I used to use a Logitech THX rated 5.1 system, which in the day gave a big multiplayer advantage over TV speakers. But as headphones became more popular it was starting to become a disadvantage to not have speakers attached to your ears. Generally players would hear my footsteps long before i heard theirs. Nowadays I use a Razer Thresher headset with MS sonic sound. Its good, but i cant seem to tell if noises are above or below like the marketing claims. The sound quality for music and films is good enough for a hundred quid though.
A DAC is basically a Digital to analogue converter turns any input digital signal into a analogue signal for your headphones. An dedicated Amp, will be able to better drive headphones compared to solutions on motherboards. In turn the extra power will allow you to play at higher volumes and / or to higher levels without distortion, in some cases add a flavour (tubes in particular) to the sound and so on. A separate DAC and AMP is good to have with harder to drive stuff compared to trying to drive it directly from say the motherboard.
Sunny's post is pretty spot on, but with that said, I have the AKG712's mentioned and Schitt stack (well sold it on this forum recently and replaced it) and you can get very similar performance (or to an extent comparable experience) really for less money.
For headphones for example, you can look at AKG's 702 which are £100 or so an amazing headphones. They are slightly different in that they do not have the slight bass boost the 712's have, but they have a slightly wider sound stage and sound amazing regardless, its all about which sound flavour you may prefer more. On the aspect of Amp and Dac, you could get up a combined unit like theFiiO - E10K for £60 which would drive the AKG's and most headphones reasonably well. Point being for £160 you can get a very nice set of headphones and AMP/DAC which will also sound amazing, and this is as someone who is typing this while listening to my 712's but knowing what the 702's sound like. Don't get me wrong, I prefer the 712's sound signature, but that does not take away from the 702's or even various other amazing headphone options out there.
The K702's are only £100 now? wow they were £200 not so long ago. I suppose massdrop has helped make that a possibility.
I don't have K712's myself I have Q701's which is a slightly modded version of the K702. You can't really go wrong with any of the 7 series AKG's (the 7 being the first number after the letter, K701, K702, Q701, K712 and the X7XX massdrops).
As for a cheaper dac/amp I like the Aune T1 but i have just noteiced these are now £100 more than what I paid for mine £120 now £220 so IMO better off now going for Schiit.
The great thing with Schiit is he has a simple upgrade path. He can upgrade the DAC on it's own or the AMP rather than sell it all. Fiio is good but IMO wouldn't really do the AKG's justice. The AKG's really do need very good equipment to get the best out of them.
If he can save £100 by getting K702's then that is a good place to save money though.
Nowadays I use a Razer Thresher headset with MS sonic sound. Its good, but i cant seem to tell if noises are above or below like the marketing claims. The sound quality for music and films is good enough for a hundred quid though.
Vertical directionality was lost when Microsoft killed DirectSound and hardware acceleration of sounds.
During DirectSound time games were able to offload "rendering" of output sound channels from original lossless data of game to sound card.
2005's EMU20K of Creative X-Fi cards handled IIRC 128 simultaneous 3D positioned sound "channels"/sources.
(internally something like 4000 channels for processing)
And if you had selected headphones as output, binaural sound simulation was done straight from that original 3D data.
(lot hyped object based Dolby Atmos/DTS X are kinda same thing for movies)
Now typical game using its own sound renderer outputs lossy 5.1/7.1 sound, which has been flattened to 2D plane.
Only way to retain vertical directionality would be game itself having binaural sound simulation/HRTF as part of its sound renderer.
But sounds have been for long time far behind graphics, graphics, some multiplayer fashion and more graphics etc. in priorities.
Really doubt that Razer is worth even half of that hundred with AKGs, Beyerdynamics etc available for that price and then Superluxes for around third of that.
BTW guys, do I need to buy a sound card too or will my motherboard audio suffice?
I've been looking around headphone reviews and the AKG712's had one really bad review on youtube.
