iamjonathan31 said:

  hmm, did some digging and realized that open cans are not something I can get due to sound leakage (mostly I game while my girlfriend sleeps)
 
Does anyone have good experience with closed back headphones specifically for FPS gaming?  I've got a pair of momentums right now..will anything out there be significantly better for 300$ or less?

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What are you using to drive headphones?
 
For the price, Audio Technica ATH-A900Xs or AKG K550s
Find them used on eBay.

purpleangel said:

   
What are you using to drive headphones?
 
For the price, Audio Technica ATH-A900Xs or AKG K550s
Find them used on eBay.

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going to drive with a mixamp, which I just ordered

stillhart said:

  How close does your GF sleep while you're gaming and how loud do you game?  I find sound leakage to be pretty overblown at times.  Unless your GF is a spectacularly light sleeper and needs absolute silence, she won't notice.  If you have a fan on in the room, it'll be louder than your sound leakage.
 
EDIT - DT770, CAL, HP100/HP150

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we live in an open concept apartment (bedroom and living room are connected and separated by one wall that doesn't reach the height of the ceiling).  Basically just imagine two people on either end of a living room.  Does the sound leak for 8-10ft?  if it does and is anything more than a whisper, I probably can't take that option.  women :/
 
I read another thread here on headfi where someone said the a700x will leak a LOT of sound and someone in the same room will definitely hear it.  No go for me if that's the case.

stillhart said:

  I've been looking into DHTv4 because I haven't heard it discussed yet.

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Dolby Home Theater v4 is the same DSP as Dolby Headphone.
 

evshrug said:

Dolby Home Theater is used in the Asus U7 too, basically it has Dolby Headphone folded into it but also has some other do-dads for speakers.

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Yeah, the U7 has it, but it doesn't work correctly as you can only feed it 2 channels so it's like pro logic instead.

iamjonathan31 said:

   
we live in an open concept apartment (bedroom and living room are connected and separated by one wall that doesn't reach the height of the ceiling).  Basically just imagine two people on either end of a living room.  Does the sound leak for 8-10ft?  if it does and is anything more than a whisper, I probably can't take that option.  women :/
 
I read another thread here on headfi where someone said the a700x will leak a LOT of sound and someone in the same room will definitely hear it.  No go for me if that's the case.

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Had the same problem as you when my fiance and i lived rented a room and my desk was literally 2ft away from the bed and I HAD to make sure they headphones Isolated for my games. The Mad Dogs seem like they would fit the bill at  $300. The only noise i had to worry about waking her up was me making noises reacting the the game (Dota 2 makes me rage pretty hard).
 
The Mad Dog is a cool option as well since you can upgrade them later on to Mad Dog Pro or Alpha Dogs. I ended up upgrading them to Alpha Dogs when i got more of a steady income coming in (promotions yay!) and they now have an exceptional sound-stage for a closed can.
 
However, we recently moved to a 2 bedroom apartment where i have an office\mancave. The first thing i did was buy LCD2s now that i can get away with a noisy open can lol. 

chicolom said:

Dolby Home Theater v4 is the same DSP as Dolby Headphone.

Yeah, the U7 has it, but it doesn't work correctly as you can only feed it 2 channels so it's like pro logic instead.

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Oh snap that's worthless, better off getting the cheaper U3! But if it's part of the motherboard, the question is if then you can feed it 5.1/7.1 channels?

iamjonathan31 said:

we live in an open concept apartment (bedroom and living room are connected and separated by one wall that doesn't reach the height of the ceiling).  Basically just imagine two people on either end of a living room.  Does the sound leak for 8-10ft?  if it does and is anything more than a whisper, I probably can't take that option.  women :/

I read another thread here on headfi where someone said the a700x will leak a LOT of sound and someone in the same room will definitely hear it.  No go for me if that's the case.

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A700x is closed and probably doesn't leak much, the AD700x (notice the D) is open and leaks a fair bit.
So maybe there's a wall that doesn't reach the ceiling, does it occlude the sound enough to be unnoticeable while you play music through earbuds? And like Still said, most open cans (the Q701 and DT880 are partially closed, with some leakage reduction) aren't louder than a fan, one idea is you can run a fan and the soft noise will overpower the leakage from your headphones. I find the loudest thing when I game with headphones is me saying "Holy Crap!!!" to my microphone.

evshrug said:

Oh snap that's worthless, better off getting the cheaper U3!

But if it's part of the motherboard, the question is if then you can feed it 5.1/7.1 channels?

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That's exactly what I did.
 
 
It's more likely to work on the motherboard me thinks.  The problem with the Xonar was once you flipped it to "headphone" mode, the Xonar software locked it into a 2 channel configuration.  Hopefully a motherboard will let you set it to 5.1/7.1 channels though.

Some questions before I buy - Fildelio X1 - TubeMagic D1 Plus - V-moda BoomPro

My Goal:
 - Play games on ( PC - PS3 - Laptop - PS Vita )
 - Be able to chat ( Skype - Online Games )
 - Use the same combination to watch movies and Anime and play games
 - Use the same headphone for my phone, and iPod and PS Vita

I am dominantly a PC gamer but I do play on my PS3 sometimes. I also love to watch high quality movies and anime.

