[Eric_C]

Isn't the AX Pro using the same virtual surround tech as the MixAmp?

 

[Phos]

Quote:

 
My main setup is a vintage Normal bias SR-Lambda (albeit with rebuilt drivers and mineral wool removed from the earcups) + SRD-7/SB, with an Onkyo TX-SV515PRO I had lying around to provide the required speaker-level input to the SRD-7/SB. I'm hoping to replace the amp setup with something like an SRM-1/Mk2 Pro in the future, but my budget currently doesn't allow for it. (It's the amps that really eat into your wallet with electrostatics...)
 
I've also tried an SR-202 + SRM-212 system before, which was also pretty good in sound presentation, but had an inferior midrange to the SR-Lambda. (If spritzer's opinion is anything to go by, the original SR-Lambda apparently has the best midrange of them all. The many succeeding Pro bias variants may have improved on bass, treble, and perhaps detail retrieval, but not midrange.)
 
Getting a chance to audition them can be difficult if you can't afford the used deals going around, though. On top of that, the cheaper systems (US$400 and less) tend to have SRD-series transformer boxes that require speaker amps/receivers/etc. to power them, which means added cost if you don't have one already.
 
What I can say is that there's this...airy, atmospheric, ambient quality to the sound. It's like the air itself is singing to you, and the sound is quite enveloping and "3D" to me if the source has the positional cues. They may very well redefine clarity to someone who's never heard an electrostatic set before.
 
They're also ludicrously comfortable, probably for big heads too. (Well, maybe not the SR-507 if spritzer is any indication, due to the revised headband/arc.)

All this talk about stats has me wondering with all these speaker makers getting into the headphone business, would an electrostatic speaker manufacturer like say MartinLogan make an Estat headphone?  
 
Quote:

So after following this thread for a bit and weighing up the pros and cons I thought the best route for me to take would be to buy the Astro Mixamp and the Sennheisser PC360. I play Call of Duty on the PS3 and that's virtually all I would use the headset for so figured, despite most people tuting and shaking their head right now, that'd be the best all round general route for me to take.
 
Well the PC360s arrived the other day and the Mixamp last night, so I hooked them up with great expectations. I should now mention  I'm moving up from the Tritton AX Pros so anything must be an improvement.
 
But after 2 hours of playing last night I have to say I was far from blown away. Now it's possible my expectations were to great. But I really expected to be sound whoring my way thru the game and this simply didn't happen. The sound was better coming from the PC360s, no question and even the directional awareness was much greater on the footsteps I could hear. Trouble is, I was still being shanked from behind by people I simply didn't hear coming, even though they didn't have dead silence. Or I would get killed by someone coming around a corner even though I had an 'ear out' for movement.
 
So I'm not sure what to make of it all. I probably spent €300 for the combination and I am definitely not feeling the monies worth. Is it that my expectations were unrealistic or should I just send the PC360s back and get proper headphones and a lapel mic and if so which ones? I don't mind paying a little bit more for headphones, but only if I'm going to notice a difference.
 
Any advice on this would be appreciated. I'm going to give the PC360s another go tonight, but really. I'm feeling very inclined to send them back.

Ya sure you have your console set up to output 5.1 over optical and that the game itself isn't set to headphones?  

 

[calpis]

If  you're playing MW3, are you using Sitrep Pro? Without sitrep pro, sound whoring becomes very hard in MW3. You  should still kinda be able to hear people coming from behind but you just have to concentrate a whole lot more than if you weren't using sitrep pro.

 

[npf1107]

Quote:

a sure you have your console set up to output 5.1 over optical and that the game itself isn't set to headphones?  

 
The PS3 is setup to output over optical and in 5.1. The Trittions were the same in that regards. The game doesn't have any options for sound output. Unlike all previous COD's or BF3 etc.
Quote:

Isn't the AX Pro using the same virtual surround tech as the MixAmp?

