Razer Megalodon 7.1 USB Surround Sound Headset

Seany84

Seany84

Seany84

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Hi all,

I am in the process of building a new machine. I am looking at ordering the Gigabyte P67A-UD7 Intel P67 motherboard which has the following audio spec:
Realtek ALC889 codec, High Definition Audio, 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel, Support for Dolby® Home Theater, Support for S/PDIF Out
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Q1: Would the Razer Megalodon 7.1 USB Surround Sound Headset be a good headset. 90% of the usage would be FPS games and other 10% music.

Q2: Would I be better off to buy a dedicated sound card as opposed to onboard? Is there a significant difference between onboard and let's say the Asus Xonar D1 7.1 PCI Sound Card?


Thanks in advance

EDIT:
Just saw the Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp. Would this be a better choice than the 7.1 Xonar above. I will only be using a headset with this machine.
 
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The headset in my opinion isn't worth it. In regards to your questions :

1) The Razer doesn't actually plug into the sound card on your motherboard. It plugs into your USB and the 7.1 is done by the USB soundcard that is attached.

2) The onboard will be fine for 99% of things, I'd only say getting a discrete sound card is worth it if you're plugging into something like an external AMP or you're an audiophile.

From some reviews I've read of this headset the 7.1 is sometimes poor. I'm not completely clued up on it but you'd be better off with just a decent set of headphones. I think the Razer is overpriced personally.
 
Facepalm :o No point in looking at a dedicated sound card if I am getting/looking at USB headset. Doh!

I wonder if the Corsair Gaming Audio Series HS1 USB Gaming Headset is any good. I would be a bit wary buying a 1st generation audio product from a company who has no experience in this field as far as I am aware..

Any recommendations on a nice looking, comfortable, good quality gaming headset. Budget of around £150.

Thanks
 
I have the Razer Carcharias hooked up to a X-Fi Xtreme Music and they are superb - the bottom OcUK product review is by me if you wanted to check it out.

Custom PC Mag also done a Headset shootout a few issues ago and said the Razer Carcharias were the best of the bunch they tested, if you want I could dig out the article and scan it in at work tomorrow?

Cheers,

Craig
 
Thanks I would really appreciate that.

I have bought some dodgy expensive peripherals in the past. An overpriced razer keyboard which was very disappointing. I got a Creative Fatal1ty headset a few years ago which is just terrible too.

Although I am not too surprised considering I was asking about dedicated sound cards versus onboard when I was looking at a USB headset :D
 
Do you need a microphone? If not a decent set of Sennheisers etc. might be worth it? I bought a pair of Sennheiser HD580s about ... 7 years ago for around £160, the cables are replaceable and I bout one a couple of years ago for £20 to replace the original which had frayed.

They are exceptionally comfortable and have lasted ages with almost daily use. I bought a cheap Senneheiser headset/mic as well if I needed voice comms.
 
Kona* said:
I have the Razer Carcharias hooked up to a X-Fi Xtreme Music and they are superb - the bottom OcUK product review is by me if you wanted to check it out.
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I have just been reading up on this headset. It is the exact same headset as the Megaladon, the mega has an inbuilt 7.1 card apparently.

I wonder is the internal card in this headset better than my onboard audio.. Would love to know that one..

VaderDSL said:
Do you need a microphone? If not a decent set of Sennheisers etc. might be worth it? I bought a pair of Sennheiser HD580s about ... 7 years ago for around £160, the cables are replaceable and I bout one a couple of years ago for £20 to replace the original which had frayed.

They are exceptionally comfortable and have lasted ages with almost daily use. I bought a cheap Senneheiser headset/mic as well if I needed voice comms.
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I do need a mic, gaming and Skype. I have a beautiful set of wireless Sennheisers in work, I can't remember the model but I think it is HS150 or 180.. Unfortunately, there is no mic on it.
 
A separate clip-on mic from a company like Speedlink will do just as good a job as any mic attached to a gaming headset.

I would suggest a decent set of headphones from Sennheiser like the HD555 or HD595, or Goldring are also often recommended although I can't remember the exact model names.
 
Overclockers do not sell either of these brands :( Would love to just order my new rig with everything bundled :)

I'll have a look at this headset as I am a big Sennheiser fan. Although I would much prefer an integrated mic.
 
