So, I have been doing the rounds on the PC gaming front for quite a while now. Used a bunch of different headsets, from the standard 20 quid on the shelf ones to some of the more expensive and 'elitist' headsets that can be found on the market.
Firstly, my main task is this: to find out if there are any other headsets out there, specifically designed for gaming, that come with a wider audio range than the apparent norm of what I call the '20 to 20' range. Namely meaning, 20 Hz to 20 kHz in the audio frequency response ranges.
I have used all but a few which do not fall into this category.
My first ever 'gaming headset' was a plantronics .audio 90. An 'on the ear' headset.
It held up decently in gaming with my onboard laptop sound card (I know, hardly the best gear for an audiophile but it did the trick) and lasted me a good 2 years. It was comfortable on the ears, sounded decent and worked a treat... before I decided the microphone would also like some of the baked beans on toast I was eating. Needless to say, it did not. Alas, a few weeks after the misfed incident, my microphone stopped working. And so it found the bin!
My next purchase was one more Plantronics headset, the .audio 510 usb one. My first 'square' ear cupped set and also my first USB set.
The audio quality was pretty decent, good bass and nice highs but it had two things against it. Firstly, those square ear cups. Covered in HORRIBLE synthetic leather that did nothing for the wearability of the headset. I have a sweaty set of ears, and when gaming those sweat even more. When covered by synthetic, unforgiving leather, it was like I was running a tap down my head....ok maybe not that bad but still. Comfort went straight out the window!
I also wear glasses, and those earpieces tended to squeeze just a liiiittle too much to pinch my ears between the band of the ear cups, the arms of my glasses...and my skull. I could hardly bear to wear these things for more than a half hour at a time. In addition to this, the ear cups had decided they would take on a shape of their own and would not, no matter how hard I tried, sit on my head nicely. They always lifted from the back end which pronounced that pinch even more.
These now live with a friend of mine who uses them for everything and enjoys them. Case of the mismatched cranium? I certainly won't know.
After that rather disastrous pairing I went for a few headsets which were not of the gaming ilk. The HD525's from Sennheiser and the HD 215's again from Sennheiser. Both of them offered SUPERB comfort and very nice audio response. I unfortunately purchased the 525's thinking they were closed back, unfortunately they were not which is what prompted me to buy the 215's.
I shall skip my portion of these headsets as they are not strictly for gaming but suited me right down to the ground. Comfy, good sound and at the time, were a pretty decent price!
Next, as it was around Christmas time I decided to spoil myself and purchased a pair of the Sennheiser PC350 gaming headsets. I found the love of my life! These encompassed everything I loved about Sennheiser and shoved a decent quality mic on them! Over the ear, comfortable wear (I wore these for 8 hours at one point, and only took them off to have a shower and other breaks for food and such) and the sound quality was astounding (to my ears anyway).
The reason I rate these so highly is that they were the first headset I have come across that did bass WELL! The spec sheet on these bad boys listed them as 10 Hz – 26,000 KHz. I do a lot of gaming and these performed EXCEPTIONALLY well. Explosions, sounds of a base being constructed or even just the voices of your units on the battlefield sounded rich, adjusted and realistic. Well, as far as a game can go to sounding ‘realistic’ that is.
The point is, I loved these. And any of my friends who wore them agreed that these sounded amazing! Alas, this glory was not meant to last I fear, as there was a mishap when plugging them into the on board extension of my keyboard and this ‘popped’ the mic. No sound came through, no wiggling of the cables or testing it on a number of other microphone ports on both on board, 3rd party or totally isolated devices would bring it back to life. Motto of the story? Don’t trust the on board sound of a Razer Lycosa keyboard. That story for another day.
So with my trusty and well loved Senn’s now down for the count, I was forced to purchase another pair. Unfortunately at the time I was unable to spend the cash on replacing the Senn’s and even after contacting Sennheiser directly, they provided no solution to a fix or replacement for them, which was a bit disappointing.
So I went back to Plantronics this time with the Gamecom 367 earphones. An over-the-ear variation of their gaming line and for the price tag, is not a bad headset by any stretch of the imagination. Unfortunately, this then pushed me back into the realms of ’20 to 20’ and have since not been able to find any equal to my beloved Senns. Another of the ‘square cupped’ designs this time it lasted a good hour and a half before my head started pounding. Not from the pressure on my glasses this time, but the pinching of my nerve just under my ear and jaw. Whoever designed these earphones must have acupuncture training as no other set of earphones I have worn have managed to tap this particular nerve!
These have served me up until my most recent purchase of the Corsair HS1A earphones.
Now, I was quite excited for this particular headset mainly due to all the hype they had been giving and all the positive reviews I had been seeing on the web, both video reviews and text based ones.
And for what its worth, they are not a bad headset at all. They are comfortable; coming with not 1 but 2 sets of ear pads for you to play with. One fabric and one leather and both have a memory foam base. The sound is pretty decent with the microphone being above average. Alas, the hype of these earphones has not sated my lust for good audio reproduction. They, unfortunately, again fall in to that dreaded ’20 to 20’ range and with Corsair doing so much to say ‘we have acoustically tuned these for gaming’ yadda yadda yadda, I have to say I am disappointed. For the price I paid for these I was expecting a little more oomphf in the bass range. Music sounds a little lifeless and explosions in games lack that certain bang for your life! In some cases this is almost an essential in FPS games or even the whole sense of emersion into an environment like Dragon Age Origins.
Now I won’t say they are horrid, I just prefer a bit more bass with my music/movies/games and while these provide a very good reproduction for anything in that range, bass is left a little lacking where it should be punchy and enveloping; the high range while there, tends to peak out and leave you short of reaching the fullness of a good guitar riff or techno serenade.
So, for those of you who are still reading this far (my hat goes off to you, I know I can waffle a little…ok a lot!) my question is this:
What other headsets with the gamer in mind are on the market? Specifically with that 10hz to 26kHz range?
I hope you enjoyed my little history of gaming headsets and look forward to your responses.