My questions:
 - Does an amp make a big difference with the X1s?
 - Since these are open cans, how much noise is radiated into my surrounding area? If I was on a plane would I annoy people around me?
 - Is the V-moda cable a good quality cable? I've always been a nut about high quality cables and power filtering.
 - Which is best TubeMagic D1 Plus or Schiit Modi + Mangi ?

stillhart said:

I've been looking into DHTv4 because I haven't heard it discussed yet.  I haven't really round any comparisons of the two.  I honestly don't know if it'll be any good or even do what you expect.  But you know, the price is right.  Check it out and let us know what you think!
 

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Sadly I couldn't get DHT working from my motherboard, I installed the audio drivers and the DHT program but it just didn't seem to work (it detected the headphones and all, but turning it off/on didn't change how 3D-audio sounded).

I decided to try the Razer Surround program I mentioned earlier (which simulates surround sound for any headset as well) and it worked surprisingly well. I have a cheap Logitech Stereo Headset H150 sitting around to test it with (using on-board audio vs my Corsair 1500s), the sound quality is quite a bit worse, but that's to be expected comparing a $15 headset to a $90 (the seem to run $100+ now) headset. As far as the 3d effect though, the Razer Surround seems to do a very good job, I actually prefer the surround from the Razer software on the cheap Logitech headset than my 1500s (being able to calibrate the effect helps, I can modify the exact positioning of the 7 points in the Razer software, can't do that with my 1500s).

I guess all that's left is to bite the bullet and buy some headphones and a mic then throw in a sound card when I can.

Thanks for all the suggestions, tips and help to everyone who replied.

desmondksa said:

  Some questions before I buy - Fildelio X1 - TubeMagic D1 Plus - V-moda BoomPro

My Goal:
 - Play games on ( PC - PS3 - Laptop - PS Vita )
 - Be able to chat ( Skype - Online Games )
 - Use the same combination to watch movies and Anime and play games
 - Use the same headphone for my phone, and iPod and PS Vita

I am dominantly a PC gamer but I do play on my PS3 sometimes. I also love to watch high quality movies and anime.

My questions:
 - Does an amp make a big difference with the X1s?
 - Since these are open cans, how much noise is radiated into my surrounding area? If I was on a plane would I annoy people around me?
 - Is the V-moda cable a good quality cable? I've always been a nut about high quality cables and power filtering.
 - Which is best TubeMagic D1 Plus or Schiit Modi + Mangi ?

Click to expand...

 
- An amp doesn't make a big difference, no.  But it will make a difference.  One of the nice things about the X1 is that it doesn't need an amp as much as some other headphones.
- Noise leakage out is about the same as any open can:  it will be noticeable to someone sitting right next to you for sure.  Leakage *in* is the bigger problem on the plane.  You really don't want to use an open can on a plane.
- Yes, it's a good quality cable.  I think it sounds better than stock.  You will likely like the stock cable better since it's thicker and nicer looking (but it doesn't sound better).
- I've not heard either of those.  I was considering the Tubemagic at one point because it has an optical input for the DAC.  That will allow you to add a sound card later for virtual surround.  I ended up not getting it because I was worried about some quality issues.
 
I ended up spending a little more and getting a used Audio-GD NFB-15.32 (mine was like $235?).  I think it's well worth the money if you can snag one.  Amazing bang for the buck.

Hi, sorry for disturb you guys again, but i still dont decided what headphone to buy.
Here the options again:
AD700X
HD598
K701/K702/Q701
PC G4ME One
 
I have $200-250 to spend and i wil buy on amazon, my focus is basically FPS games. I can ignore the difference of prices if is on this price ($250). Please give me opinions and sorry for disturbing!

iamjonathan31 said:

Does anyone have good experience with closed back headphones specifically for FPS gaming?  I've got a pair of momentums right now..will anything out there be significantly better for 300$ or less?

Click to expand...

 
I can get some surprisingly good positioning out of my Beyerdynamic MMX 300, basically a DT770 Premium 32-ohm with a nice mic built-in and an insane price premium compared to buying a DT770 and separate mic, unless you get a good used deal on it.
 
Assuming that most of the DT770 variants sound similar, I'd say they'd be capable of doing the job, but there's a whole lot of talk about bass-light and bass-heavy versions, not to mention all the different impedances and Pro vs. Premium models (noticeable by the earcups; the Premium ones are discontinued right now, but look more like the MMX 300 sans mic in their roundedness and lack of ridge in the middle of the cups).

ursow94 said:

  Hi, sorry for disturb you guys again, but i still dont decided what headphone to buy.
Here the options again:
AD700X
HD598
K701/K702/Q701
PC G4ME One
 
I have $200-250 to spend and i wil buy on amazon, my focus is basically FPS games. I can ignore the difference of prices if is on this price ($250). Please give me opinions and sorry for disturbing!

Click to expand...

 
 
I'd go with the Q701.
 
If you prefer a headset, the G4ME One is OK, although the Q701 is better for music and single player games.

Thanks for your response stillhart. You mentioned you originally wanted a DAC with an optical port. Is going through the headphone port on your sound card, or optical to a DAC to your headphones going to give you a better surround sound experience?

jaysins said:

Thanks for your response stillhart. You mentioned you originally wanted a DAC with an optical port. Is going through the headphone port on your sound card, or optical to a DAC to your headphones going to give you a better surround sound experience?

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If you go through a decent dedicated DAC, it will though only a few DSPs allow it, like the U3.
It's not a possibility on consoles yet though, only PC.