[Sanctuary]

  I'm not sure any AKG can be considered an evolutionary step up from a Beyer.  They're sort of have two different house sounds.
 
I haven't heard the DT880s in forever, but I imagine the Anniversary will be warmer sounding, with darker treble and thicker mids.
 
 
Ultrasones tend to be very polarizing (not too suprising given their radical driver design/placement).

It's a shame that I don't live in an area where I have access to all of the various headphones that I want to try out before buying.  I prefer a neutral sound (it's what I've adjusted to over the past three years with headphones as well as IEMs), but it's not like I really need to permanently replace the 880s or anything.  I initially came from a (heavily EQd, while I use no EQ on anything now) generic set of Sennheisers that were on the warm side and pretty fantastic for vocals, so I'm not completely adverse to it.  What do you mean by darker treble though, slightly muted or muffled sounding?  If so, as long as it's not so dark that it affects clarity too much, I'm not sure that would particularly be too much of an issue for me either.  I'd rather the highs be neutral or even slightly muted as opposed to being overly bright.

Also, is there any drastic differences between the K702 and the K712 sound wise?

 

[kman1211]

 
It's a shame that I don't live in an area where I have access to all of the various headphones that I want to try out before buying.  I prefer a neutral sound (it's what I've adjusted to over the past three years with headphones as well as IEMs), but it's not like I really need to permanently replace the 880s or anything.  I initially came from a (heavily EQd, while I use no EQ on anything now) generic set of Sennheisers that were on the warm side and pretty fantastic for vocals, so I'm not completely adverse to it.  What do you mean by darker treble though, slightly muted or muffled sounding?  If so, as long as it's not so dark that it affects clarity too much, I'm not sure that would particularly be too much of an issue for me either.  I'd rather the highs be neutral or even slightly muted as opposed to being overly bright.

 

The DT 880s are what I consider somewhat bright due to the 8-10khz spike they have as well as most other Beyers have. I wouldn't call them muted of muffled. I found AKGs to have a great sense of clarity even on the darker or more neutral pairs such as the K702 Annies, K712, or K612.
 
The K712 is a bit warmer than the Annies, I found the K712 a tad brighter in the upper treble. I also found the K712 slightly more refined. It's not a drastic difference, I would just go for the cheaper of the two.

 

[chicolom]

   
I wouldn't call them muted of muffled. I found AKGs to have a great sense of clarity even on the darker or more neutral pairs such as the K702 Annies, K712, or K612.
 
It's not a drastic difference, I would just go for the cheaper of the two.

 
Pretty much what kman said.
 
I prefer the K712 slightly over the Anniversaries, but they're fairly similar. 

 

[DrunkenTiger]

I've owned a Logitech G35 for a few years now, and it's good, but it's a bit worn and the bass distorts playing videos on flash based videos sometimes (like youtube), so I kind of want to upgrade to something newer. I've been eyeing the Corsair Vengeance 1500v2 and the Logitech G430, I'm leaning towards the corsair but I trust you guys more than I for audio, so any input on the two of those?

 

[Sanctuary]

   

The DT 880s are what I consider somewhat bright due to the 8-10khz spike they have as well as most other Beyers have. I wouldn't call them muted of muffled. I found AKGs to have a great sense of clarity even on the darker or more neutral pairs such as the K702 Annies, K712, or K612.
 
The K712 is a bit warmer than the Annies, I found the K712 a tad brighter in the upper treble. I also found the K712 slightly more refined. It's not a drastic difference, I would just go for the cheaper of the two.

The padding seems to make quite a bit of difference in brightness though.  With the original 880 pads, I would agree that they are somewhat bright, but not overly so to me.  I'm using the much thicker lambskin pads though, and it does have quite an effect overall on their tone.  So how is the bass on the K702/K12 compared to the 880s?  I've never listened to any AKG phones before, but it looks like the biggest complaint with them until the K702 was that they were almost univerally lacking bass.  I don't want bass heavy headphones, but I want something that outputs at least what the 880 is already capable of.  Which isn't really too much (yet), but they don't sound anemic either.

 

[kman1211]

 
The padding seems to make quite a bit of difference in brightness though.  With the original 880 pads, I would agree that they are somewhat bright, but not overly so to me.  I'm using the much thicker lamb skin pads though, and it does have quite an effect overall on their tone.  So how is the bass on the K702/K12 compared to the 880s?  I've never listened to any AKG phones before, but it looks like the biggest complaint with them until the K702 was that they were almost univerally lacking bass.  I don't want bass heavy headphones, but I want something that outputs at least what the 880 is already capable of.  Which isn't really too much (yet), but they don't sound anemic either.

