How well will this pair of headphones card perform together?

Sharpsilver

Sharpsilver

Sharpsilver

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How well will this pair of headphones and card perform together?

Hellloo Sound City!,

I'm currently building a PC with a budget of around £1,500.. and I've allocated around £90-£100 or so for a decent enough headset and a sound card that will give me some good positional/directional sound or whatever it's called.....or allowing me to hear people walking behind me in games... forgive my crude description :D

I've so far chosen:

Razer Carcharias Stereo Headset
Asus Xonar DS 7.1 PCI Sound Card (90-YAA0F0-0UAN00Z)

How well will these perform together?.. and provide good directional/positional/surround sound? and will they provide decent enough audio for music.. games...generally that kind of jazz?

Thanks.:)
 
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Hmm, DS is not the best choice tbh for gaming with headphones. I'd spend the extra and get the DX or D1. There is also the X-Fi Xtreme Gamer to consider which is currently £66 I think. £10 more than the DX or D1, but offers slightly better positional sound. If you don't want to stretch to more than £60, the DX/D1 will serve you well for gaming and music.

Carcharias are a good choice. For music they are the best choice out of all the headsets. Normally headsets suffer when it comes to music, but the Carcharias has proved it handles music well.
 
Yup, the DS does not support Dolby Headphone so as already suggested an upgrade to a DX/D1 is recommended for best results when gaming with Headphones. I would steer cleer of any 'gaming' headsets as you set out as better sounds may be had from decent stereo cans (surround to be generated from sound card)

I undertstand a good sound 'synergy' is to be had by pairing the DR100/150s with a Xonar.

Alternate options are a X-Fi paired with a HD555/595.
 
Change the card as mentioned above, but keep the Razer, unless you want to opt for the Goldring DR150/Senn HD595. They're pretty much the most well rounded headset on the market right now, and a far cry from the vast majority of headsets - they actually sound decent, and better than the DR100/on par with the HD555 (my brother has the DR100, and I have the DR150, so I have have heard them)
 
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Completely forgot that I actually need a microphone with my headphones.

I decided to cut back on other areas in my spec and I've freed up another £100 so therefore I am able to splash out a bit more to get a decent pair of headphones and a sound card... and a mic on the headphones or a desktop mic.

With your recommendations:

Goldring DR150
Xonar DX1

However since the Goldring is just a pair of headphones, I'll need a desktop microphone to make up for it's lacking.... any recommendations?
 
I would grab either Logitech's USB one or their analogue one. Or you could use a clip on mic, which you could attach to the headphone cable. Zalman make a pretty decent one.
 
Decided to not go for the Goldring headphones.. and instead possibly go for the Razer Carcharias headset along with the recommended Xonar DX. Reason I prefer the headset over headphones + clip on mic/desk mic is that I'm guranteed to have a clear voice as long as the headset mic is good enough, and also because this razer headset is supposed to match other headphones (without mic) of the same price in quality of sound and bass.

Razer Carcharias + Xonar DX..... Good or bad?
 
Well for that price you can get a pair of Sennheiser HD 555s & the Zalman mic. Why would that be less trusted to give you a clear voice?
 
Desk mic will give you a clear voice. Hell I use an old Sennheiser headset lying on my desk as mic only, people can hear me fine. The issue is noise cancellation, Carcharias has a good noise cancellation mic. Desk mic's can do it to an extent, but it depends how much background noise you have. My Sennheiser headset picks up a lot of noise if I have TV on for eg, but most the time I have no background noise so it is not a problem.
 
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