Personally I'll be getting the new Monoprice M1070's once they reach Europe, bang in your budget window.
Planars for gaming?
- Thread starter deano-g
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Personally I'll be getting the new Monoprice M1070's once they reach Europe, bang in your budget window.
They are open back though, He is looking for a closed back headphone.
Totally understandable. But, I think you should go in a different direction because, apart from the Mobius/Hyperx, I don't know of any closed back planar headphones that are good for gaming. What I mean by that is, if gaming is your priority then there are better options for your budget that aren't planars.
Woops missed that, appologies.
Hi, I just assumed planars where the way to go, as everyone raves how good the sound quality is. Not much of an audiophile,do you have any suggestions. Thanks.
What are you looking for? I know you want closed back headphones within a certain budget. But do you want the best headphones for gaming or the headphones with the best sound quality? And usually when people mention gaming they are talking about positional audio, how good a headphone is at pinpointing the location of an enemy.
Planars are just another headphone technology, not always better. Sound quality is so subjective.
Headsets with 5.1 and 7.1 are what some people consider gimmicks because you can get better positional audio from stereo headphones.
Some people like headphones that are fun in gaming(usually have more bass) but others prefer less bass so that positional queues like footsteps are easier to hear.
So when you asked for gaming headphones what games do you play? Are you a competitive online gamer?
As for sound, do you like more bass or less bass?
A quick recommendation for your budget would be the Shure SRH-1540. Closed back, Comfortable, good for gaming with great sound quality.
Shooters mainly, escape from tarkov has gripped me at the moment, but apex was a game I played for 6 months straight. I mean I'd be open to open back phones, but would they clash with an open mic during discord chat with friends ( the reason I want closed).
I'm a bass head so decent bass would be nice.
I do get quite competitive, but nothing serious. I'll check the shure's out, and thanks for the replies guys.
I'm a bass head so decent bass would be nice.
I do get quite competitive, but nothing serious. I'll check the shure's out, and thanks for the replies guys.
I have never had any problems with chatting on the mic and gaming while using open headphones.
If open headphones are on the table then the best headphones for gaming are the AKJ K701/K702 or the AKG Q701. With the Q701 been better for Bass than the other 2.
The BeyerDynamic DT 990 pro(250 Ohm) is another option for you, good for gaming and has decent bass too.
Another Option is the Philips Fidelio X1/X2.
Going to tag a few guys that are regulars here in this section of the forums. @rids57 @EsaT @Marsman These guys know a lot more about headphones than me and should be able to help you pick the best pair to suit you.
If open headphones are on the table then the best headphones for gaming are the AKJ K701/K702 or the AKG Q701. With the Q701 been better for Bass than the other 2.
The BeyerDynamic DT 990 pro(250 Ohm) is another option for you, good for gaming and has decent bass too.
Another Option is the Philips Fidelio X1/X2.
Going to tag a few guys that are regulars here in this section of the forums. @rids57 @EsaT @Marsman These guys know a lot more about headphones than me and should be able to help you pick the best pair to suit you.
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Think I've been tagged by mistake, I know nothing
Oops sorry, I thought I selected Rids57. Will edit my post now.
I'm running an omni directional condenser mic on a desk arm, with a completely open headphone like a HD58X (more open than a AKG 712Pro) and super hi volumn and high mic sensitivity you will get feedback, but if you are more sensible with sensitivity and/or volume this isn't an issue. Directional dynamic mics like a Modmic it's a non issue. I also use a Tin P1 (planar IEM), but that's completely closed and not for bass heads imo.
Well implemented close back planar's are rare expensive beasts, most audiophile headphones with semi sane prices are open back. Avoiding the seashell effect and distorting harmonics seems to be a tricky thing for closed back planars.
Very useful site for searching for audiophile headphone models
https://hifiguides.com/
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You would have to use seriously hearing dangerous volumes for sound leakage to be problem with something like ModMic, which is much much closer to mouth than headphone.
And while some desk mic isn't much closer to mouth than headphone, compared to speech SPL of sound leak is still miniscule.
