Mad Lust Envy's Headphone Gaming Guide: (Updated: 5/23/2013. MrSpeakers Mad Dog v.3.2 Reviewed) - Page 704

Just a quick thanks to MLE and Chico for answering my questions and helping us all out with your knowledge!

 

I finally got all of my gear (Q701's, Magni/Modi and Mixamp Pro 2013) and have been enjoying it immensely all weekend. No disappointments (other than the occasional audio dropout with the Mixamp when gaming on Xbox) and my 24/96 flac files sound superb with these cans

 

I agree with what Mad said. Go with what you feel. Be objective, but throw a little creative subjectivity in there :P It is emotional :')

Hey Sheik!
Good for you!
It's a pretty big difference, huh? Btw, how do you like the mini-Shiit stack with the Q701?

OMG did Mad say he was thinking of selling the 65" plasma? I mean, that's too big for me, but... I'd only get a smaller Panasonic plasma instead


SoAmusing,
Thank you ( ':
Edited by Evshrug - 1/6/13 at 4:41pm

Honestly its the first pair of headphones Ive had in decades, although I do use my Shure E5's when I travel. The setup is simply amazing :) While waiting for my Schiit to arrive I was listening through the headphone jack from my AVR ( it has headphone surround) but it left much to be desired. Once I got the Magni, the 701's really came to life!

 

That being said, I have been spoiled with using my 5.1 Home Theater system for so I wanted to get as close as possible (within a budget) to that experience. Im not disappointed

 

I'd be extremely interested in the Mixamp if they'd make it with HDMI. That way I could have my receiver, with Silent Cinema, and Dolby headphone at the same time, while supporting PCM on DH and chat volume control. If anything, if I'm not using SC on my receiver, it could be doing everything else.

Thankfully, I bought mine during the Holiday window directly from Amazon, so I can just return it for a full refund, minus the $6 or so shipping :D Buying the Annie's Friday.

 

Good man. You'll be more than happy I'm sure :) Lol. I'm done after this too, until I find a great universal IEM or a deal for some STAX come along.

 

I wonder the same Nameless. I'm also impressed, lol. You and I are on the exact same page as far as the KB goes. Again with the tech stuff, lol. What is a Wacom digitizer? lol. Power and size? Wait for this years octa-cores and 1080p AMOLED. Perfection :D Good to know. Okay, so are you saying I would have to RCA with the STAX on my receiver? What about a mixamp? lol. Doesn't T-mo have the best unlimited data plan since it's truly unlimited? I'd have to say your query is just about right. I'm interested in the Lambda's as well. It makes sense :) Glad to hear I'm not the only one that gets a little lost, lol. Haha, great great grandfather. I love how STAX have withstood the test of time. Yes, of course, we all have. I don't like the bass on the Q's.

Yeah, I suppose it is, lol, but honestly, it's not that much money IMO. It's just money too :P

Yayy, solid bass. Just what I wanted.

That is correct. I'd like to know this as well, but I'll still be buying the Annie's no matter what.

Oooh. I never heard of swiftkey. Yeah, I like swype too, but still miss the keyboard.

Lol.

 

That's great gear man! Although, I would have recommended the Mixamp 2011 version to you. Glad to hear it :) lol, literally. Where do you get your FLAC files btw?

Ok, I can't hold it anymore. Shiit stack? LOLOLOL. I know you mean Schiit, but still, sounds the same. Ya, he did. Nice picture, hahaha. I would recommend an IPS monitor, or even an OLED TV/monitor, but those aren't out yet. They are due out this year though! So excited! It will make all other TV's obsolete :P You'reeee welcome.

Lol, that's a LONG time. Funny you mention the E5's. I was interested in those before I joined Head-fi, as my mobile headphone. How are they? How are they compared to the Q? Ever game with them? You even mention them just lightly. Those are extremely nice IEM's. I'd say they are the best universal IEM on the market right now, bar the K3003, but that is a bit much. Which AVR do you have? You all already have me interested highly in DH. I'm just waiting on a HDMI version of the mixamp or something alike.

