[Evshrug]

Mine was brand new and the cd drive makes a noise sometimes..nothing to worry about mate!

I agree, mine does too but it's not a grinding noise. And at any rate, it's WAY quieter than my Xbox!

Comparing the new AD700X with the Q701, what will be better for Competitive FPS gaming? I read that the AD700X has worse build quality than the AD700, will the Q701 be better in this case?

Thanks

I can only speak from experience about the AD700 and Q701, I'd say that they were fairly evenly matched and neither seemed to have a durability concern for indoor use. I've read other users of either state that sometimes the plastic might creak, but neither of mine were probe to creaking while wearing them. The AD700 were notably lighter weight, which some might feel is a sign of bad quality BUT lighter weight is a lot more comfortable in long gaming sessions. The replaceable Q701 cable has already saved me from having to replace the whole headphone.

For competitive gaming, they're about equal, the AD700 might be less distracting with bass sounds but they have pretty much equal soundstage and the Q701 is a bit more forward and convincing of "realism." You can't go wrong with either, but I ended up keeping the Q701 because it was more interesting to listen to for music and movies (so primarily used for games, but it was great for everything). The two Audio Technicas are also great values tho.

 

[Stillhart]

  Comparing the new AD700X with the Q701, what will be better for Competitive FPS gaming? I read the AD700X has a worst build quality then the AD700, the Q701 will be better in this case?
Thanks

 
I haven't heard the AT's.  Based on what I've read, you're kinda splitting hairs with which is better as they're both top-tier.

 

[imac2much]

  I play in windowed-fullscreen whever it's offered.  This lets you alt-tab without drama and would likely fix this issue as well.

 
I used to do that on my desktop.  Unfortunately now that I am moving I can only play on my laptop, which is a lot less powerful.  For many games I need to play on 720p instead of the native 1080p in order to maintain 60 fps

I haven't experienced any game exiting when adjusting the volume knob on the OMNI. Have not played those games you mentioned, though, perhaps it is a bug specific to one of them.

Yeah it seems like it only happened in BLOPS II (didn't try it a second time though).  I played some Jazzpunk today and had no issues controlling volume through the Omni in-game.  Weird.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

I used to do that on my desktop.  Unfortunately now that I am moving I can only play on my laptop, which is a lot less powerful.  For many games I need to play on 720p instead of the native 1080p in order to maintain 60 fps
Yeah it seems like it only happened in BLOPS II (didn't try it a second time though).  I played some Jazzpunk today and had no issues controlling volume through the Omni in-game.  Weird.

Do you tweak in game settings? There are a few settings that can make FPS nosedive.

I honestly don't know why people just go straight for Ultra settings and get pissed off when it doesn't hit FPS. They can seriously just go to Custom, max out everything except a few things, and be the equivalent of Ultra without some of the things that hurt FPS by a ton. On my Alienware laptop, I found that shadow quality, high anti-aliasing, are two of the most taxing settings.

If I lower shadow quality to normal instead of max on some games, I sometimes gain around 20 FPS. And the difference between max and normal is that shadows may look a little less sharper. It isn't something you almost ever notice, and shadows rarely ever look super sharp in real life either unless you have a bright light source next to the object.

As for AA, when playing in 1080p, the difference between 2x and 4x is so miniscule, it really isn't worth the FPS penalty, and the difference between 4x and 8x are...well, I can't see it unless I'm straining my eyes in certain places. For me, this setting depends on the game. Some games I can run 8x MSAA and it still stays at 60fps, but for the most part, I leave it at FXAA (which has almost no performance lost whatsoever compared to no AA at all), and if the game can handle it, I'll put it at 2x MSAA.

People need to understand that Ultra maxes out some of these settings that give you ver, very little actual benefit, and it's much more worthwhile to lower them to normal levels as you can't see the benefit anyways.

Also, make sure to have an FPS counter like FRAPS or DXtory to test your games and see which settings impact FPS the most.

Other settings that I've noticed harm my fps:

Ambient Occlusion (I can still run this on normal most of the time for 60fps). This setting is also one of those that can impact performance bya lot, but gain very little going from a normal to Ultra. Some games run it better than others. It is worth having on, but just test to see if your PC can handle it well enough MAX, or lower it to around normal.