I'm definitely sold on open back headphones now for a better feeling of immersion and I'll probably later on down the line buy a wireless closed back pair for outdoor use.
Are a DAC and AMP neccessary purchases from the get go?
Also which SCHILT products should I buy?
I'm not a competitve gamer at all.
Also could I just connect my headphones to my Denon AVR? or am I missing something?
Question if you please .I found a couple of old Sennheiser hd600's that need ear pads and cable replacing (I think the speakers are good).
Is it worth me spending on one of the sets to get it working? I haven't got a headset amp either.
One big negative against the AKG702/712's is the elastic suspension system, this stretched to uselessness over a years worth of use for me. Currently using a ghetto elastic band setup for them, it's functional but looks like arse!
Question if you please .I found a couple of old Sennheiser hd600's that need ear pads and cable replacing (I think the speakers are good).
Is it worth me spending on one of the sets to get it working? I haven't got a headset amp either.
I've got some HD600's that really could do with the pads replacing. They aren't completely knackered as some I've seen looking at various pictures, but they are certainly a fair bit flatter than a picture someone posted of brand new ones he had fitted to his headphones. Mine just need pads though.
Sennheiser do offer a refurbishing service. They replace the worn parts with new. I think it's about £100, but it depends on what is worn or broken, as to whether it is worth doing.
£100 would be worth it for headphones in a sorry state, as you'd essentially get as good as new headphones a lot less than it costs to buy a new pair of HD600's. If you just need pads though, like I do, then it wouldn't be worth it, as pads are much cheaper than paying for the refurb service. Obviously though, you need new cable as well. Still works out cheaper to buy the cable and pads separately. HD600 cable isn't cheap though for what it is; £23 I think; £37 for the pads.
They are great headphones and worth spending at least £60 on to get them in good working order again; but it really comes down to how much use you'll give them. As good a headphone as they are; no point spending money if you end up hardly using them. That is probably why I haven't got new pads for mine yet; I haven't used headphones to listen to music for quite a while now.
I suppose not having a headphone amp might also factor in as to whether they are worth spending the money on. They could really do with one, but spending money on an amp as well as refurbishing the headphones could be the difference between it being worth to you, or not.
One big negative against the AKG702/712's is the elastic suspension system, this stretched to uselessness over a years worth of use for me. Currently using a ghetto elastic band setup for them, it's functional but looks like arse!
Yes. That's the only thing that would put me off buying them. I suppose in the case of the K702, they are good value now. Would suck to buy headphones costing £300 that use that system. I guess they aren't going change the design after all these years. :/
BTW guys, do I need to buy a sound card too or will my motherboard audio suffice?
I've been looking around headphone reviews and the AKG712's had one really bad review on youtube.
I'm definitely sold on open back headphones now for a better feeling of immersion and I'll probably later on down the line buy a wireless closed back pair for outdoor use.
Are a DAC and AMP neccessary purchases from the get go?
Also which SCHILT products should I buy?
I'm not a competitve gamer at all.
Also could I just connect my headphones to my Denon AVR? or am I missing something?
They are quite insensitive the AKG's; well the K702/712 and the other variants are. While they are low Ohm, they need more power than that impedance rating suggests. To use Sennehsier HD598 as an example; the 598's are 50 Ohm I believe, but only require a quarter of the power to reach the same volume as the AKG's.
It really comes down to how loud you will want to use the headphones. At lower volume, the AKG's will work from most anything with a headphone socket. To get them really loud, they will need a decent headphone amp. It's something you can't know until you've used them, as preferences vary so much from person to person.
Just as an example; there are two guys who post here on the forum; one uses his AKG's with a Xonar D1 sound card. That has no headphone amp, but for him, that can drive the headphones perfectly loud enough. The other guy uses his AKG's with a Schiit Magni 3. That has a lot more power than the Xonar D1, but even on high gain and high volume, it's not quite satisfyingly loud enough for him. The example of the second guy though and his experience, is probably quite rare though.