Hey, btw, anyone have any other recommendations for a mic adapter so I can use the Modmic on the PS3? Should I use a cheapy USB soundcard? The last adapter I had that I used with the Psyko Carbon headphone mic made the mic sound distorted/high pitched.

Aw blast, I didn't even realize I forgot the C. Oh well, only said what we all think when we read it anyway. Serious marketing balls of steel there.

I like IPS monitors, they do pretty well. I haven't seen OLED screens before (though I thought some DSLR cameras had them?). However, I have NEVER seen picture quality like I get with my Panasonic Plasma. Panasonic inherited (bought) Pioneer's Plasma tech, which was the best in the world. Samsung has developed their plasmas to be very good and almost as great as the Panasonic/Pioneer sets, but... Well, my 42" plasma really astounds me.

This is a completely serious review: all LCD HDTVs (even the best LEDs from Samsung & Sony) look a little gray to me in comparison, and my plasma just has this "Pop!" to the richness of the color because of the contrast. I love silver-emulsion prints, but I was so impressed with seeing my photography on my Plasma that I incorporated it into my senior art show for college. Turn off all the image enhancing and feed it a native resolution signal, and the plasma has less lag and more distinct motion for gaming second only to CRT TVs. There are also a lot of myths about Plasma TVs... If you look up power consumption, they consume less watts than a chandelier, image burn-in is only about as likely as on a CRT TV (mfrs also implement prevention and "clearing" tools), and they last for 100,000 hours. If you use the TV for 8 hours a day, every day, the Plasma would be only able to reach half-brightness by 30 years. 30 years is a long time for TVs, at least in this day where the next "big upgrade! " is right around the corner.

The only negative, at least some people say, is that if you take a still image and slowly pan it (slide or zoom the image around), sometimes you see a "screen door" effect between the pixels. It's subtle though, and I'm sure that Panasonic has improved on that (higher pixel density helps). I don't see it on my set, 720p at 42", that I got for $400 two years ago while working at Sears (yay employee discount!). Oh, and you have to keep it upright, even during brief transport. My next computer monitor will be an IPS, professionally calibrated, but if I had to get another TV right now it would be a Panny Plasma.

It's sitting in a box in our basement right now :'(

As far as a mic adapter... I'm not sure? The Recon3D transmits PS3 chat audio over USB :P
Couldn't you just plug in a USB mic that has it's own stand or something? I don't know, I don't have a PS3 so I can't experiment :P
How would you use a Mixamp or whatever processor through HDMI anyway? Would it have HDMI Input and output, so you can pass the video signal along? At that point you're basically using the processor like a receiver, anyway. I guess I wish more that companies selling receivers would improve their headphone surround processing :/ Silent Cinema is almost there, my preference would just be they diminished the reverb/echo and... Nope, that's pretty much it.

Mad, in case you ever wondered, Silent Cinema (lol I keep trying to type "Scilent Cinema") sounds almost just like DH in the (in)famous Crysis 2 YouTube vid, except you can adjust the tone and amount of reverb (haven't tried turning the "Action Game" DSP strength down all the way yet, I decided at some point that I could live with -3 "dB").

Somebody's killing a guitar downstairs!
Edited by Evshrug - 1/8/13 at 1:13am

Haha. No doubt. OLED is on a lot of Samsung phones and the note II. It's the best tech out there for screens. IPS vs Plasma? Interesting. Yeah, I had a Vizio plasma. Heavy, hot, and it went out over time. It was pretty nice looking though! Only 720p too. A better one would do. If I ever look into it again, I'll look for a Panny! What happened to Pioneer though? I know what you mean about the greyness. You brought your TV to school? lol. Well then, I feel bad now. I should have gotten a Plasma. I knew about the myths. Wow, that's not a whole lotta power. Hmm, I think I didn't get a plasma due to the size. I couldn't find anything smaller than 32". I want a 1080p plasma too. Well, that works then. Nice price! Ah, I see. Sounds good! I got the LG IPS. It's in my profile. OLED is the best though. Why is it sitting down there?