Tessellation: This is single-handedly one of the most demanding, and WORTH having on. Always, always try having this maxed, and tweak everything else. If all else fails, turning this off will make your FPS skyrocket but you lose the next gen looking textures. I did turn it off on Sniper 2: Ghost Warrior and Batman: Arkham City, as those game was super demanding on my PC (I could never reach 60fps until I turned this off).

Unreal Engine and my laptop aren't the best of friends.

 

[AxelCloris]

Sony PlayStation Gold wireless headset for $40 at TigerDirect. It does involve a rebate which could bother some. But seems like a good deal to me. Can't speak to their sound quality. I hear the surround processing is about on-par with the Razer Surround, so if that's true then it's not amazing.
 
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9048066&CatId=3900
 
And it looks like the Xbox One headset is the same price, again after rebate. Not wireless.
 
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8907134&CatId=8895

 

[imac2much]

Thanks MLE for the tips. 
However, I'm aware of most of those fps saving techniques, and I agree with you that most of those settings are not worth enabling.  On my desktop, I routinely use normal or lower settings for shadows, and lower settings for AA.  I also generally turn off ambient occlusion.  I'm able to get 50-60 fps on most games at 1080p (sometimes even at 1440p if I turn off AA entirely, which isn't really necessary at such a high resolution for me).
 
However, my laptop is much weaker than my PC, haha (I don't have an Alienware machine).  So even with all those fps saving tips, I generally do not get 60 fps at 1080p in demanding games. 

 

[xero404]

I just wanted to thank MLE for making this thread. It's been a year since looking for a replacement for my hd280s for gaming and now my Trifecta is complete. One open, one closed and one portable.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Is that a black Alpha Dog? I thought MrSpeakers wasn't gonna use black? It looks amazing.

Man, I'm jealous. Both an AD AND LCD2. HRRRRRGH!

 

[xero404]

Yeah Jumped at the black when they got released (good thing my upgrade was just at the right time). Although, when i saw the claret in person it much more showy than the blacks.
 
I thought i was done with the Alpha Dog... but the Audeze booth at SF headphone meet got the best of me and the WANT began....  Brian at Razordog audio made me an offer i couldn't refuse. The subbass is just at another level with these LCD 2's need some time to adjust to the sound sig but so far so good (Fiance says she's glad she doesn't have to tap my shoulder to get my attention now lol).

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Yeah. The LCD2 is my favorite sounding headphone outside of the D7000. The LCD2 is just soooooo inviting. Is yours a new one, or a pre-fazor? I hear the new ones are more neutral, so I think iff I was gonna get an LCD2, I'd want an earlier LCD2 Rev. 2 which was warm and smoother.

 

[xero404]

They are Fazor ones. Never got to hear the rev 2.2s, i was looking at used ones after the meet but this deal for a brand new one was too hard to pass up. I hope the headphone bug doesn't come around again and i can stay happy lol. Good thing the next meet isn't until next year. 

 

[chicolom]

Since I have both cards, I made a video comparing Dolby Headphone and SBX Pro Studio.
 
The only other video I could find on YouTube comparing them was that Battlefield 3 one.
 
Let me know what you think...
 
 

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Very noice. I'll check it out later. Think you can find a good spot in the game where you can just repeatedly check an audio cue? Like something on fire, etc? Also, how did you manage to record the audio? And game as well.

I'd like to do this myself, but no idea how to go about it.

 

[chicolom]

I recorded the video with Nvidia shadow play, which is like a built in video capture feature on newer Nvidia cards. Works great. Looks much nicer on my PC though, before youtube gets a hold of it and demolishes the frame rate and compresses it down.

Audio was recorded from the line out the FiiO D03K (for both) to the line in on a Tascam DR-40 recorder.

I just liked that clip because that monster sounds pretty bad a$S in surround, especially the LFE sounds it makes. You can hear how the two dsps deal with those LFE sounds a bit.

Granted, I had the "bass" effect turned off on the SBX . I need to mess with that more. I'm not a fan of the "crystalizer" though, which makes the highs too bright.

 

[Fegefeuer]

I used FRAPS and grabbed the audio directly from the Windows Mixer. That way only youtube can mess (most) with the sound. I understand your approach though as shadowplay doesn't cost anything. 
 
Crystallizer and that Bass Boost are very useless. Crystallizer also messes with spatial cues a bit.