[l2201030]

Hi all,

I am on the hunt for a pair of endgame audiophile gaming headphones. Most of the places I looked, I see people say Sennheiser HD800S is the best for gaming as it has the widest artificial soundstage. I did own a pair of that and didn't quite like them as much compared to my Meze Elites. They do fit on my head a little too loosely too. Ended up getting rid of the HD800S last year.

Assuming a $5000 budget, what would be a pair of headphone that beats HD800S for gaming use?

Thanks in advance for the advices

 

[Craft Ears]

Hi all,

I am on the hunt for a pair of endgame audiophile gaming headphones. Most of the places I looked, I see people say Sennheiser HD800S is the best for gaming as it has the widest artificial soundstage. I did own a pair of that and didn't quite like them as much compared to my Meze Elites. They do fit on my head a little too loosely too. Ended up getting rid of the HD800S last year.

Assuming a $5000 budget, what would be a pair of headphone that beats HD800S for gaming use?

Thanks in advance for the advices

Well, if you want to go to town on gaming, I would consider Stax electrostatics. Or any other on that matter. Maybe a AKG K1000s? They should give you superior spatial characteristics.

 

[msing539]

This is an interesting one because while I've heard most of the TOTL headphones, rarely have they been in context of gaming. I wonder how the Yamaha 5000SE would be...

 

[l2201030]

This is an interesting one because while I've heard most of the TOTL headphones, rarely have they been in context of gaming. I wonder how the Yamaha 5000SE would be...

Thanks for the reply. Have you by chance tried the Abyss 1266 Phi TC? I heard many good things about the bass and soundstage on those, wonder how they'd do for gaming. Curious how Yamaha 5000SE would sound too but it's so hard to find still.

 

[msing539]

Thanks for the reply. Have you by chance tried the Abyss 1266 Phi TC? I heard many good things about the bass and soundstage on those, wonder how they'd do for gaming. Curious how Yamaha 5000SE would sound too but it's so hard to find still.

Woof... yea, I've heard it. But it's a heavy beast, I'd never want to game in it.

The 5000SE will start coming up used more often--one was already sold here in Classifieds. It's much smaller and lighter than it looks in photos.

 

[DenverW]

I’ve done some gaming with great headphones. The stax 007 is crystal clear, and very fast, but the clamp was even looser than the hd800. Hd800 was a winner as well, but I hear you on the comments above.

Zmf caldera is excellent with gaming and has good imaging along with fun tuning for gunshots and explosions. It’s my current gaming guilty pleasure.

 

[l2201030]

I’ve done some gaming with great headphones. The stax 007 is crystal clear, and very fast, but the clamp was even looser than the hd800. Hd800 was a winner as well, but I hear you on the comments above.

Zmf caldera is excellent with gaming and has good imaging along with fun tuning for gunshots and explosions. It’s my current gaming guilty pleasure.

I've been eyeing on the Caldera and think will get a pair in the near future. The lifetime driver warranty is kinda tempting me to buy it new...
How does the Caldera compare to HD800(S) in terms of sound - aside from probably having a lot more bass?

 

[DenverW]

I've been eyeing on the Caldera and think will get a pair in the near future. The lifetime driver warranty is kinda tempting me to buy it new...
How does the Caldera compare to HD800(S) in terms of sound - aside from probably having a lot more bass?

a reduction in soundstage width, but not super noticeable, very similar in speed and resolution, thicker note weight and impact on the caldera. More bass for sure on the caldera, and less piercing treble. The caldera is heavier, but comfortable based on the design. Clamp is adjustable. Hd800 sounds awesome on otl tube amps, caldera scales, but sounds great on more sources overall.

 

[dunring]

I've gamed with the hd800s on a Sound blaster AE-9 and it was terrific. I had just as much fun on the Audio Technica adh1000x using a Sound blaster X1 with just 7.1 mode for much less money. The law of diminishing returns gets brutal after those though. With the 1000x the ability to hear behind you and passive soundstage is excellent.

 

[mildmannered]

I think you want a comfortable headphone that skews neutral or mids on top of the soundstage/imaging and it might be difficult to do better than the Elites in that respect.