 

Recon 3D is like $100 though. Too much for just wanting to get my mic working on the PS3. Yes, but I wanna use the modmic. I guess it would have to? Ask Mad how he thinks Astro would do it, lol. Yes, the reverb echo is definitely something I noticed immediately. What would happen if it was turned down all the way? What do you prefer though? Silent Cinema or the Mixamp?

Edited by SoAmusing777 - 1/6/13 at 7:38pm

I believe iPads use IPS too? Ignoring the iPad 3 & 3.5's "retina" resolution, I'm more impressed by the best Plasma display tech. However, IPS is clearly superior for portables and computer workstation monitors. Any extra battery life is a boon, and so is thin/light. When I was looking for an HDTV, I couldn't find any Plasmas smaller than 42". You've gotta choose based on the application.

Here's an article that breaks it down for you: http://hdguru.com/the-case-for-plasma-vs-ledlcd-hdtv/9373/

I read one site where a $4,500 local dimming LED (Sharp Elite) outperformed the contrast ratio of a Panasonic plasma... costing $1,300. And the improvement is very small. And that doesn't take into account refresh rate (600 Hz, a DisplayPort input would be ah-MAZEing!) and viewing angles and all that Plasmas do.

Pioneer, I guess, just decided during the terribad economy to stop making Plasmas (the 720p Kuro was their famous set) and sell it. Panasonic bought. Pioneer is making a storm right now in the speaker sector however: their entry-level speakers are getting rave reviews as the best budget speakers.

You would have a better chance to test different SC settings than me right now, as my receiver is also boxed up in the basement. So are my speakers, and a lot of my stuff in general. My mom doesn't want me to "fully" move back in. But anyway, I haven't heard the Mixamp, my only DH experience comes from YouTube videos I hope to make a THX TruStudio Pro sample for others so they can see what works best for them, soon as I figure out how to sync a "What U Hear" audio sample to a FRAPS recorded video, or something. Nameless is selling his Recon3D for $75, I think.

Go look up OLED. Seriously. It will put CRT, Plasma, everything to shame. Man, too big. Way too big. I heard of the Kuro. I see. Okayy. Still though, a C-media mic2usb is like 5 to 10 dollars. I don't need that entire thing just for my mic, lol.

I like 42" from my couch. It does feel large, but not in a bad way.

How's this for power? From Panasonic's most popular 42" current model:
http://www.panasonic.com/includes/docs/pdf/energy-guide/PKUU_TQF2AA628_TC-P42S30_FTC_LABEL_outline.pdf

 

It's irrelevant. It's too big. I'm gonna be sitting 5feet or less from the screen. I'll be using it like a monitor.

I won't buy another Panny plasma until they fix the image retention issues. Having the Borderlands 2 UI burnt into my st30 for 3 weeks was terrifying. My next tv will be a Samsung and still a plasma unless Panny steps up. Bring on 4k res Plasmas. OLED will have to come down way in price before I would touch it.

I have a huge collection of bootlegs (~3TB worth) that I have collected for the last 15 years or so. Lots through trades as well as a few servers (dimeadozen, Live Music Archive, and a few private servers) and I rip all of my cd's to flac as soon as I get them.

 

Yeah the E5's are amazing! I travel too much not to have something decent to listen to music with. I use them with a Rio Karma and even though its somewhat dated, it seems to drive them fine and natively plays flac files.  Never gamed with them only because I have my home theater system to rumble the house hahaha. My AVR is the Pioneer VSX-53 and it has what they call Headphone Surround but it just doesnt compare to the Magni and Mixamp. I run hdmi from my xbox to the AVR but Im guessing the headphone amp is just really lacking to adequately drive these bad boys.

Edited by Sheik Yerbutay - 1/6/13 at 9:25pm