WHAT IS THE BEST GAMING HEADSET FOR PC ( FPS GAMES )

Instead of buying a headset with a mic already on it, have you thought of buying a headset then buying a clip-on mic for the cable? I have a friend that did that and it sounded fine. Also were you preferring Closed or open headphones? Imo open headphones would give you more directional sound and a wider soundstage but can be bothersome in some environments. (open headphones let in outside sound and let their sound out, not too much but enough so someone near you could hear everything) Try this link http://www.head-fi.org/t/534479/mad-lust-envy-aka-shin-cz-s-guide-to-headphone-gaming-particularly-with-dolby-headphone there's some good talk about headphones there. I personally use HD595

Edit: There are also many dac you can buy that will give dolby surround for headphones, the Asus Xonar U3 is one i saw for ~$35 from some searching, just givin some options for you to keep in mind

    If your going for immersion your probably better off looking at headphones instead of headsets.  I don't think you'll get the sound quality and soundstage that you need.  Headsets are more for the convenience and USB ones especially for consistency and dependability, which are the most important things if your going to LANs, if not then it's not at all what you need.  

    I don't have too much experience with different headphones, but I think that I can still give some valuable advice.  Don't get the AKG 701/702's They have an awesome sound stage, placement of sounds, and separation of sounds which makes winning a lot easier, but they are not immersive in the least, I think that you'll want something a more mid focused and a smoother warmer sound for that.  I suspect that the sennheiser hd598's would be a very good choice, but you'll have to wait for someone who has tried them to chime in.

The "immersive vs. competitive" debate with gaming headphone choice seems to be about bass levels, from what I can tell. Thick, "syrupy" bass that slams whenever an explosion goes off immerses some people more, but it also tends to mask things like footsteps and other audio cues that help immensely with situational awareness in competitive play. There's always the EQ to tweak that to taste, though...but keep in mind that it's much easier to EQ down for competitive than it is to EQ up for immersive, since EQing up brings the risk of clipping.

I find my vintage Stax Lambda setup to offer a nice balance between the two (not a basshead, admittedly; I hear it, don't need to feel it), but vintage Stax systems within your budget aren't often on sale because when they do go up, they sell quick. Even then, if all you're going to be doing with these is gaming, that's probably overkill (even if you want the very best).

For surround, you want stereo headphones (or a proper headset like the PC360) with a binaural surround filter like CMSS-3D Headphone (X-Fi-based sound cards on PC) or Dolby Headphone (C-Media-based sound cards on PC, Astro Mixamp for consoles and anything else that outputs a Dolby Digital stream over S/PDIF). The multiple driver approach takes a hit to sound quality and still won't image as well (unless your HRTF falls well outside the average, which is unlikely).

I listened to my friend's pair of cans the Beyerdynamic DT990 600 ohm version and I feel like it does the job well on what the OP described. Nice soundstage and plenty of bass to go around for the immersive feeling. IMO the beyers are really good overall in sound quality.

Heya,

Entry level: Fischer Audio FA-011 (over the AD700, which will be mentioned, any day, all day)

Mid level: DT880 (neutral), DT990 (bassy), K702 (detail, sound stage, not bassy), HD598 (mids, detail, neutral bass), HFI 2400 (bassy, smooth highs)

Very best,

First of all, I am gonna mention that I played fps games competetively for over 4 years and I got chance to test few gaming headsets as well as some other headphones (more expensive ones). The thing is, if you want to play games on pro level, basicaly anything above $70-80 will perform same in most of games (I am talking about fps games like cod, cs, quake, rtcw/et... with big players base). I tried gaming headsets (Icemat Siberia, Steelseries 5h v2), Sennheiser HD595/HD600 and portable Audio Technica ATH-EW9. There was absolutely no difference ingame (well, sound signatures are different, but it doesnt matter ingame), all performing as its needed, you can locate position of your enemies more/less with inch accuracy. With all this I want to say, that gaming headsets dont provide anything special, most of the time its just business move to sell headphones with attached mic for few $ more than It would normaly be sold for. If you are planning on using them in lan environment, maybe you could consider getting good IEMs (for example many QL pros are using IEMs with sound isolating headset when they are playing on stage).

All in all, with that budget just forget about anything with label "gaming", get some high-end/audiophile model, buy some random mic from mall for 10 bucks and enjoy.

I've also tried everything from Sennheiser and Zalman to Turtle Beach, Steelseries, and Astro.  Like filuS said, everything after $60 or so sounds the same.

You should do what an earlier poster mentioned and get a headphone that suits your needs, and get a Zalman clip-on mic ($11).

I've found 5.1 and 7.1 simulation in headphones universally poor, but other people here seem to swear by it.