Which games and would you EQ? COD likes to have footsteps in the mid/high-bass and low/mid mid-range but not all games do that. Frankly while sub-bass and bass representation are nice and contribute to easier listening across longer sessions I think what most FPS want is EQ spikes and dips across lower mid to low treble and you could likely just drop off low bass and high treble if they muddy and obscure other frequencies.

FWIW at a certain point I feel EQ is the better time-investment than money-investment in headphones for gaming - if you don't have a real-time frequency chart while gaming (like from an RME DAC) then record some gameplay including the things you want to be able to hear better then look at the frequencies when stuff happens and play with applying bumps and dips to make things clearer.

 

[l2201030]

I think you want a comfortable headphone that skews neutral or mids on top of the soundstage/imaging and it might be difficult to do better than the Elites in that respect.

Which games and would you EQ? COD likes to have footsteps in the mid/high-bass and low/mid mid-range but not all games do that. Frankly while sub-bass and bass representation are nice and contribute to easier listening across longer sessions I think what most FPS want is EQ spikes and dips across lower mid to low treble and you could likely just drop off low bass and high treble if they muddy and obscure other frequencies.

FWIW at a certain point I feel EQ is the better time-investment than money-investment in headphones for gaming - if you don't have a real-time frequency chart while gaming (like from an RME DAC) then record some gameplay including the things you want to be able to hear better then look at the frequencies when stuff happens and play with applying bumps and dips to make things clearer.

That's a really good point. I've only done EQ for music listening and never thought of doing it for gaming as well (and even for music I'm kind of a noob on playing with advanced EQ settings). I have an Asus motherboard so I just use their sonic studio software's "gaming" default setting cuz wasn't sure if it's a good idea to mess with the settings as it uses some AI features to convert surround to 2 channel stereo. I primarily play action adventure / open world games, and occasionally shooters as well. Do you have any recommendations on what range of frequencies I should be tweaking for say open worlds? I unfortunately don't have any measurement equipment to get an accurate freq response curve with my setup. Maybe that's something I should invest in in the future.

 

[mildmannered]

That's a really good point. I've only done EQ for music listening and never thought of doing it for gaming as well (and even for music I'm kind of a noob on playing with advanced EQ settings). I have an Asus motherboard so I just use their sonic studio software's "gaming" default setting cuz wasn't sure if it's a good idea to mess with the settings as it uses some AI features to convert surround to 2 channel stereo. I primarily play action adventure / open world games, and occasionally shooters as well. Do you have any recommendations on what range of frequencies I should be tweaking for say open worlds? I unfortunately don't have any measurement equipment to get an accurate freq response curve with my setup. Maybe that's something I should invest in in the future.

I think I misinterpreted your ask as competitive gaming but what you're really looking for is an immersive experience. Are you plugging your headphones directly into the motherboard or do you have any DAC/Amp between your PC and your headphones?

Open worlds have a variety of sounds that should span all the frequencies due to birds and stuff so it would be difficult to give any recommendation without knowing what sounds pleasant to you and what sounds harsh to you. In general though, you may find it helpful to spend some time looking at this chart including the spectrum data they provide and trying to relate it to some of the games you play - https://alexiy.nl/eq_chart/

I am certainly also no expert when it comes to EQ but I can say even as just a learning device having an RME dac has been extremely helpful. The realtime visual Frequency graph is extremely helpful when I'm trying to figure out why something sounds a certain way or why I'm not hearing something and it comes with an impressive amount of settings and ways to tweak its output. It helps that I don't have any issues with its performance as a DAC or an AMP as well.

 

[l2201030]

I think I misinterpreted your ask as competitive gaming but what you're really looking for is an immersive experience. Are you plugging your headphones directly into the motherboard or do you have any DAC/Amp between your PC and your headphones?

Open worlds have a variety of sounds that should span all the frequencies due to birds and stuff so it would be difficult to give any recommendation without knowing what sounds pleasant to you and what sounds harsh to you. In general though, you may find it helpful to spend some time looking at this chart including the spectrum data they provide and trying to relate it to some of the games you play - https://alexiy.nl/eq_chart/

I am certainly also no expert when it comes to EQ but I can say even as just a learning device having an RME dac has been extremely helpful. The realtime visual Frequency graph is extremely helpful when I'm trying to figure out why something sounds a certain way or why I'm not hearing something and it comes with an impressive amount of settings and ways to tweak its output. It helps that I don't have any issues with its performance as a DAC or an AMP as well.