 
That is true, the stock pads do make it somewhat bright. I haven't heard the DT 880 in a while so I can't compare them, so I'll just describe the AKGs bass. Well I found the bass present and with a thickish and solid texture they also extend deep, they are present and you can feel the bass but it isn't overpowering, it's not anemic at all, although it isn't what I call a punchy bass. The bass presentation is probably quite different than what you are used to. Of course the bass levels is also a bit system dependent as well.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Red Faction: Armageddon has some AMAAAAAAAAZING positional cues. Probably the best game I've heard for virtual surround testing.

Many things in the environment is destructible, and with this nano forge thing, you can rebuild it all back. Thing is, when you rebuild it, it leaves sound cues as it's building.

Truly remarkable immersion in that game. Everything has sound cues. The buildings collapsing, the explosions, etc. Tried it with both DH and THX TruStudio.

I'll probably use this game as my benchmark for positional cue testing of headphones..

Got it on steam for around $4. I'm sure the consoles have a demo for the game too.

 

[SaLX]

Great game - I loved the detail whereby the sound changed if you're running low on bullets - if I remember right, the gun felt and sounded lighter. Does anybody know what sound engine this is based on - or is it just extra TLC on behalf of the devs?
 
Nameless - we really ought to poll all the best games out there for sound - both for positioning and immersion. Also name the worst!! I'd vote BF4 for the 'Wall of Sound" Theatrical award which would cover both, probably at heavy cost of the former. Also soundtracks too... they're being released in their own right.

 

[DrunkenTiger]

Red Faction: Armageddon has some AMAAAAAAAAZING positional cues. Probably the best game I've heard for virtual surround testing.

Many things in the environment is destructible, and with this nano forge thing, you can rebuild it all back. Thing is, when you rebuild it, it leaves sound cues as it's building.

Truly remarkable immersion in that game. Everything has sound cues. The buildings collapsing, the explosions, etc. Tried it with both DH and THX TruStudio.

I'll probably use this game as my benchmark for positional cue testing of headphones..

Got it on steam for around $4. I'm sure the consoles have a demo for the game too.

Nice, that game always intrigued me, I'll grab it cheap on steam on day I guess! Also, mind testing the Vengeance 1500v2? If you don't have it it's cool, seems like a good surround headset kinda would like some opinions on it so I can grab it for 70$ next time it goes that low

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Yeah, the sound in the game is pretty remarkable.

The game is pretty standard third person shootin', but it's worth playing for the sound and destructible environments alone.

As for the Vengeance, unless someone sends it to me, doubt I'd ever test it.

 

[AxelCloris]

Red Faction: Armageddon has some AMAAAAAAAAZING positional cues. Probably the best game I've heard for virtual surround testing.

Many things in the environment is destructible, and with this nano forge thing, you can rebuild it all back. Thing is, when you rebuild it, it leaves sound cues as it's building.

Truly remarkable immersion in that game. Everything has sound cues. The buildings collapsing, the explosions, etc. Tried it with both DH and THX TruStudio.

I'll probably use this game as my benchmark for positional cue testing of headphones..

Got it on steam for around $4. I'm sure the consoles have a demo for the game too.

 
I've had it in my library as one I plan to get around to eventually. Unfortunately I have a lot of those. 229 steam games currently in my library and I've touched probably 50 of them. But if they're that impressive then I'll be installing it tomorrow and giving it a play.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

The good thing about it is that you're basically in control of the sound cues. Wanna test explosions? destroy it. Reconstruct whatever you blew up, then do it again. So headphone testing should be a snap with that game.

 

[chicolom]

Dead Rising games are pretty good for testing positioning.  You can spin around slowly and listen for the position of all the different zombies and other sound effects in the game.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Nameless - we really ought to poll all the best games out there for sound - both for positioning and immersion. Also name the worst!! I'd vote BF4 for the 'Wall of Sound" Theatrical award which would cover both, probably at heavy cost of the former. Also soundtracks too... they're being released in their own right.

 
Best games for sound? That's easy: the original Thief trilogy (The Dark Project/Gold, The Metal Age, Deadly Shadows)!
 
It's a combination of excellent sound design and pinpoint positioning, which you're going to need if you want to sneak your way past things. No Soliton Radar System for you here!
 
Other PC games from that era of DirectSound3D/OpenAL had the positioning down just fine, but Thief stands out because of its sound design adding to its sense of atmosphere, not just being a competitive gameplay advantage, but being critical to the game's immersion.
 
Worst games for sound? Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is easily among them, and a grave insult to the series at that.
 
Positioning? What positioning? All I heard was canned panning and no decisive sense of direction! I actually thought for a long time that the Frostbite engine just had terrible audio positioning until I tried Battlefield 3 during the $5 Origin sale and found that wasn't necessarily the case. Can't comment on Battlefield 4 yet.
 
The actual effects and overall sound design are pretty good, it's just that they're all mixed so terribly. No setting I've adjusted can fix it.

 

[martin vegas]

What I would say about battlefield 4 is that you can't hear when things are coming up from behind you ..even a tank..waiting for a new headset from dolby to solve this problem!