Whether an AVR would have enough for the headphones is hard to say. One would think so, as they are amplifiers, so will have no problem with any headphones; at least that's the impression people get. They are speaker amplifiers though and often the headphone output is not given the same attention, you could say. It probably varies depending on the manufacturer, model and cost. Budget models will undoubtedly have the headphone out skimped on more than a more expensive AVR.
Like I said above, the biggest factor will likely be your volume listening preference. If like me, you don't like volume that loud, your AVR might do fine. If you like the volume LOUD, like a friend of mine does, then it possibly won't.
I'd be inclined to get the headphones first and go from there.
I've got some HD600's that really could do with the pads replacing. They aren't completely knackered as some I've seen looking at various pictures, but they are certainly a fair bit flatter than a picture someone posted of brand new ones he had fitted to his headphones. Mine just need pads though.
Sennheiser do offer a refurbishing service. They replace the worn parts with new. I think it's about £100, but it depends on what is worn or broken, as to whether it is worth doing.
£100 would be worth it for headphones in a sorry state, as you'd essentially get as good as new headphones a lot less than it costs to buy a new pair of HD600's. If you just need pads though, like I do, then it wouldn't be worth it, as pads are much cheaper than paying for the refurb service. Obviously though, you need new cable as well. Still works out cheaper to buy the cable and pads separately. HD600 cable isn't cheap though for what it is; £23 I think; £37 for the pads.
They are great headphones and worth spending at least £60 on to get them in good working order again; but it really comes down to how much use you'll give them. As good a headphone as they are; no point spending money if you end up hardly using them. That is probably why I haven't got new pads for mine yet; I haven't used headphones to listen to music for quite a while now.
I suppose not having a headphone amp might also factor in as to whether they are worth spending the money on. They could really do with one, but spending money on an amp as well as refurbishing the headphones could be the difference between it being worth to you, or not.
I've been looking around headphone reviews and the AKG712's had one really bad review on youtube.
I'm definitely sold on open back headphones now for a better feeling of immersion and I'll probably later on down the line buy a wireless closed back pair for outdoor use.
Someone didn't like accurate treble?
Of course problems with "automatically" adjusting head band are valid.
Big head could cause heavier clamping force and stretch those small elastic strings fast.
While small head, especially downward narrowing shaped, could make it feel like cups are trying to creep down.
That could use improvement, but like Marsman said, I guess AKG isn't going to change their kind of "trademark design" after these years.
And price of AKG's replacement pads meant for K712...
You better sit firmly on chair when checking that:
You would pretty much get whole new K702 for the price of pair!
In that sense K702 and some equalizing could give pretty much same for less.
And leaving money for something to do binaural sound simulation.
Without any kind cues in signal (like pure stereo speaker mix) sounds will stay accurately positioned inside either left or right ear, or in center of head, because brain just doesn't know where else to position them.
After using binaural sound with good headphones that will sound insanely artificial and annoying.
Have myself secodn hand bought K702 as that bass neutral reference, K712 and Beyerdynamic DT990 for more punchy bass.
(+retired tape keeping parts from falling HD595 Sennheiser)
For closed headphone Beyer's DT770 sounds actually impressive.
Listened it in Friday in one shop with some binaural material including game recordings. (before that trying Amiron Home)
Though of course couldn't do throrough side by side testing and not sure how good headphone output of that device was.
(some integrated Denon player with some kind amplifier for speakers, so could be output stolen from speaker output)
I want an open back headphones for a huge sound stage.
I’m going to watch films (so ideally I’d like some bass for these)
I’m going to also use them for gaming.
I would sometimes use them with my iPad.
The akgs seem to tick a lot of boxes apart from bass and difficulty to drive with an iPad.
What are my options? I’ve heard the bear dynamics are good?
I want an open back headphones for a huge sound stage.
I’m going to watch films (so ideally I’d like some bass for these)
I’m going to also use them for gaming.
I would sometimes use them with my iPad.
The akgs seem to tick a lot of boxes apart from bass and difficulty to drive with an iPad.
