[jumpman23j]

Mad Lust Envy, which heaphone would you recommend for someone who doesn't want to wake up others in the middle of the night?  I really want the dt 990 pro but I guess they really aren't ideal, since they have sound leakage.  I was looking at the Creative Aurvana Live, are these better than the M50's?  The Creative's are on sale for $60 on Amazon while the M50's are $40 more as well.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

For gaming, yes, the CAL is better. otherwise, they're pretty on par with one another. Can't go wrong with the CAL.

 

[chicolom]

Anyone ever use a desktop mounted mic for the Astro Mixamp? I figure they might have the potential to produce higher quality chat?

 
A desktop mic may have higher sound quality (depending on the mic) since it has probably larger higher quality capsule, but I'm doubtful a desktop mic would sound as good as a boom mic for gaming for a couple of reasons.
 
A benefit of a boom mic is that it's close to your mouth so it always has a strong signal. This means it can have a lower gain, which means less hiss and a cleaner signal.  Lower gain also means less room background noise picked up when your not talking.  So a boom mic basically gives as a better signal to noise ratio, with the "signal" being your voice and the "noise" being either hiss from the mic gain or actual room background noise. 
 
Unless your talking right up on the desktop mic like a radio announcer (not likely when gaming) a desktop mic is going to be farther away from your mouth than a boom mic, so it will need higher gain.  So it will likely have more background hiss, and it will also probably pick up more background noise in the room when your not talking.  Kind of like using a Kinect for a mic vs a headset.
 
Boom mics are usually directional, and because of the way they're angled/pointed they can take advantage of that to try and cancel out noise coming from behind them (your headphones).  A desktop mic may be directional too, but it's pointed at you and your headphones, so it's more likely to pick up the sounds coming out of an open headset (the higher gain/higher sensitivity won't help here either).

 

[jumpman23j]

For gaming, yes, the CAL is better. otherwise, they're pretty on par with one another. Can't go wrong with the CAL.

 
Ok cool, would there be a benefit in pairing it with an amp like a fiio e17 or something similar?  Also, how is the sound leakage with the Beyerdynamic dt 990?  Can someone in the next room hear the sound coming from the dt 990?  Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it.

 

[davisman]

   
Ok cool, would there be a benefit in pairing it with an amp like a fiio e17 or something similar?  Also, how is the sound leakage with the Beyerdynamic dt 990?  Can someone in the next room hear the sound coming from the dt 990?  Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it.

My fiancee is extremely sensitive to noise when she is sleeping. My office is right next door to the bedroom, and I am able to use my akg annies, and he 400s and not wake her.
 
Are you able to shut the door? 

 

[NamelessPFG]

Hmm, I have to take back what I said about the 1840 having just a little less bass than the MA900. The MA900 sounds quite bassy next to the 1840. Like... the 1840 is an AD700 next to the MA900. I dunno HOW anyone complains about the MA900's bass. That baffles me actually.

 
Simple: they're bassheads who want extension down to 20 Hz.
 
I don't think any headphone, or at least any open-back headphone, can pull that off.
 
I've noticed a similar thing across impressions of other headphones. People speak of Lambda-series Stax like they have no bass, but if the drivers aren't defective in any way, that's far from the case. "No bass" would be the AD700.
 
Anyway, looks like I'm in for a bassiness lottery tomorrow...or later today, technically speaking (12:33am EST). If only manufacturers would keep things consistent; it makes reviews less of a pain.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

What made you go for the MMX300?

Jumpman, unless you have volume set to explode your ear drums, I don't see how anyone could complain about any open headphone aside from electrostatics, really. The DT990 definitely doesn't leak loudly enough to make any sort of unappreciable loudness from another room. I think I made that word up, lololol.

Oh, perhaps a planar like the HE400, and the rare, extremely open dynamic like the MA900...and that's only with something like 1840 pads, which lowers the volume level considerably, so you need to push out more to reach the same volume to the ears as the stock pads which basically put the drivers right next to your ears. Because the MA900's needs to be louder with the 1840 pads, all that extra volume is clearly noticeable for everyone else in the room and then some.

