Open Back Headset/Headphones for Gaming

MoDe · 5 May 2017 at 10:29

I currently own a pair of Hypercloud II's and they are brilliant at keeping sound from the outside out.

But I'm looking to get some open back headphones so that I can still here external sound (sounds daft but I have my reasons). I have also been finding my ears get quite hot under the leather pads of the Hypercloud's. So basically I'm after some open back headphones that are comfortable and airy that will still allow me to pin point directional sound.

Budget £60-80.

Happy to go the headphone and mod mic route if required.

Ayahuasca · 5 May 2017 at 11:29

If you can I'd stretch a little to DT 990's, £60-80 I think you'll be disappointed compared to your Hypercloud II's if you're buying new.

Marsman · 5 May 2017 at 12:05

Yeah £60 doesn't get anything worth buying in the way of open headphones. I was going to suggest around £80 would get you the AKG K612 which are fantastic value at that, but I've just seen they've gone up in price to over £100. Still very good headphones and a good balanced alternative to the more aggressive sounding DT990.

A downside could be that on-board audio might not offer enough power. They are rather insensitive and require more power than the Beyer's, which despite being higher ohms, are easier to drive.

MoDe · 5 May 2017 at 15:23

Marsman said:
Yeah £60 doesn't get anything worth buying in the way of open headphones. I was going to suggest around £80 would get you the AKG K612 which are fantastic value at that, but I've just seen they've gone up in price to over £100. Still very good headphones and a good balanced alternative to the more aggressive sounding DT990.

A downside could be that on-board audio might not offer enough power. They are rather insensitive and require more power than the Beyer's, which despite being higher ohms, are easier to drive.

Looking at the K612's now. What sort of dac/amp would you recommend?

Are these mod moc's worth the £40? Not keen on the idea of having a load of cables coming from the cans. Leaning more towards a stand alone if thats the case.

Marsman · 5 May 2017 at 17:48

With the HyperX Cloud II you are getting positional sound with the USB sound card part. With headphones you'd need something to provide it. I wasn't thinking of positional sound at the time.

For the K612; FiiO E10K is a good DAC/amp, but only stereo. SMSL SD793II is cheaper and might power them OK; still stereo though. Minimum that can do both would have to be an internal Soundblaster Z card.

DT990 are an easier load than the K612, but you'd still need something to provide positional sound. A Xonar DGX might suffice.

Razer have some software for positional sound. Maybe that would work well with a stereo DAC/amp and K612 or DT990.

Of course then there's the microphone to consider. Personally I wouldn't pay £40 for a Modmic. They are good, but whether they are worth that will come down to the individual. Even with a cheap clip on, you've still got the extra cable. If that's something that might be off putting, I can understand looking at headsets. Trouble is, many headsets are not that good and of the good ones, open back ones are few or expensive. Shame there is no open back variant of the HXCII.

Fishpan · 6 May 2017 at 12:57

I use a pair of Sennheiser HD558s with foam mod and an Antlion V4 ModMic and have no complaints. Very good for music and gaming.

Marsman · 6 May 2017 at 13:15

HD558 are a good choice. They have been replaced with the HD559 though, which are even more expensive than the K612 and DT990; and they are already over the OP's budget. £130 is a little too much really for the lowest end of the HD5** range.

Just spotted the HD598 CS for £105, which looks pretty good value; until I realised they are a closed back version of the HD598. :/

MoDe · 7 May 2017 at 00:23

Turns out I only have hyperclouds I's and not the II's. Don't think that makes much difference to my situation.

Marsman · 7 May 2017 at 11:07

Well it's likely you're just using stereo. Some games have positional sounds built in; Left for Dead 2, for example. That works quite well without the need for Dolby Headphone, etc. Of course, some people just prefer pain stereo without the effects of positional sound from DH and the like.

Most important thing is the headphones. If you get a decent pair, anything else can be added if need be.

Could try a cheap clip on microphone, to reduce the cost of buying headphones + Modmic. Zalman or Speedlink might be good enough. I've used both in the past and they worked fine.

As for having two cables, some people have braided them together. There's been a few threads over the years where people have mentioned doing this. Probably going to be neater doing that with Modmic cable, as that attaches to the headphones.