No, the Trittions actually are true 5.1 headphones. Not virtual

 

[npf1107]

Quote:

If  you're playing MW3, are you using Sitrep Pro? Without sitrep pro, sound whoring becomes very hard in MW3. You  should still kinda be able to hear people coming from behind but you just have to concentrate a whole lot more than if you weren't using sitrep pro.

I do use SitRep Pro, but not on all classes, I like Dead silence as well. But LIS in my previous post. The problem was with some that I could hear from a distance ( and pin-point fairly accurately ) but others, without dead silence would just sneak up on me.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

So after following this thread for a bit and weighing up the pros and cons I thought the best route for me to take would be to buy the Astro Mixamp and the Sennheisser PC360. I play Call of Duty on the PS3 and that's virtually all I would use the headset for so figured, despite most people tuting and shaking their head right now, that'd be the best all round general route for me to take.

Well the PC360s arrived the other day and the Mixamp last night, so I hooked them up with great expectations. I should now mention  I'm moving up from the Tritton AX Pros so anything must be an improvement.

But after 2 hours of playing last night I have to say I was far from blown away. Now it's possible my expectations were to great. But I really expected to be sound whoring my way thru the game and this simply didn't happen. The sound was better coming from the PC360s, no question and even the directional awareness was much greater on the footsteps I could hear. Trouble is, I was still being shanked from behind by people I simply didn't hear coming, even though they didn't have dead silence. Or I would get killed by someone coming around a corner even though I had an 'ear out' for movement.

So I'm not sure what to make of it all. I probably spent €300 for the combination and I am definitely not feeling the monies worth. Is it that my expectations were unrealistic or should I just send the PC360s back and get proper headphones and a lapel mic and if so which ones? I don't mind paying a little bit more for headphones, but only if I'm going to notice a difference.

Any advice on this would be appreciated. I'm going to give the PC360s another go tonight, but really. I'm feeling very inclined to send them back.

I have constantly repeated how terrible MW3 was for soundwhoring.

Sigh... it has nothing to do with the Mixamp or the PC360s.

Seriously, juding the performance of any headphone with that game (or Battlefield 3) is the biggest mistake you can make.

 

[npf1107]

Quote:

I have constantly repeated how terrible MW3 was for soundwhoring.
Sigh... it has nothing to do with the Mixamp or the PC360s.
Seriously, juding the performance of any headphone with that game (or Battlefield 3) is the biggest mistake you can make.

Ok, I didn't know that. I can't say I read thru all 484 pages. But thanks for the heads up.
 
I was overall pleased with the increase in sound quality, just LIS. Sometimes it left me thinking What?

 

[Evshrug]

Ok, I didn't know that. I can't say I read thru all 484 pages. But thanks for the heads up.

I was overall pleased with the increase in sound quality, just LIS. Sometimes it left me thinking What?

Try Halo: Reach if you have it. The very first cutscene is a great test of positional audio, and in MP I've been having some intense games of SWAT. Really, I have pretty good aim, but I've been playing amazingly well with 5 games with a positive over 11 kills last night alone. Popping up on people from the center ramps in Zealot has been hella fun and unfair

I tried some ME2 last night too... Not as impressed as with Halo, so far that's my positional/detail/sound info whoring champion.

I don't have any Dolby Headphone options at the moment, but I look forward to comparing Yamaha's silent cinema to Creative's CMSS-3D once my Recon3D arrives.

 

[Evshrug]

Ok, I didn't know that. I can't say I read thru all 484 pages. But thanks for the heads up.

I was overall pleased with the increase in sound quality, just LIS. Sometimes it left me thinking What?

Try Halo: Reach if you have it. The very first cutscene is a great test of positional audio, and in MP I've been having some intense games of SWAT. Really, I have pretty good aim, but I've been playing amazingly well with 5 games with a positive over 11 kills last night alone. Popping up on people from the center ramps in Zealot has been hella fun and unfair

I tried some ME2 last night too... Not as impressed as with Halo, so far that's my positional/detail/sound info whoring champion.