 

[jumpman23j]

What made you go for the MMX300?

Jumpman, unless you have volume set to explode your ear drums, I don't see how anyone could complain about any open headphone aside from electrostatics, really. The DT990 definitely doesn't leak loudly enough to make any sort of unappreciable loudness from another room. I think I made that word up, lololol.

Oh, perhaps a planar like the HE400, and the rare, extremely open dynamic like the MA900...and that's only with something like 1840 pads, which lowers the volume level considerably, so you need to push out more to reach the same volume to the ears as the stock pads which basically put the drivers right next to your ears. Because the MA900's needs to be louder with the 1840 pads, all that extra volume is clearly noticeable for everyone else in the room and then some.

 
Aw man, now you got me in a bind because the DT990 seem really nice but I don't want to chance waking up the baby or I might get killed lol.  I was getting ready to get the Creative Aurvana Live's since they are $60 on Amazon right now.  Would the CAL's sound better paired with a Fiio E17?  

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

That's a swell combo. The E17 plays to the CAL's strengths, it's warmth.

 

[NamelessPFG]

What made you go for the MMX300?

 
It was cheap (less than half the current Amazon going price of $300) and I'm confident in being able to solder the replacement connector properly so it won't cut out.
 
Plus, I wanted to know if a closed set with decent isolation would work at all for gaming with virtual surround.
 
Most of all, I want YOU to review it, because it's really the only headset out there that isn't the PC360 with any pretense of catering to audiophiles, and you've already reviewed the PC360. Only seems fair to give the MMX300 a shot, right?

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Fair enough.

 

[jumpman23j]

That's a swell combo. The E17 plays to the CAL's strengths, it's warmth.

 
Cool, thanks.  Ok now for a question regarding the PS4, if I happened to get the E17 and CAL's how could I get chat to work?  Would a mod mic work?  And how would this be hooked up correctly?  Thanks!

 

[Change is Good]

Okay, now I'm having withdrawals... 

 
Dear 1840...
 

 
 
 

 

[AxelCloris]

  Okay, now I'm having withdrawals... 

 
Dear 1840...

 

 

[Evshrug]

I'm gonna be honest, I don't like the new Mac Pro's design for a few reasons:
 
-Those graphics cards sure look proprietary to me...as does everything else in the Mac Pro, actually. Goodbye, upgradability! Hello, planned obsolescence!
-The thermal core idea is interesting, but they cheaped out and used aluminum instead of copper, presumably to keep the weight down. I'd rather have better cooling performance.
 
Then again, as a custom-building PC enthusiast, Apple's direction pretty much goes against everything I stand for, best represented in this huge Corsair 800D tower next to me, crammed with a custom water-cooling loop and carefully picked PC parts. I'd probably rather Hackintosh or try and find an old Mac Pro on the cheap (yeah, right).
 
Speaking of Hackintoshing, that's probably something I could do with my old Q6600 box right now...

They're AMD FirePro cards.
 
And no, you can't perform internal upgrades, but the computer is ridiculously powerful, and thunderbolt 2 ports on the outside allow for new external upgrade options... already they got external PCIe graphics cards working with the first version of Thunderbolt, albeit slowly, I think each thunderbolt 2 port gets like PCIe 8x bandwidth. It's possible that the Xeon processors inside may not be overclockable, so... the aluminum core (very big heatsink!!) probably was tested to be over-adequate to manage temperatures, and the point of that huge heatsink and huge fan is low rpms high efficiency cooling, so it'll probably stay cool enough while staying quieter (with lower maintenance?) than a liquid cooler pump and system.
 
Pretty sure you don't have an interest in actually using OS X anyway... Kind of like I don't want to use Windows, it's just that for some games I HAVE to (hopefully Steambox removes that requirement?), most of the productivity and creativity apps I want to use I own for OS X. You'd probably only use OS X out of curiosity (which is fine, but I don't think you have a need for what Mac offers).
 
All that said, the power of it is waaaaaay overkill for my needs... it would just be the second kind of cool for me to own
I probably should just get a 27" iMac instead, dual boot it with Steam or Windows.