) but the microphone is indeed pin-sharp.

I have an old butchered desktop mic insulation taped in place on the headphones. Meh, does the job

robnut · 18 Sep 2010 at 12:32

If you remember i modded my dr150 not long ago with a mic, ive now refined that mod and im impressed with it.

£2 laptop mic and some time =

Random Guy · 21 Oct 2010 at 23:39

Thread re-re-re-RESURRECTION!

So I grumped and groused and thought about it, especially with regard to the advice from you lot about going for a set of headphones over a gaming headset...and then I went and did extensive research on the whole topic, bearing in mind your suggestions.

I have just ordered a pair of Audio Technica ATH-AD700s

The feedback for these in general is phenomenal, and I am waiting eagerly for the delivery. Let me know if anyone has questions about the cans, and I will try and update this thread when they are here and run in for a while.

TY for the help, discussion and suggestions

Marsman · 22 Oct 2010 at 00:25

Nice choice of headphone. Shame they are a little pricey here in Blighty, but hey everything is a little pricey here.

Why did you decide to go with headphones rather than a headset?

Basill · 22 Oct 2010 at 00:32

Seems like you made a good choice, did you also get the speedlink clip on?

Random Guy · 22 Oct 2010 at 08:42

Marsman said:
Nice choice of headphone. Shame they are a little pricey here in Blighty, but hey everything is a little pricey here.

Why did you decide to go with headphones rather than a headset?

Yeah, prices pee'd me off for a while (esp. in comparison to U.S prices for the same product), but in the end I still believe I got the best price/performance trade-off possible. If I had been a bit smarter I might have been able to source them from the U.S a few weeks ago but it was too late when I thought about it.

I went with the headphones after the advice here, which admittedly makes sense from a consumer-electronics point of view, and after researching it further on many different sites and [audio-phile] forums. The general consensus is that for the same money on headphones, you will get much better fidelity and sound quality than on a gaming headset.

Basill said:
Seems like you made a good choice, did you also get the speedlink clip on?

TY. Did not get a clip-on mic yet. Since I will be hanging on to my old headset I can probably rig it so I have my headphones on and the other headset+mic jury-rigged for talking. If this is unworkable I will definitely be getting that speedlink mic.

Amraam · 22 Oct 2010 at 16:02

Sounds daft, but have crappy PC labs (or something like that) headset. I wear that round my neck and wear my HD555s as normal.

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 22 Oct 2010 at 16:33

I am planning to do the same as Amraam myself with my old logitech headset, I often wear it round my neck and stick all sounds to desktop speakers now.
Once I start using my ns1000 I will just use the headset mic and nothing else from it.
Was wondering about performing some surgery on them to see if I could remove the earphones without affecting the mic, so its just a mic with a neckband type thing. Wonder if the boom will basically be unbalanced then though as it wont have the weight of the cups to balance it and stop it tipping.

Angel_Rex · 25 Oct 2010 at 07:28

I have the speedlink clip in mic, wors perfectly tbh. You can either clip it to ur shirt or cable tie it to the headphone wire. cant tell the diff

Random Guy · 25 Oct 2010 at 20:36

Okay, sat here typing and listening to the new cans. I am hearing sounds/instruments that I have never heard before in my music collection, I can finally understand what a 'sound-stage' is, the bass response feels perfectly fine to me, and I am just getting used to them. Overall I am pretty happy

I will be the first to say that it is not a quantum leap ahead of my previous stereo headset, but there is a very noticeable improvement in my listening experience so far. Will update once more when I have had these broken in for a couple of days and over varying audio sources....