[Blze001]

Thanks for replying, this site is great!.

I am definitely fine with spending $300 to get a full gaming audio experience, audio is my favorite part of games and I'm willing to budget more for it. I am also fine with spending less if that also suffices, I don't always believe that spending more money means guranteed improvements.

Unfortunately, I don't have an audio store near me to try out headphones directly so when I get responses like I did in the subreddit I get worried haha but every response to my post here and in another thread all say otherwise which is reassuring.

I would like a high quality and balanced audio experience for casual and competitive gaming. I think I am looking between the AKG612 or Fedelio X2.

 
The K612 is going to have amazing soundstage and be very analytical, while the X2 is more "fun" and has much more bass. Also, being 30 ohms,  the X2 doesn't need an amp like the 120 ohm AKGs do.
 
I'd say the Q/K701s are a more accurate cross-shop with the X2... still need good amping to get the most from 'em, but they'll pass even the 612s in terms of soundstage.
 
Nothing in the open-back AKG lineup are going to have much bass out of the box, you'll need some EQ magic to get the low end.

 

[fritzritz]

 
The K612 is going to have amazing soundstage and be very analytical, while the X2 is more "fun" and has much more bass. Also, being 30 ohms,  the X2 doesn't need an amp like the 120 ohm AKGs do.
 
I'd say the Q/K701s are a more accurate cross-shop with the X2... still need good amping to get the most from 'em, but they'll pass even the 612s in terms of soundstage.
 
Nothing in the open-back AKG lineup are going to have much bass out of the box, you'll need some EQ magic to get the low end.

 


Great information for the back pocket, thanks!

I have all of my audio inputs going through an onkyo tx-nr636 AV receiver and plan to have the headphones plugged into the receiver as well. Does the receiver take away the need for investing in a PC video card or headphone amp? I assume it does based on my initial research but I am still a little unsure.

 

[Blze001]

Great information for the back pocket, thanks!

I have all of my audio inputs going through an onkyo tx-nr636 AV receiver and plan to have the headphones plugged into the receiver as well. Does the receiver take away the need for investing in a PC video card or headphone amp? I assume it does based on my initial research but I am still a little unsure.

 
I'm not familiar with that one, but I'd doubt the headphone jack has much amplification if any, A/V receivers are generally meant for speakers. If your motherboard has an optical out, it'll work just fine as a DAC (which is all a soundcard is), but you'll probably still need a headphone amp for the AKGs.

 

[lenroot77]

I'm not familiar with that one, but I'd doubt the headphone jack has much amplification if any, A/V receivers are generally meant for speakers. If your motherboard has an optical out, it'll work just fine as a DAC (which is all a soundcard is), but you'll probably still need a headphone amp for the AKGs.

U should have no problem driving the x2's, im not entirely sure about the akg's as they are typically hungry despite their lower impedance ratings. Your receiver will be fine providing u only want stereo sound. If I recall correctly the newer onkoyos do not have Dolby headphone.

 

[fritzritz]

U should have no problem driving the x2's, im not entirely sure about the akg's as they are typically hungry despite their lower impedance ratings. Your receiver will be fine providing u only want stereo sound. If I recall correctly the newer onkoyos do not have Dolby headphone.

 
Thanks for the info.  What would be the best way to get dolby headphone while still using an AV receiver that does not have it?  Or would it be better to not go through the AV reciever at all if I am going for dolby headphone?

I am still doing my research but if you have any recommendations for dolby headphone enabling devices, feel free to share. 

 

[Blze001]

   
Thanks for the info.  What would be the best way to get dolby headphone while still using an AV receiver that does not have it?  Or would it be better to not go through the AV reciever at all if I am going for dolby headphone?

I am still doing my research but if you have any recommendations for dolby headphone enabling devices, feel free to share. 

 
If you're wanting Dolby for headphones, you're probably better off getting a soundcard/usb DAC that supports it, then send that to an amp if needed.
 
Does your motherboard have an optical TOSLINK output on it (I think only budget boards don't these days, but I may be wrong)? If so, the FiiO D07 is a pretty decent little Dolby-capable DAC, and it'll only set you back about $50 on Amazon. Not gonna blow your socks off, but a solid starting point.
 
That said, it's worth noting most games achieve positional audio with stereo signals. Makes sense when you think about it, we listen in stereo after all.

 

[mindbomb]

   
Thanks for the info.  What would be the best way to get dolby headphone while still using an AV receiver that does not have it?  Or would it be better to not go through the AV reciever at all if I am going for dolby headphone?

I am still doing my research but if you have any recommendations for dolby headphone enabling devices, feel free to share. 

if it has optical in, you can use the optical output of an asus xonar dgx.