If you seriously require an attached mic, I suppose I can suggest the Sennheiser PC 3xx series. They have good reviews, but I can't help thinking that they just aren't as good value when compared to their other headphones. The PC 360 can be had for around £130 I believe.
 
LiamJ said:
A separate clip-on mic from a company like Speedlink will do just as good a job as any mic attached to a gaming headset.
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I have to disagree. I bought an Elara Clip-on Mic (this is the one by Speedlink) after I had recommendations on this forum and it was terrible, even ~1ft away it picked up every little background noise (keyboard presses were especially loud) and it made me sound like I was miles away; this wasn't limited to me either, as they were only £5 or so I bought two more for friends as we have weekly games of DAoC and they experienced the same results. You cannot compare the sound quality between the Elara and the Carcharias mic as they are in totally different leagues, although what more can you expect from a sub £10 mic.

I've created an album on imgur for the Custom PC Headset Shootout here: http://verta.imgur.com/90T8O

Apologies for the file sizes and some missing text, our scanner isn't the greatest and simply wouldn't scan the entire width of the page, no matter where I placed the sheet. I experimented with different file extensions, PDF's were very poor quality to the point where you could read the text and TIFF's were ~11MB each so I opted for JPEG's, each image is ~5MB but imgur has done a good job of resizing so it's not too bad for loading :)

Cheers,

Craig
 
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LiamJ said:
If you seriously require an attached mic, I suppose I can suggest the Sennheiser PC 3xx series. They have good reviews, but I can't help thinking that they just aren't as good value when compared to their other headphones. The PC 360 can be had for around £130 I believe.
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I do need a decent enough mic as I do some Camtasia screen recordings for clients of systems I am working on.

Kona* said:
I have to disagree. I bought an Elara Clip-on Mic (this is the one by Speedlink) after I had recommendations on this forum and it was terrible, even ~1ft away it picked up every little background noise (keyboard presses were especially loud) and it made me sound like I was miles away; this wasn't limited to me either, as they were only £5 or so I bought two more for friends as we have weekly games of DAoC and they experienced the same results. You cannot compare the sound quality between the Elara and the Carcharias mic as they are in totally different leagues, although what more can you expect from a sub £10 mic.

I've created an album on imgur for the Custom PC Headset Shootout here: http://verta.imgur.com/90T8O
Click to expand...

Thanks for the article Craig. I had a read and basically the Razers are the gaming headsets to go for. I would be swayed towards the Megaladon as it has the integrated 7.1 card which I presume would be better than the inbuild audio card in the motherboard.
 
Seany84 said:
I do need a decent enough mic as I do some Camtasia screen recordings for clients of systems I am working on.



Thanks for the article Craig. I had a read and basically the Razers are the gaming headsets to go for. I would be swayed towards the Megaladon as it has the integrated 7.1 card which I presume would be better than the inbuild audio card in the motherboard.
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I think the other way round, the inbuilt soundcard will be better than the USB one, the motherboard is hardware based the 7.1 is a mix of software/hardware. The onboard stuff is really quite good, especially on the higher end boards imo.
 
I'm thinking Xonar DG + Carcharias.

You can try out the Megalodon's 7.1 audio effect with your existing headphones here: http://www2.razerzone.com/Megalodon/ - see Maelstrom Audio Engine.

I prefer Dolby Headphone and the DG is the cheapest card to do it.

Edit: A few Dolby Headphone demos with just about acceptable enough sound quality to hear the effect.

N.B. I'm recommending Carcharias on reputation alone. Not tried them. Experience with Dolby Headphone varies depending on what equipment you're listening to it on.
 
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FWIW, the clip on mic that I received with my Steelseries headset is brilliant - it sits clipped to my keyboard cable and sounds fine.
 
Uriel said:
Useful stuff
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Thank you so much for posting this demo video.


I've been looking for something like this for ages. To play Music in virtual 5.1. It sounds awesome too. When i finally got it all working and messing about with it, i actually glanced at my front right speaker (whilst wearing headphones) it was that good at directional sound. :D;)

For anyone else interested, there is a link in the video description which links to Head-fi forums. Full instructions on how to achieve it are within that forum.
 
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I personally prefer to use the Dolby Headphone plugin without the channel mixer (simulating stereo speakers for stereo music). For tracks with good stereo imaging using the mixer just interferes with the soundstage. Still it's nice that Foobar is versatile enough to cater for different tastes.
 
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