At hearing safe volume you don't need to move headphone that far from ear for sound to be harder to distinguish.
It feels loud only because driver is so close to ear and volume of air inside cup in between driver and head is small, but open in room air driver can't do much of SPL.
Just try listening something at comfortable volume and then take headphones off moving them to different distance from ear.
At 10cm distance sound becomes quite quiet and at 20cm very quiet.
(if you can still hear sound from arm's distance then your hearing is headed for premature retirement)
In gaming strong bass is harder thing if you care about details like foot steps etc.
Already because of strong bass making explosions etc cover other sounds.
Also designing headphone isn't something in which you can just pick things you want to "throw into bucket and expect other things you have in it stay same".
Tuning up bass can easily have serious detrimental effect to other frequencies.
Closed design is further challenge in that and it's no accident that lots of high end headphones are open, design whose invention made Sennheiser famous.
(original dynamic driver headphones with closed ear cup were invented by Eugen Beyer and you might guess the name of company)
What "sounds" good has little to do with any accuracy of signal's reproduction.
Human hearing is really bad as any kind absolute measuring instrument and what little is heard consciously is further mutilated by expectations and various psychological (or should we say psychopathic) biases.
For example only sound tubes have is distortion of signal and you may have noticed how many people call their sound as good.
In some blind tests tube worshippers have been induced to hear tube sound even when listening sound through normal low distortion semiconductors just by hinting about tubes...
Also you may have noticed how HD600-serie Sennheisers and especially HD650 are called good with their "warm" sound.
While that warm sound actually means inaccurate frequency response with emphasis on lower end of frequency spectrum and reproduction starting to get weaker at upper mids and dropping further the more you go into treble.
Something you down't want if you want to pick gaming environment apart from sounds.
Stereo content like music simply doesn't care much any about accuracy of reproduction.
Only thing our hearing is good at analyzing reliably is binaural cues, which are used by brain to "decode"/process sound source locations.
You'll hear it very fast when those aren't reproduced accurately enough.
I had once chance to test one Turtle (more like turd) Beach gaming headset.
Obviously expectations were really low, but starting listening from music actually gave better than expected result with kinda "front row" agressive feel in say rock.
Switching to binaural sound gaming clips was like running to wall.
With immersion best described as "head in bucket under water" with no real sense of distance and especially separation.
Everything sounded like coming from next to ear, with some sounds just being more muffled than others and of course directionality wasn't good.
In comparison Superlux HD330 bought for 30€ sounded like top level headphone with binaural sound.
I didn't even consider wasting time in testing against audio maker headphones I had that time...
Darn it's annoying surf web even with UPS for PC because of short power cuts from continuing maintenance work from yesterday's snow storm keep cutting connection.
(had 13 hour blackout from ~19PM yesterday)
Well, at least there's been only couple cuts in last 15 minutes...
Wow thanks for the in depth post, I think an open set is the way forward and with a neutral signature?
Any recommendations come to mind, somebody mentioned akj/g, and the monoprice m1070. The only I don't want is something similar to what I have Denons ah d600, I can use these for music and the ones I purchase for gaming.
Thanks for replies guys.
Any headphones advertising some "real" multiple driver 5.1/7.1 are Donald not-Duck and certain Vladimir load of BS.
Sure those headphones will sound different and no doubt better than headphones playing speaker stereo sound of lovely "sound inside left ear/in center of head/inside right ear" immersion.
But cramming garbage truck load of even cheaper drivers won't ever create real positional cues.
We hear in 3D because shape of the head causes direction dependant changes to signal received by both ears from sound source.
(that's how stereo sound with speakers gives that left-right positional axis sound, or surround sound works with 5.1 speakers and sound track)
Brain simply decodes sound source location from difference of signal between ears.
Best approach is using mathemathical algorithm called HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function), which models how sounds coming from different directions behave in real world.
That produces left and right ear signals, which must be then played back directly into respective ears.
(which is why binaural sound doesn't work with speakers)
With accurate enough HRTF for your head shape and signal reproduction, sound positioning would be indistinguishable from reality.
