[Rodent]

Hi, so I've had my Ultrasone's for almost a year now, I've exchanged them once because the headband cracked, and the same happened to my second pair, so now I'm thinking of asking Meier if I could exchange them for a pair of HD25's.

Has anyone tried playing games with them? They need to have good positioning,
because I play computer games competitively. I'm also interested in hearing how the overall sound is compared to the HFI700's.

 

[commando]

Headphones are just two speakers strapped to the sides of your head, how different do you think positioning could be?

 

[kyrie]

commando's incredibly unhelpful and pointless post aside,
I don't find the HD25-1 particularly good for gaming, since they don't really have much of a soundstage. For gaming, I'd say look elsewhere.

 

[commando]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kyrie commando's incredibly unhelpful and pointless post aside.

Balls, I told the truth as I see it. People around here get all worked up over minute differences, i'd bet good money that a lot of the time they couldn't tell apart in a blind test.

 

[erikzen]

I agree that headphones don't really present all that much in the way of soundstage, no matter what pair it is. The differences between headphones are somewhat minute. That being said, I think that open phones are better for gaming.

 

[spilner]

I actually tried playing a few games with my HD25-1 and I liked the outcome - a very 'alive' presentation with great dynamics and bass.
The problem is the isolation. They make you totally deaf to the outside world, which I personally found disturbing; instead of immersing into the game, I kept pulling them off once in a while, to make sure the phone's not ringing, that there's nobody at the door, etc.
Erikzen is right, I guess you'd need open cans for games, unless, of course, you like/don't mind being cut off from the sounds around you.

 

[XxATOLxX]

I have personally compared a Grado to an HD580 headphone and the positioning difference is BIG. Soundstage will help with positioning. I had a really hard time localizing with my Alessandro MS-1 compared to the HD580 which was effortless.

 

[Lithos]

I agree that the differences between headphones is that the soundstage on some might feel wider than others, but it has little to do with "positioning". On my HD-490s, HD-280s and HD-200s the "positioning" sounds the same.
My HD-490s only sound a little wider than my HD-280s.

 

[ChrizX]

Em... i was a gamer myself back in 2-3 years ago... i wasn't really that top as you probably are, but i guess i am definitely good enough to say something objective here...

I played counter strike for years and i understand how important positioning could be in a game. however, as Commandoyou are just wearing a headphones with at most 2 outputs... (in other words.. you are not have some kinda 5.1 theatre headphones or what... even you have... the game doesn't seem to support it anyway) I can't see any difference between headphones in terms of "positioning" as long as they just give you "left" and "right" output. A good pair of headphone just at most give you the best sound effect, making you more into the game and that's it. Or probably you need some models with better sealing effect to cut off any surrounding noise. Honestly, in some sense, people using hi-end headphones for gaming is probably going way too far, i am sure a pair of HD 25-1 will do a great job and satisfy you, but more than that, i would say it's a total waste if you just use them for gaming.. =.=

 

[gshan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by XxATOLxX I have personally compared a Grado to an HD580 headphone and the positioning difference is BIG. Soundstage will help with positioning. I had a really hard time localizing with my Alessandro MS-1 compared to the HD580 which was effortless.

I think head-fi needs a best fps gaming headphone setup chart/guide. I used to get extremely specific positioning with crap walkman headphones and an old soundblaster card in CS. With a sblive!5.1 and av710, I'm only getting left-right-behind-front - used to get back left, back right, etc. Maybe I was just imagining things and left-right-behind-front is the best that you can get with headphones. Still curious though. Maybe EAX and better soundstage still helps? - Hopefully a set of ATH-a500s will do the trick for me.

 

[commando]

I use Senn 280s for gaming, they work pretty well.

 

[Rodent]

I know for a fact that positioning of sounds in games differ between headphones. I heard the HD25-1 is kind of grado-like with a small soundstage, which worries me.

 

[jesse_w]

Obviously the people telling you positioning is the same on all headphones have never played games with different headphones. Positioning, headstage, and soundstage are all very different (though related) things. The best headphones I've used for positioning are by far the ER-4Ps; pretty much a wallhack in games with footsteps. A gamer friend who has owned and auditioned a fair number of headphones (uses HD650+gilmore lite right now) tells me his E3C is also exceptional. The A900s are quite good as well, and offer much more entertaining bass response. Unfortunately I've never used the HD25, so I can't compare. Grados and most supra-aural phones (HD49x, PX100, etc) are almost useless for FPS gaming. High end Senns are better, but still not very good.

jesse

 

[gshan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesse_w Obviously the people telling you positioning is the same on all headphones have never played games with different headphones. Positioning, headstage, and soundstage are all very different (though related) things. The best headphones I've used for positioning are by far the ER-4Ps; pretty much a wallhack in games with footsteps. A gamer friend who has owned and auditioned a fair number of headphones (uses HD650+gilmore lite right now) tells me his E3C is also exceptional. The A900s are quite good as well, and offer much more entertaining bass response. Unfortunately I've never used the HD25, so I can't compare. Grados and most supra-aural phones (HD49x, PX100, etc) are almost useless for FPS gaming. High end Senns are better, but still not very good. jesse

Thank you so much for clearing it up for me. I used to think that positioning = size of soundstage. Based on your ER4p suggestion, I'm guessing positioning depends more on amount and quality of detail that a set of phones can produce (which the er4p supposeably has a ton of). It's funny how a $5 set of discman headphones has better positioning for me than the px100s. The above reply by jesse should be stickied in a FAQ somewhere for sure.

 

[Quacker]

I started a thread very similar to this a little bit back and what I was getting was that the sony 3D 3000 had the best soundstage that they had heard and that for cheeper akg 501 had very good soundstage. http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=106405