MoDe · 12 May 2017 at 10:44

I've managed to pick up some 558's for £60 so will let you know how I get on.

MoDe · 14 May 2017 at 12:05

So I've had a chance to test them with games, once I realised my windows sound settings where set to 7.1 and switched them to stereo the positional accuracy felt better.

I do however get a quiet buzzing sound through the headphones, I have had this with previous headphones so it must be down to the onboard soundcard.

I don't think I have room for an internal soundcard, so what options for external soundcard should I be looking at?

Westie · 14 May 2017 at 12:58

if u got 558s go buy the sennheiser GSX 1000 its the best for gaming.. i use it with my old modded 558's and just recently upgraded to 599's.. and 558s worked very well with the gsx!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGX069Zo8kE&t

Marsman · 14 May 2017 at 14:27

If you can afford £200 for the GSX1000, then for positional sound, there is nothing else better. If £200 is a bit on the rich side, then if you want positional sound from Dolby Headphone, SBX, etc; then either a Creative X-Fi HD or Xonar U7.

If you want just stereo with no fancy positional effect stuff, then just go for a DAC/amp. SMSL SD793II or FiiO E10K are good inexpensive choices.

EsaT · 14 May 2017 at 20:56

MoDe said:
So I've had a chance to test them with games, once I realised my windows sound settings where set to 7.1 and switched them to stereo the positional accuracy felt better.

I do however get a quiet buzzing sound through the headphones, I have had this with previous headphones so it must be down to the onboard soundcard.

I don't think I have room for an internal soundcard, so what options for external soundcard should I be looking at?

Having 7.1 selected in Windows sound settings makes games output 7.1 sound.
Especially if only front channels are then heard from that result surely isn't good.
Though use of headphones might be detected by integrated sound card's software doing some kind basic downmixing to two channels.
Having two channels for game to output is likely better than simple downmixing.

Though still stereo signal can't produce best sound with heaphones.
That needs binaural sound mimicking natural behavior of sound traveling to ears directly in signal itself.
For that I would be looking for Creative's products.

Buzzing or some background noise would be quite normal for too cheaply done integrated sound card.
And actually lowish ohm headphones with high sensitivity (efficiency in making sound from electric power) are more demanding for clean signal than 100+ ohm headphones.
In worst cases you might even hear all kind of interference basingf to CPU load, from mass storage data transfers, or even moving mouse causing interference.

EsaT · 14 May 2017 at 21:23

Westie said:
if u got 558s go buy the sennheiser GSX 1000 its the best for gaming..

While not falling as much short from hype than echo chamber Dolby Headphone Sennheiser GSX is behind Creative's algorithms.

Sound Blaster E1 is basically equal to standard PCI-e sound cards like Audigy Fx/Xonar DGX.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/crea...portable-headphone-amp-and-dac-sc-101-cl.html

USB sound cards with similar class components to Sound Blaster Z again have lot higher price.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/crea...-card-with-headphone-amplifier-sp-183-cl.html

MoDe · 14 May 2017 at 23:33

Westie said:
if u got 558s go buy the sennheiser GSX 1000 its the best for gaming.. i use it with my old modded 558's and just recently upgraded to 599's.. and 558s worked very well with the gsx!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGX069Zo8kE&t

Marsman said:
If you can afford £200 for the GSX1000, then for positional sound, there is nothing else better. If £200 is a bit on the rich side, then if you want positional sound from Dolby Headphone, SBX, etc; then either a Creative X-Fi HD or Xonar U7.

If you want just stereo with no fancy positional effect stuff, then just go for a DAC/amp. SMSL SD793II or FiiO E10K are good inexpensive choices.

The GSX Looks very impressive, but I can't bring myself to pay £200.

Would the E10K and the likes get rid of the buzzing/interference sound I get when not listening to anything?

EsaT said:
Buzzing or some background noise would be quite normal for too cheaply done integrated sound card.
And actually lowish ohm headphones with high sensitivity (efficiency in making sound from electric power) are more demanding for clean signal than 100+ ohm headphones.
In worst cases you might even hear all kind of interference basingf to CPU load, from mass storage data transfers, or even moving mouse causing interference.

My same question applies here, would an external eliminate that buzzing?

EsaT said:
While not falling as much short from hype than echo chamber Dolby Headphone Sennheiser GSX is behind Creative's algorithms.

