Speaking about the Epos. I was seriously considering the purchase until I read that the pads are shallow. Not sure if the pads can be modded. Super curious how they sound though.
Comfort means the most to me now. In hindsight, when comparing the comfort of the X2HR's with third party pads. Senns 5xx - 6xx only had decent comfort in comparison.
Also speaking about these second generation headsets. Some of them fit tighter than their predecessors. Two hands on examples would be the Rig 500 pro, now owned by a different company, also the Astro A10's. The Rigs have shallow pads now, and, the A10's used to be clunky, larger headroom, and the cups WERE actually over the ear.
Anyways. Instead of having a standalone mic and headphones, I was looking at closed back headset options.
Other headsets I've tried and returned.
Arctic Nova Pro
Hyper X Cloud Orbits
Might just keep using my standalone mic, and find uber comfortable closed back headphones when it calls for them. Before anyone mentions Beyer. No comment on those plastic pieces that hold the metal together. Beyer does have a newer, streamlined fasteners.
With the headband fasteners being enclosed, I wonder if that in-turn added more durability.
A couple points to consider:
A closed back headphone is a whole different discussion than brands and pads... Closed headphones offer more environmental versatility, but when you get used to comparing closed headphones side by side with open headphones, you realize that you really have to need that closed seal off from the environment to justify the loss in sound quality. If you're looking at closed headphones, I would recommend adding the AKG K371 to your shortlist... it's getting a lot of reviews and frequent recommendations (but I haven't heard it yet, so I am not giving it thumbs up or down).
Second, comfort. Comfort is important to most audiophiles, and IMO especially gamers because we tend to lose track of time and have longer listening/playing sessions (no offense to music listeners who lose track of two or three hours). That said, pad depth has an inverse correlation with sound quality. The deeper your pads, the more diffuse and softened the sound is in a headphone (arguably true with loudspeakers too, the cheap seats in concerts suck). More front air volume (more air between the front of the driver & your eardrum) = more resistance/acoustic impedance. In my experience, Beyer and AKG pads are about the same depth as Sennheisers. I assume you tried the HD 58X and HD 6XX? The HD 500* series that are still in production (like the HD 560S, HD 599) share an earcup/enclosure design that is mostly the same as the PC38X/PC37X if you ignore the boom mic and volume dial. The Audeze LCD series have absolutely MASSIVE pads... but even they, I think, have a depth within a few millimeters of the HD 600's pad depth. I also had my perspective on thick pads changed by the HD 800: it has really thin pads, but the earcup is deep so my ears don't touch at all, and the caliper pressure is distributed evenly over a very wide area, so it doesn't need to be squishy (people with really pronounced cheekbones may want more squishy and easily compressed pads).
As long as your ear doesn't touch the driver (and I prefer no part of the pad touching my ear either, though obviously that's what on-ear designs like Koss and Grado's use, but less obviously the bowl-like pads on Audio Technica AD900 also does), you would ideally want the driver to be as close to your eardrum and surface of your ear as possible.
I think it's interesting that the HD 500 series* actually has a smaller driver, but a larger earpad/earcup opening than the HD 600 series. Some people find the HD 600 series more comfortable if they have wider/more extended ear shapes anyways, because there is a boxed-off flat area at the back of the HD 500 series cups to try and reflect some sound behind the ear towards the side of your head (part of that angled earcup design). My ears don't touch this (and never applies pressure to my ears) unless I wear the earcups positioned
forward on my head towards my face, BUT ears are different and if you know this happens with you on an HD 560S, then it would probably also happen with the PC 38X.
*Excluding the HD 58X Jubilee, because it uses the HD 600 series enclosure.
~~~~~~~~~
Anyway, hopefully some of this info is helpful to you. I'm curious what you'll eventually go for... but don't worry, it's a headphone, not a spouse
Looked at the VZR model one? supposed to be good, if i had the funds i would love to give it a try.
For pc-gaming i have a pair of fostex t50rp modded and paired with a v moda boom mic. Wonderful sound but can't be used on my xbox series x tough if i want to use party chat as the controller don't have the power to run it. If i use my dac/amp on my xbox i get the power to drive them, but can´t chat in a party.
Who makes the VZR? Sounds like someone from Skullcandy's marketing department came up with the name (which is not a slight!).
I also have a Fostex T50RP (a special edition made for Drop, the TH-X0 mk II, that included mod experimentation materials), and you're absolutely right... that thing is a power hungry beast!! It's my poster child example for why the sensitivity matters so much more on a spec sheet than impedance, when you're trying to calculate amping requirements. It requires almost another quarter turn on my big desktop amp to match the volume of my HD 800, haha! The T50RP sounds pretty great though, I personally enjoy my sample TH-X0 mk II more than my HD 650 on most occasions.
I have a real headphone itch now, I guess its fall.
Both sounded best when using the Dolby Dynamic mode where it it auto-chooses how to enhance the audio.
