Wireless gaming h/phones with mic for £50-£100 possilbe?

Spon

Spon

Spon

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9 Jan 2003
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243
Hi guys,

Is it possible to get good wireless headphones with a good mic for £50 to £100 for quiet gaming at night? or a wired ones prefered? Any recomendations?
 
Wired is always preferred, as there is more choice and more for your money.

However £100 should get something:

After browsing for a while, all I could find are Philips SHB6102/05 (which apparently aren't great either)

Why not just get a closed set of cans and standalone mic. Thats what I've done, this way you some quality cans which you can use for anything. And you simply configure the microphone so that you only need to talk quiet ow whatever.
 
If you decide to look for wired I would recommend the Speedlink Medusa if you are after 5.1 for gaming. I love mine, they are comfortable and the mic is decent quality. I got the Home Edition as it has a seperate amplifier box with the ability to choose 2x inputs and 2xoutputs. So i only have to press a button to choose between speakers and headset. Never used any other input though.
 
Thanks Phillydee i look into those. Thanks Shimmy, from looking around i can see that headphones seem to have great sound but bad mic or visa-versa. Closed cans and a separate mic seems a good idea thanks. Do you know of any good microphones, clip on ones i guess as i dont want desktop ones?
 
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For a microphone, I just use a sub-£3 desktop mic I got from Tesco, and it works fine. I'd try something like that first, or a cheap clip-on one, before spending more on something which may offer little audible improvement. With your budget, I'd say you should be looking for a nice pair of stereo headphones. Consider looking into Audio Technica's Art range--such as the A500, A700 and A900 if you can find it for a descent price--for a good pair of closed cans. They also do open cans, like the AD700 and AD900, but I'd want closed for gaming, since they usually offer better bass impact which I prefer for FPS games. There are also the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro (80 ohm) which is what I use personally. They are very comfortable, and are often considered "bass-head" headphones, which is why a lot of gamers go for them since explosions and gun fire sound a lot better in FPS games.
 
Spon said:
thankx man sounds good. Is it worth going for 5.1 headsets instead of stereo?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say so. I tried the Speedlink Medusas Home Edition 5.1 headphones, and I thought they were absolute junk.

They weren't made very well: it felt like they were going to break when handling them since the joints between the cups and headband felt so weak.

Gaming wasn't too bad, I suppose. I mean, sound positioning worked to a certain extent, in that I could hear roughly where sounds were coming from (whether it was from behind or in front, left, right, etc.). However, since the drivers inside each cup are so small, they sound very tinny. This is especially emphasised when trying to hear sounds coming from the behind, a problem many seem to have with these particular 'phones, because the "subwoofer" speakers inside of them don't work in conjunction with the rear speakers. Therefore, bass could only be heard when sound was coming from the front of me, so when sound was coming from behind (whether it be a rocket launcher or the apocalypse), it always sounded like something flicking a tin can with their finger. Even when the "subwoofer" speakers were working, I couldn't get these 'phones to produce any low frequencies for the life of me. In Oblivion, for example, swinging a sword usually produces a warm "swumph" sound--not the best onomatopoeia, but eh--which sounds absolutely terrible with the Medusas. Same with CS:S; guns sounded like those little wooden guns that shoot corks attached to a piece of string you had when you were a kid, but worse. I guess, what I'm saying is, I didn't have the best experience with these headphones when gaming, which was their intended purpose when I bought them.

I have a similar opinion on their music performance, too: It was pretty crap. Without using CMSS-3D, or something similar, only the front speaker in each cup would output sound so, as you can imagine, the quality wasn't too overwhelming. Since there are 4 drivers in each cup, they have to be shrunk-down in size in order for them to fit, obviously compromising their output capabilities. Basically, it wasn't very good for me, since only 1/4 of the 'phones potential was being used, and even then it wasn't being used very well.

Sorry for the long read, but I just thought I'd voice--well, type--my opinion so someone doesn't make the same mistake I did. Now, you might be thinking: here's someone who's picky about audio, and the Medusas will probably be fine for me. Well, let me tell you, I am by no means an audiophile. In fact, I consider myself quite the opposite. Against the advice of others to get stereo headphones, I regretfully got the 5.1 ones which I thought I'd be totally happy with, after all, I've been using 5.1 PC speaker system which cost me £20 from an auction site. Anyway, the point is, I'm not picky at all and the Medusas sounded terrible, even to me. I'd skip out this stage, and go straight to getting some stereo 'phones which, by the way, I've found to be better at positional audio than the 5.1 Medusas I used previously.
 
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Thanks Mansize. The more detail the better its very helpfull thank you for your efforts!. I looked around at the Audio Technica's A500 and A700, Sony V6's and just now order a pair of Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro (80 ohm version). Will let you know how i get on
 
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