Sound Blaster E1 is basically equal to standard PCI-e sound cards like Audigy Fx/Xonar DGX.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/crea...portable-headphone-amp-and-dac-sc-101-cl.html

USB sound cards with similar class components to Sound Blaster Z again have lot higher price.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/crea...-card-with-headphone-amplifier-sp-183-cl.html

So I'm playing mainly PlayerUnkowns Battlegrounds at the minute which can require you to pin point where shots are coming from, which I seem to be able to do even with stereo, but would like to elimate the buzzing when things are quiet.

I've also picked up a stand alone mic, to add to the confusion that seems to pick up a lot of interference when using comms. I'm guessing this just comes down to the device though, and there's nothing that I can plug a USB mic into that will fix this?

Marsman · 15 May 2017 at 00:21

External device should help. Whether it eliminates interference depends on whether USB is affected too. That's much less common than internal audio being affected.

With a DAC though, you only get output. If you're also getting interference when using a microphone, then you'd probably be best off getting a sound card of some sort, or a USB microphone.

One of the Creative devices is probably the best choice for a sound card. Xonar U7, while good; I have seen at least 2 members say their's developed a problem after the warranty was up.

Some people have got a cheap USB dongle sound card just for microphone and a DAC/amp for the headphones. I guess it depends whether you want SBX provided by Creative devices or not.

EsaT · 15 May 2017 at 00:56

MoDe said:
So I'm playing mainly PlayerUnkowns Battlegrounds at the minute which can require you to pin point where shots are coming from, which I seem to be able to do even with stereo, but would like to elimate the buzzing when things are quiet.

I've also picked up a stand alone mic, to add to the confusion that seems to pick up a lot of interference when using comms. I'm guessing this just comes down to the device though, and there's nothing that I can plug a USB mic into that will fix this?

If having actual headphone setting game itself can do HRTF/binaural-simulation.
But with Windows Vista killing overall audio advance in PC games it's up to game developer how much effort they put to sound engine/"renderer" of the game.
So while one game could give good results by itseld other might output plain stereo or some standard crossfeed to avoid "in left ear, in center of head, in right ear" sound.

Sound card has advantage in that it needs source software to be only able to output standard 5.1 surround sound.
This is about the best comparison I've found:

And when made by respectable company is definitely less prone to interference than "We just needed those ticks to feature checklist" integrated on cheap motherboard.

USB microphone has its own ADC (input part of sound card) so motherboard/sound card changes won't affect to it.
If question is about its design being interference prone device called USB isolator might help.
Being external connected to USB doesn't release sound card from needing good design to avoid interference.
And properly done internal can give equally clean (far beyond human hearing accuracy) sound to external.
Despite of all that "you need external DAC for high quality audio" hype... While in some cases those fashionable USB DACs have actually needed such USB isolator.
Also in made cheaply case that ADC itself might have high noise level if microphone produces some constant noise.

Anyway at least sound card with mic in allow trying any 3,5mm mic.

Rroff · 15 May 2017 at 01:24

EsaT said:
While not falling as much short from hype than echo chamber Dolby Headphone Sennheiser GSX is behind Creative's algorithms.

SBX has better sound separation but IMO the positioning isn't as consistently good as the GSX - not that there is a huge difference in it. End of the day though these systems all tend to work better for some people than others and have better synergy with some headphones than others.

I always used to think Dolby Headphone pretty much garbage until I used it with ProLogic IIz encoding and headphones designed for it - but even then it would still rank lower down on my list - its not bad at all for an immersive soundscape in single player games but lacking for competitive gaming.

For instance I'm currently using the Sennheiser MX580 which have very clear, artificial separation of sound that make them ideal for gaming, modified to accept a balanced input so as to keep the left and right channels as isolated as possible and with this setup the GSX sounds superior.

MoDe · 15 May 2017 at 09:21

So I've whittled it down to the Xonar U7 or the FiiO E10K.

Which would be more beneficial in terms of positional accuracy? I'm aware one is an external soundcard and one is just a DAC/AMP.

I think my USB mic feedback is just down to the mic boost that I'm having to apply in order for people to here me over ventrillo/discord. Without it though people are struggling to here me, any way of increasing this without adding the feedback?