What are my options? I’ve heard the bear dynamics are good?
You can also use something like a Soundblaster G6 taking an optical Dolby Digital 5.1 feed and use EQ to tailor the sound to your tastes, that's exactly what I use to give AKG712's mind blowing bass with the huge sound stage when desired
Just another option for you to consider.
Another option I use for movies is a Senn HD58X, it's relatively narrow sound stage can be compensated for by turning up the surround to 100% on the G6, a much warmer more relaxed sound than the AKG's.
I want an open back headphones for a huge sound stage.
I’m going to watch films (so ideally I’d like some bass for these)
I’m going to also use them for gaming.
I would sometimes use them with my iPad.
The akgs seem to tick a lot of boxes apart from bass and difficulty to drive with an iPad.
What are my options? I’ve heard the bear dynamics are good?
I use the AKG 712's off Ipad Mini. Don't get me wrong its not going to blast out at you, but for casual listning, its actually pretty solid in terms of driving them. Even use the 712's with my phone. Granted not ideal, but when its my turn to clean the house or something, put them on and blissfully melt away my situation
Hmmm so in terms of "driving", would these headphones say be louder than my ipod headphones? or my standard over hear bluteooth headphones? I'll be honesty, they're plenty loud enough for me.. anymore and I'd fear getting deaf... its more the quality of and feeling of surround sound im after.
Hmmm so in terms of "driving", would these headphones say be louder than my ipod headphones? or my standard over hear bluteooth headphones? I'll be honesty, they're plenty loud enough for me.. anymore and I'd fear getting deaf... its more the quality of and feeling of surround sound im after.
It's not really a question of loudness with regards to 712's, I can run then on a an S6 phone but the lower mids/bass really suffer although upper mids/trebble is OK. It sounds washed out and thin compared to running a dedicated DAC/AMP, I guess replicating the lows requires more power than the phone can provide.
Even K702 has good, low for open headphone reaching bass, if you just listen for it.
It's simply accurate/neutral and doesn't make bigger number out of itself than asked by signal.
DT990 and K712 are already on punchier side and any more bass would fast start burying details in games.
DT990 has little more bass immersion than K712, with about equally lower details overall.
(except for K712 having small dip around 2kHz)
Again in head band design Beyerdynamic takes big win with good old manual length adjustment.
Also Beyer's replacement ear pads have very wallet friendly price.
It's not really a question of loudness with regards to 712's, I can run then on a an S6 phone but the lower mids/bass really suffer although upper mids/trebble is OK. It sounds washed out and thin compared to running a dedicated DAC/AMP, I guess replicating the lows requires more power than the phone can provide.
I don’t even use my surround sound for gaming anymore now that have the SoundblasterX AE-5 and DT990 combo. Never thought it would be this good, but it is. Crazy comfy too, I mean those ear pads are like having a massage
For movies on the tv, surround sound all the way. Just can’t beat the room shaking around me and sounds coming from way back in the room.
I personally can’t stand the K702 for music listening. The K712 is okay but still has that etched, grainy sound.
Soundstage perception is mostly pad depth, and an upper mid recession. You could buy a HD600 + Liquid Spark and SDAC and he sorted for a long time. More resolving and better tonal balance than the K7 models. The 600’s scale well but can be driven from an idevice but get better the more you invest in better gear.
I don’t even use my surround sound for gaming anymore now that have the SoundblasterX AE-5 and DT990 combo. Never thought it would be this good, but it is. Crazy comfy too, I mean those ear pads are like having a massage
For movies on the tv, surround sound all the way. Just can’t beat the room shaking around me and sounds coming from way back in the room.
My issue with the AKGs are a lot of people seem to think they're not very fun and maybe a bit bland in sound which has put me off them.
Also I've read the Dt's have a slightly better bass for explosions etc.
They also look nicer than the AKGs.
The only drawback is that cable is long AF so they wouldn't be a travel headphone... like ever.
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