An In-Depth Headset Round-up Review(Turtle Beach HPX | Astro A40 | Sennhieser PC 350) - Page 2

That makes me lol!

Thanks for the reviews, man! I'm looking for an over the ear headphone to enjoy my music at home. I'm new to this world but already got a pair of jewels for me: RE0 and Triple Fi 10. Now I'm looking to buy a big boy for me, and the 650 is catching my attention for sure...

Keep on the good work!

No wonder Astro aren't too keen on sending out demo units. Anyway cheers for the review.

Steggy, you said you had the hd555 before moving up to the 595?? I just ordered the hd555 off of amazon, and i was just wondering how you thought it would compare to the other headphones in this review as far as music and gaming. i recently bought the a40 audio system, and although its not horrible as far as sound quality, its not near as good as it should be for the price. the directional positioning isnt too bad, as i seem to have an easy enough time pinpointing where people are coming from. but honestly, i have a $60 pair of sonys that seem to do just as good as far as music listening.

As you can tell from my number of posts, im pretty much brand new to the high quality headphones thing. the hd555 will be my first good set of headphones. so i was wondering how you thought it would stack up in the review compared to the other headphones mentioned. and i already have the a40 mixamp which i will use with the hd555 for gaming, but would it help the senns at all for music listening? i apologize for all the questions, but like i said, im new lol. thanks.

Yea the A40's were made mainly for voice communication and position isolation. Since they are formulated for competition gaming. Sort of how you wouldn't use Aviation headphones for music. Everything from there is subjective obviously, but I wouldn't recommend the headset. The mixamp on the other hand to me is a god send.

I use the mixamp though and I love it, it seems to have enough power for my DT770, at first I was worried but not anymore. I wouldn't go near the a40 headset for obvious reasons . Even on AVS forums one of the astro heads recommended picking up a pair of headphones with the mixamp(or so I have heard).

Especially for the price of the mixamp alone, if you have any gaming interest at that price point alone it is more than worth it. I use it via Toslink from my PC, PS3 and 360. I generally don't use DH mode unless I am gaming or receiving a 5.1 stream. If there is a particularly harsh(or strange single channel online video stream. Enabling DH saves my ears and sanity. You can get decent 5.1 emulation from stereo music with DH enabled and a few foobar tweaks(Channel Mixer, + Asio to make a virtual 5.1 device to properly route channel mixer's setting). Not really a fan of emulated 5.1 in my music though.

I am an astro fanboy but I generally don't recommend the head set. People do complain about it, primarily because they failed to do ANY research or ask questions. Just based on reviews I knew they were not for me.

I have only used the mixamp with closed Headphones
DT770 Pro/250ohm
MDR-7506

Both work well with it though, I never find myself lacking in depth and positional audio. Everything stays up close and personal while still accurately giving me the perception of distance and position. Now I understand what people complain about the a40 headset itself, most of this time I thought it was mainly the effect of loosing sharp lefts and sharp rights. Besides the loss in bass which I found funny as every review stated this.

Great thanks, I'll look forward to it. Would also appreciate a review using the DT880s, as those seem to get a lot of praise as well. Also, you mentioned you used to have the K601s. Based on your memory of their sound, how would you rank them?

Hopefully you will get your hands on the ATH M50's. For around $90 that is a price that is hard to beat if they review really well. I have some on the way and Ill try it out with my mix amp right away. Im still not sure what mic to order though. Is the zalman still considered the way to go without having something around your neck?

Anyone ever order from Xoxide? They seem to have a good price on the Zalman mic.

On a side note I hope there isn't anything wrong with my astro mix amp because I felt that they were woefully under powering my HD650's when I had them. My Raptor transformed them greatly unlike the astro that barely made them audible. That might be stretching it a bit but that is how I felt.

I've never shopped from Xoxide, but resellerratings.com has them with a lifetime rating over 9, so I imgaine that they're trustworthy. However, BestByte.net has the Zalman mic for $7.78 shipped (see link). Unless there's a better alternative to the Zalman mic, I think I'll be buying one for the AD700 cans that I'm about to buy.

Steggy, thanks for a great review - I thought it was really well put together. A shame that the PC350s were demo and you couldn't mod them;
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/mod...eadset-406187/
As it does make a world of difference on the admittedly anemic bass of the stock cans.

I'm looking forward to a comparison with maybe more mixer options - like the JVC SU-DH1 and Razer's new offering in the gaming/DH space.

I'm pretty much in love with my AD-700s right now. Just got them two days ago and holy !@#$ing batman, when they say they're really comfortable they mean it. They're so big yet it feels as if nothings on your head.

In an FFA game on MW2 this morning I was locating enemies all over the place (I feel like FFA really makes headphones shine because you don't need to decipher a footstep as an enemy or a friendly). One guy kept dieing to me before he could blink around the corner (I can pinpoint his footsteps and prefire, killing him before he can even get a shot off) and he's like, "WHAT THE !@#$!?? Oh... he's got UAV", which I definitely didn't. I thought it was pretty hilarious.

I get my mixamp tommorow, pretty stoked I'm glad I spent a whole week researching and found these forums. Otherwise I would be stuck with "gaming" headphones that are utter trash. Right now I'm just trying to find a mic solution because i dont want velcro on my headphones, I use them for work and my ipod (seriously these are the best $100 bucks I've ever spent).

I would've gone with dt880 or akg601s if not for the fact that they are poorly run through an Ipod and need an amp. Plus add the purchase of the astro mixamp into the mix and things get really expensive. But who knows maybe i'll upgrade in the future.

Excellent round-up Steggy, and just when I'm beginning to shop for a gaming headset/headphone. I'm definitely looking forward to your impressions of the AD700's.

When you get your hands on those, do you think you could give your opinion without the Astro Mixamp? I've done enough reading here to understand that a proper headphone amp makes a world of difference, but I'm trying to keep my budget around $100 and am very interested in the AD700's. (That $100 is flexible; as soon as I discovered Head-fi I knew I'd never be able to stick to it.) For now the headphones would be connected through my home theater receiver with a PS3 as the source. FWIW, my receiver is a Pioneer VSX-919AH-K and I have not been able to find any information on its performance with headphones or any sort of simulated surround similar to DH or the Yamaha Silent Cinema.

Also, if anyone could help me with this issue: the PS3 does not have a 3.5mm microphone jack, so I would have to go the USB route. However, my setup is in the living room and I don't have a desk or table to set a boom or stand mic on. Is there some sort of 3.5mm-to-USB adapter that would work for the Zalman clip-on mic? Or is there another option I should consider?

Thanks so much for your help!

Thanks for that bro. I actually did buy it from bestbyte and they shipped it out to me already. So they did that very quickly. So both my ATH M50's and my Zalman mic are on the way and for a grand total of $97.78. Im impressed with myself lol. I think this is about the best deal for the money I could come up with. Cant wait to try it all with the mixamp.