Headphones

agnes

agnes

agnes

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I'm in the market for some decent gaming headphones, important aspect to me is directional sound and natural bass. Not boomy or harsh.

I just got rid of my Sein HD595's. Which sucks, they lasted 10 years!

I was thinking of these:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hyperx-kingston-headphones-cloud-gaming,27985.html

But they are only stereo... So I don't think the directional sound will be that good? I know my Seins were only stero. But in CSS, it was hard to replicate anything behind me for example.
 
You'd b an awful lot better off posting this in Sound City :)

Stereo is miles better than the pseudo-'5.1' or '7.1' that 'gaming' headsets offer. Not really worth considering, tbh, especially not at this budget. Your Senns should have been very good with positional accuracy, I personally had no issues at all with my HD598s for gaming, in fact I thought they were very much spot on.

HyperX Clouds are pretty decent for the money, but they wont replace the HD595s at all. Try and grab another pair of Senns second hand, 598 or 558s are both good options, or look for AD700s/Xs second hand too.
 
Asked for the thread to be moved.

And just looking at the 598's, a little pricey... But, I could really do with the 6.35mm jack as I have a desk mic, and plugging the headphones into my amp will be MUCH easier than fiddling around with audio devices and sound levels in windows.
 
Are HD 650's overkill for those random gaming sessions I fancy from time to time.

If I want to listen to music outside, I use my Shure SE512's, if inside, I listen through my amp to my Q Acoustic 2000i family (2010i fronts and backs, 2000Ci center and the 2070Si sub, all sublime for the cost).

So the headphones are mainly for when I want to game at my desk using keyboard and mouse. 85% of the time, I game on the sofa using the 360 controller on my 50" plasma through the speakers. But other times, I like sitting at my desk getting involved in some online fps or stuff like LoL. And my desks placed under one of the front speakers so sound direction is pants.

Having a quater inch jack is a huge bonus as I can plug direction into my Yamaha RX675 amp.
 
agnes said:
Are HD 650's overkill for those random gaming sessions I fancy from time to time.
Click to expand...

HD650's don't suit gaming.

They are amazing headphones but their characteristics don't really suit gaming.

Are you looking for a competitive gaming headphone? Well then the sticky would pretty much answer all questions rather than us going round in circles.

Read the sticky first and post in there.

AKG headphones suit gaming a lot better if your looking to spend around £150-£300.

Personally I think you should get HD558's and mod them (they can be modded into 598's) by simply removing two bits of rubber from the inside of the earpiece, it's a 5 minute job.
 
Huh, so the only difference between the 558 and the 598 is that bit of foam?

Surely that can't be it?
 
Its not, but removing that bit of foam results in a sound that is very similar to the 598s fundamentally and many will struggle to differentiate between a modded 558 and a 598 unless they have a particularly well trained ear.
 
Well, doesn't matter, pulled my 595's apart, re glued and fixed the foam ear surrounds and cleaned them up. And found the right driver had actually fallen out of it's mount... Clipped back in and all sorted!

So no need to replace, they are performing perfectly.

7n9xnJ7.jpg


As you can see, on the right I provisionally replaced the foam cover and then I glued it back into place and cleaned it up after this picture. Did both sides, both look like new now.

Et5nkMo.jpg


Here, I literally opened up the headphone and the driver was loose, I actually laughed out loud a little. As it made perfect sense, I just figured it was more of a critical problem than that. So clicked it back in and put a spot of super glue on the edge just to add that bit of extra security.

All working perfectly and now I remember why I've held onto these headphones for the past 10 years... Absolutely perfect.
 
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agnes said:
Huh, so the only difference between the 558 and the 598 is that bit of foam?

Surely that can't be it?
Click to expand...

do you know the original bmw mini cooper and mini one used the exact same engine, just a different ECU. you could mod a mini one into a mini cooper using a simple remap and save yourself thousands.

i had a old graphics card that was software locked, you could unlock it by flashing another bios or ticking some options in a piece of software and it became the top of the range version. it was a £100 graphics card that turned into a £300 one. they used the exact same core and architecture just some pipes/lanes had been locked by software. they caught onto this and now models have the pipes cut by a laser usually.


the exact same drivers are used in both the 555 and 595. the exact same dirvers are used in the 558 and 598. both can be modded into the superior version by removing the foam.

as you can see it is common practice to just make one thing and then mod it into inferior versions.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
do you know the original bmw mini cooper and mini one used the exact same engine, just a different ECU. you could mod a mini one into a mini cooper using a simple remap and save yourself thousands.

i had a old graphics card that was software locked, you could unlock it by flashing another bios or ticking some options in a piece of software and it became the top of the range version. it was a £100 graphics card that turned into a £300 one. they used the exact same core and architecture just some pipes/lanes had been locked by software. they caught onto this and now models have the pipes cut by a laser usually.


the exact same drivers are used in both the 555 and 595. the exact same dirvers are used in the 558 and 598. both can be modded into the superior version by removing the foam.

as you can see it is common practice to just make one thing and then mod it into inferior versions.
Click to expand...

Madness, and I know things are restricted for marketing a superior model, I just figured something as simple as foam wouldn't produce the same results. Mad.
 
Obviously haven't looked at AKG K701/Q701/K702/K702 Annie, etc.

It's all in the foam and sometimes not even that :D
 
Man... The K vs Q differences can only be pinned down to one thing.... Black Magic.

Excellent news regarding the Senns :)
 
I'm loving the detail and soundstage with my AKG K7xx's over my ATH900x. Since all headphones will give you a degree of positional audio, the AKG's are more intimate and I have no problem locating audio cues in Battlefield 4. I don't play Counter Strike so haven't tested them in that game.
 
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