I don't have any Dolby Headphone options at the moment, but I look forward to comparing Yamaha's silent cinema to Creative's CMSS-3D once my Recon3D arrives.

 

[Eric_C]

Quote:

No, the Trittions actually are true 5.1 headphones. Not virtual

 
My bad.
 
Quote:

Try Halo: Reach if you have it. 

 
He's on a PS3...

 

[Mackem]

I may just buy back a used pair of DT 770 Pros and get an Antlion Modmic. Either that or just get a Siberia V2 (I'm playing games on the PC only as well as using Skype). I'd prefer an 'all-in-one' solution like a headset but I understand that they have inferior sound. If only I knew how to mod headphones..I'd get the DT 770 Pro 80s and mod them to have a built-in mic jack.

 

[Fa11ou7]

Ugh, ya MW3 sucks for directional audio. I was able to bring home a Tritton AX 720 from work so I thought I would try our different setups to see if anything sounded better. I couldn't make out a thing in MW3, Black ops was a little better but I was only able to play a few games. The 720s actually sound pretty good overall if maybe a bit heavy on the base for me but I still like my Sennheiser HD435's more. I gotta say I'm really impressed with the technology behind my Turtle Beach PX5, not that I think the actual headphones are anything special but the ability to tweak nearly every aspect of the audio that is coming into and out of the headphones (via PC software) is pretty cool. I'm going to play some more black ops tonight and test out the footstep mode. I also really like the PX5 transmitter base with optical in/out RCA in and the separate headphone plug with volume control. Anyone else have experience with the PX5? Also, I got my HD435's for free from work but I've been wondering how they compare to some of the other headphones mentioned on page 1, any ideas? Here is the product page http://www.sennheiser.ca/live/senn/produit/en/581/160/

 

[Evshrug]

Evshrug: "HALO BLAAARG! @ o,@"

He's on a PS3...

Oh. Well then... Uh, maybe the uncharted series has good audio? Metal Gear games really ought to, I plan on picking up the Collection pack once I get through my game backlog. Sorry, I don't have a PS3.

Talking about metal gear makes me want to go back and play Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. GG!

 

[Eric_C]

Quote:

I may just buy back a used pair of DT 770 Pros and get an Antlion Modmic. Either that or just get a Siberia V2 (I'm playing games on the PC only as well as using Skype). I'd prefer an 'all-in-one' solution like a headset but I understand that they have inferior sound. If only I knew how to mod headphones..I'd get the DT 770 Pro 80s and mod them to have a built-in mic jack.

 
Maybe a few cable ties or velcro straps will do the trick. The 770 has the cable only coming out of one earcup, so you could run fix the modmic to that same side.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Quote:

All this talk about stats has me wondering with all these speaker makers getting into the headphone business, would an electrostatic speaker manufacturer like say MartinLogan make an Estat headphone?

 
If they wanted to, they, Quad, and Acoustat would've made electrostatic headphones a long time ago, I'm sure.
 
But as it stands, the market was left to Stax and Koss, with the occasional Jecklin Float-type headphone with 'stat drivers or the HE Audio Jade (which is notoriously unreliable).
 
In other news, I got the Recon3D USB today. First impressions for console gaming out of an original Xbox are that, compared to my SU-DH1, the rear imaging is more cohesive (not a big gap in the 6 o'clock position), but Dolby Headphone out of the SU-DH1 spaces out the sounds a bit further from my head, even in DH1 mode. This is after setting the THX TruStudio Surround option to 100% on a PC first and saving it to the device, then setting it to Xbox mode.
 
It also comes with a little adapter you plug into the front jacks for console use. For the PS3, it looks like just an extension cable, but for Xbox users, it's what you need to connect the headphone jack on your controller, along with an included 2.5mm to 2.5mm cable.
 
It is NOT battery-powered whatsoever, so make sure you have it connected to a USB power source. This complicates things a little more for original Xbox use, even with a spliced controller port-to-USB adapter, but an AC adapter with a USB port will work fine.