Unfortunately sound aspect of gaming hasn't proceeded anywhere in last 15 years and even such basic physics thing as customizable HRTFs have been MIA.
That would help immersion for those with head shape differing more from average.
Creative actually has now Super X-Fi named tech, which uses photos of face and ears to customize HRTF to better fit listener's head shape.
(it also has headphone profiles to better maintain accuracy of binaural cues)
But for some crazy reason they seemingly haven't been developing it for gaming uses and Sound Blaster X3 is the only sound card with it.
While stereo music they've been pushing it for lacks surround spatial data and no amount of processing can make surround sound out of it!
(and binaural recording doesn't need and tolerate processing, which can only break cues)
So unfortunately except for SB X3 every sound card uses fixed average head shape based HRTF.
Though basic fooling of hearing isn't any harder than how magicians fool human senses:
Where it gets harder is good 360 positioning.
Here's some gameplay recordings with fair first minute of this being excellent quick test for headphones with sounds at different directions and distances.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1_20T8x_OI
https://youtu.be/UE-NorSeH68?t=3m23s
https://youtu.be/B8xZp0WPwxs?t=19m51s
With bad headphones those can really sound like having head in some bucket.
Don't know if there are any Super X-Fi recordings...
Anyway with customizing for non-average head shape those would as likely be to worser direction than better for random listener.
With pretty heavy bass dominance of your Denons I would expect those sound average at best compared to good for binaural sound headphones:
https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/DenonAHD600.pdf
That 300Hz square wave (which measures ability to reproduce different frequencies simultaneously) should have flat tops and bottoms with initial overshoot and then "bounce" or two before settling.
Anything else is bigger distortion of signal.
That should tell well how something sounding good doesn't tell anything about accuracy.
Open headphone is certainly good also for comfort.
With fabric/velour pads they breath best minimizing sweating.
Though if you have noisy keyboard and are pounding it hard, that could be problem with open headphones:
When not listening anything you basically hear environment's sounds normally.
That Monoprice is awfully heavy at 580 grams, so might be lot less than good for comfort in any longer gaming sessions.
That's literally twice of many dynamic driver headphones.
Of which AKG K701/K702 is one of the best possible headphones for binaural sound gaming, because of being designed for neutral sound instead of any fashion sound.
Though if you've played any with those Denons you would certainly find them badly lacking in "fun factor" and feeling like something was missing from gaming immersion.
While you could use equalizer to boost bass that runs into risk of signal clipping, which is bad thing if it happens.
(it's easier and safer to tone something down in equalizer than boost lot)
K712 is AKG's take on headphone having some above neutral kick/punch in bass.
But it brings insanely expensive to replace ear pads...
As in you would nearly get K701/K702 for the price of pair!
And of course in heavier use fabric/velour pads won't stay good and clean for many years.
And physical comfort wise that AKG's automatically adjusting head band isn't that hot:
It relies notable amount to pressure to keep ear cups positioned.
So if you've got big head that could cause feel of heavier pressure, while also fast stretching elastic bands part of automatic adjustment.
Again with smaller and narrower head cups could try to creep down.
My head is pretty near that limit and there's feel that they would easily creep down from movement.
Beyerdynamic's old fashioned manual adjustment is better for different head sizes.
And DT990 Edition is also clearly more comfortable with lower pressure.
(besides K702 and K712 I own also DT990)
For the price its studio use aimed DT990 Pro version can be had it's very good for balanced gaming with above neutral bass punch while not compromising details that badly.
(coiled cable, which is good if you have external sound card on table, but bad for internal sound card's connector in rear of the case)
Though that bass balancing "Beyer's treble" might feel somewhat harsh needing some tuning down it equalizer.
But neither is K712 or especially "cold analytical" K702 smooth in treble.
It's really "pick your poison" kind of situation...
Though if you keep Denons in music listening that shouldn't be problem
Thanks for taking the time to write these replies guys, I think I'm gonna go for a set of beyer amirons. I was contemplating the 990's or the 1990's but the cabling connecting the pads to the headband is kind of putting me off those models. Safe rather than sorry kind of thing.