Yup, definitely looking for an immersive gaming experience when looking for my next headphone. And yeah, open world games is definitely a lot harder to find the right pair, especially cuz often they will have various background tracks playing as well when you are roaming around different areas. Need a good balance between wide range of frequencies, but soundstage and imagine are probably still the most important. Thought my Elites are doing a good enough job already, just wondering if there are something out there that would exceed in those aspects.

I do output PC source to Sony TA-ZH1ES DAC AMP first. Never trusted built in motherboard sound processors or addon sound cards no matter how much they advertise those lol. I do plan on getting a Burson Conductor 3X GT in the future if I end up getting something that's harder to drive. Don't own any tube amps as of now cuz lack of knowledge...

Wow the chart you provided is really helpful! I will definitely use that as a reference when I play with the EQ settings.

 

[whitedragem]

having been pc gaming, and moe specifiaclly PC gaming using (very) high end sound cards (ie capable of dolby headphone); my BEST gotos are:

Audeze Mobius
seriously NOTHING can or will beat what this can do for soundstage and location accuracy. (headtracking helps too, but the created soundstage is the only headphones that have ever equalled a surround sound setup.
having experienced this (and having always used well calibrated 'hi end' theatre setups)... the Mobius are untouchable (price irrelevant).

for serious coin I went with the Ultrasone Edition 5
slighly smaller soundstage that the hd800s, but a much better 'circle stage' for HRTF decoding (and a high end dynamic to boot); I went this path when realising that planars just didnt do it for me, realised I was missing aspects of dynamic drivers, then sought out the best part for the job.
to finish these off properly, would need an HRTF encoding soundcard (eg asus essence using dolby headphone), and the a nice headamp most likely...

if it was feasable to share these parts (I am in Western Australia), I'd happily demo these parts...

dolby headphone really IS the renderer to choose, but most won't pay licensing costs.

the 7.1 emulation via the Audeze Mobius, and combined with its headtracking, really is untouchable.
sadly the amplification of the Mobius will be 'in-line', so probably not ULTIMATELY equal to blowing megabucks on alternative parts but it will still throw out a wider and more convincing soundstage than ANYTHING out there...
just requires a PC and USB...

if your motherboard can encode a digital stream to dolby digital, an external home theatre amp that includes dolby headphone might be a trick..

i have seen a couple of 5k$ TOTL (or one down) surround amps (mostly pre HDMI, so cannot use sound output from a second HDMI feed from your graphics card, but later amplifiers will, and thusly support True HD surround standards (like atmos and dts x)), and these TOTL amps can do the Dolby Headphone trick (check for the logo) and quite often have great headphone amps too..
the reason I mention this last 'highly unusual' step is that so long as you have the space... they turn up randomly in the second hand market for 'a few quid' (eg 200$) and as a headphone amp and as a 'soundcard' (taking a digital stream) they are untouchable by consumer class usb soundcards...

May wish to spend 15$ on a license for dts or dolby (headphone) encoding on the PC. (software) and that can do wonders...
for a point of reference, really should try out surround on an Audeze MOBIUS.

Most reviewers identify that they thought they'd left the hifi surround amp on,.. and many have assumed that ingame sounds etc are 'someone at the front door'(etc) due to being realistically placed sounds further away and 'natural' than any other headphone worn...
they are that good!

(ultrasone ed5 take a long time to break in, and are closed back with a tighter overall soundstage, but great imaging and detail and 'relatively flat freq responce' (wanted for HRTF interpretation by our brains..)

I gather no one is pimping these three pillars to perfection,.. but yeah I had senn hd800s and the matching hd800 amp and moved them along due to owning these 'other options' (all preferred).

 

[552609]

Hi all,

I am on the hunt for a pair of endgame audiophile gaming headphones. Most of the places I looked, I see people say Sennheiser HD800S is the best for gaming as it has the widest artificial soundstage. I did own a pair of that and didn't quite like them as much compared to my Meze Elites. They do fit on my head a little too loosely too. Ended up getting rid of the HD800S last year.

Assuming a $5000 budget, what would be a pair of headphone that beats HD800S for gaming use?

Thanks in advance for the advices

Audeze LCD-GX? Literally the most expensive headphones actually designed for gaming.