 

[silver21]

Hello for movies and games, to buy: audio technica m50x or beyerdynamic dt770 250 ohm  ??
 
With: FiiO E10 or Fiio E11K or Creative Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 or Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D??

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

But doesn't the U3 connect to the PC via USB already?

You missed the point.

I can send the X7 a Dolby Digital signal via SPDIF, which I feel it handles better than the X7 getting the signal from USB. In my example, the U3 is connected to the PC via USB, which then the U3 send a Dolby Digital signal out to the X7 via SPDIF. I can then easily toggle between a vanilla Dolby Digital signal, and Dolby Headphone directly to the X7. While sending Dolby Digital, I can turn on SBX on the X7. When sending DH, I can turn OFF SBX. This makes it easy to test between DH and SBX atthe touch of (2) buttons.

In my opinion, the X7 does its PC gaming surround better through spdif than from USB. IF my PC's optical out wasn't limited to 2 channel stereo, i wouldn't need the U3 in my case.

 

[Malinkadink]

No. The noise is embedded into the signal. You can have the Mixamp at 10%, and attach an external amp, and the noise will still be the same once you achieve the same volume level as when you use the Mixamp alone. If you want less hiss, you should've went for the 2010-2011 generation Mixamps. You can also get a Creative Recon USB or Creative X7 if you want something similar to the Dolby headphone surround with basically no hiss whatsoever.

What about the turtle beach DSS2? I see people saying the sound quality is better with it, but i'm not sure if it starts having a lot of white noise at higher volumes like the mixamp. 

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

DSS2 uses some other virtual surround that I haven't heard, but I'm betting Tb went with because it was cheaper to use than licensing Dolby Headphone, which makes me assume the DSS2 won't sound as good as the original

 

[Malinkadink]

DSS2 uses some other virtual surround that I haven't heard, but I'm betting Tb went with because it was cheaper to use than licensing Dolby Headphone, which makes me assume the DSS2 won't sound as good as the original

http://www.amazon.com/Turtle-Beach-Force-Surround-Processor-63043006306200/dp/B006W41X36
 
They're still dolby

 

[PurpleAngel]

 

   
The K612 is going to have amazing soundstage and be very analytical, while the X2 is more "fun" and has much more bass. Also, being 30 ohms,  the X2 doesn't need an amp like the 120 ohm AKGs do.
 
I'd say the Q/K701s are a more accurate cross-shop with the X2... still need good amping to get the most from 'em, but they'll pass even the 612s in terms of soundstage.
 
Nothing in the open-back AKG lineup are going to have much bass out of the box, you'll need some EQ magic to get the low end.

 
Great information for the back pocket, thanks!
I have all of my audio inputs going through an Onkyo tx-nr636 AV receiver and plan to have the headphones plugged into the receiver as well. Does the receiver take away the need for investing in a PC video card or headphone amp? I assume it does based on my initial research but I am still a little unsure.

 
I'm fairly sure the Onkyo does not have Dolby Headphone.....but you could get a low cost sound card, like the Xonar DG or DGX, for your PC.
The DG/DGX can process Dolby Headphone, then send the signal over to the Onkyo (analog or digital).

 

[NamelessPFG]

Sadly, receivers haven't had honest-to-goodness Dolby Headphone for a few generations.
 
But looking up the Onkyo TX-NR636 quickly reveals that it's one of the recent Dolby Atmos-enabled receivers, which makes me wonder how it'll handle Atmos content mixing through the headphone-out. Time to flip through the manual-

"If you selected any other listening mode than Pure Audio (European, Australian and Asian models), Stereo, Mono and Direct, connecting headphones will switch the listening mode to Stereo."

OH, COME ON! YOU BLEW IT, ONKYO!
 
Also, don't underestimate the headphone-outs of AVRs just because they're meant for speakers. They tend to be pretty powerful, certainly enough for a typical AKG 7xx set. The main issue's just that you don't get any sort of surround processing out of it unless the receiver explicitly advertises having a Dolby Headphone mode or something similar.

 

[Blze001]

  What about the turtle beach DSS2? I see people saying the sound quality is better with it, but i'm not sure if it starts having a lot of white noise at higher volumes like the mixamp. 

 
The DSS2 is what I use in my setup. I haven't noticed any white noise at normal listening volumes (except with Inquisition... and the pitch changes depending on what's on the screen, it's really weird). That said, I don't use the DTS or whatever surround it has, I mainly use it for the bass boost, it does an excellent job of giving my 701s some nice low end.
 

Originally Posted by silver21
 
Hello for movies and games, to buy: audio technica m50x or beyerdynamic dt770 250 ohm  ??
 
With: FiiO E10 or Fiio E11K or Creative Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 or Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D??

 
DT770 + FiiO E10 would be a solid combo.