Mad Lust Envy's Headphone Gaming Guide: (8/18/2022: iFi GO Blu Review Added)
May 13, 2014 at 8:05 PM Post #23,716 of 48,560
How about the AD700X, AD900X compared to Q701s for less bass, more details and bigger soundstage?
 
May 13, 2014 at 8:16 PM Post #23,717 of 48,560
  Out of curiosity, are you amping your X1?  I found that amping helped cure the first two points.  Well, the bass was a lot more controlled, less boomy, so it felt like "less" without actually being less.  And of course cleaning up the bass helped the detail.

Nope, no amping yet. Have to buy an amp for the k712 anyways. So i might buy some fiio amp first and see what happens.
Thanks for the tip. :)
 
  How about the AD700X, AD900X compared to Q701s for less bass, more details and bigger soundstage?

I dont want some neutral sounding phones. Like Stillhart said, its the boomyness i cant stand on the X1s.
But the Q701 is also an option.
 
May 13, 2014 at 8:44 PM Post #23,718 of 48,560
Can anyone comment about the gaming performance of AD700X / AD900X compared to Q701s?
 
May 13, 2014 at 10:20 PM Post #23,719 of 48,560
  Can anyone comment about the gaming performance of AD700X / AD900X compared to Q701s?


Pretty sure that info is right there on the front page...
 
May 14, 2014 at 12:55 AM Post #23,720 of 48,560
Hi, so i've been reading this excelent guide and basically got "talked out" of buying a 7.1 headset. I already have an ultrasone pro 900 headphone and got curious on how to get dolby headphone off my ps3/ps4. I have an e17 too but I imagine it only outputs stereo. What would I need in order to get dolby headphone? Thanks mad envy and guys!
 
May 14, 2014 at 2:12 AM Post #23,722 of 48,560
  I don't understand: many games' soundtracks are recorded with a live orchestra, and consoles can output lossless audio format: why is game audio of low quality?

 
Memory footprint (and processing power but that is another topic). Split pool 256/256 and 512 MB Ram just don't cut it and multiplatform game design used to built upon the lowest machines aka PS360 so everybody in the end gets the samples, both the 16GB PC and those consoles. With clever streaming/memory handling you could use better samples but that was mostly reserved for Sony titles. With the new consoles the ceiling is much higher. KZ:SF for instance uses the whole memory of a Xbox 360 just for audio calculations/processing. 
 
May 14, 2014 at 3:33 AM Post #23,723 of 48,560
  I don't understand: many games' soundtracks are recorded with a live orchestra, and consoles can output lossless audio format: why is game audio of low quality? I remember when I first asked on this thread, you recommended the Q701 to me. If game audio isn't going to be improved much from audio gear, what about the choice of headphone itself? So are you saying that good headphones for gaming are mainly for the surround effect and not for the SQ of in game audio?

 
Because, space issues.
 
Because people b**** and complain about downloading a 60GB game because of lossless audio files from Steam. Because games still need to fit in a 25GB (of which only 21GB is usable) Blu-ray disc and don't want to go to dual-layered Blu-rays unless absolutely at all nessassary. Because 95% of gamers can't tell the difference. Because really, we are the very small minority that even care about audio quality in games. Because eye candy > ear candy, thus more concentration on visuals.
 
Need more reasons?
 
May 14, 2014 at 10:57 AM Post #23,724 of 48,560
Hi, so i've been reading this excelent guide and basically got "talked out" of buying a 7.1 headset. I already have an ultrasone pro 900 headphone and got curious on how to get dolby headphone off my ps3/ps4. I have an e17 too but I imagine it only outputs stereo. What would I need in order to get dolby headphone? Thanks mad envy and guys!

 
 
  To get virtual surround out of a ps3 you would want a Astro Mixamp or Turtlebeach DSS, if I am not mistaken.

 
You can use any of the devices specified on the very first page of the guide.  Scroll down past the headphone reviews and pick one of the 5 or so that are listed.
 
May 14, 2014 at 4:06 PM Post #23,725 of 48,560
The PS4 controller must have a tiny amp, right? What else could they fit in that? So how would you get decent sound out of a good musical headphone like the Q701?

I mean... I'd still like it better wired to the console, and amped. You gain convenience by using your wireless controller with a smartphone-style TRRS headphone (has a mic, and 4 "poles" or 3 black rings on the plug), but how much money do you think Sony put into the wireless audio transmitter, DAC, and amp built into the $60 controller that already has (awesome) features like 6-axis motion controls, a trackpad, lightbar, built-in mini speaker, refined analogue triggers and thumbsticks... So yeah, I recommend an amp to make things sweet rather than harsh, especially for games with great sweeping audio scores and immersive sound effects. I don't care about audio quality at all for a game like Starcraft multiplayer where audio is just an alert, but for good FPS and RPG games good audio is part of the fun :)


I thought most of this thread was for console gaming and it has been confirmed a zillion times that everything will do better with an amp.
I see. Cheers, and no need to go through everything. So you agree that FLAC vs MP3 is largely placebo? Possibly stupid question: is this the case for lossless formats Dolby TrueHD and its DTS equivalent vs lossy formats Dolby/DTS?

Um, I think there's definitely a benefit to higher bitrates (weren't they recommending at least 256 kbps AAC or better?), and I like to have my favourite songs on CD or in a lossless format like FLAC or Apple-Lossless, but it's harder to hear the difference above 320 Kbps. It's easy for me to hear AAC sound better than MP3 at the same kbps.

There's a big difference in how good audio sounds and how sweet/palatable it feels between lower bit-rate and 256 kbps, the next step up to 320 kbps is smaller but still easy to hear with cymbals and songs with a wide dynamic range of loud to soft sound, then things get clearer and more transparent as you go up from there but it's harder to specify what changes because of the laws of diminishing returns. I honestly haven't heard the lossless Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD-Master, because I don't own any of the media presently, but games don't use those levels of audio quality, and you pretty much have to have an AV Receiver to decode those or use HDMI input for audio.

Memory footprint (and processing power but that is another topic). Split pool 256/256 and 512 MB Ram just don't cut it and multiplatform game design used to built upon the lowest machines aka PS360 so everybody in the end gets the samples, both the 16GB PC and those consoles. With clever streaming/memory handling you could use better samples but that was mostly reserved for Sony titles. With the new consoles the ceiling is much higher. KZ:SF for instance uses the whole memory of a Xbox 360 just for audio calculations/processing. 

^what he said!
 
May 14, 2014 at 4:26 PM Post #23,726 of 48,560
It's more to the mastering itself than the bitrate imo. A badly mastered song will sound bad irregardless of bitrate. Also, a well mastered track will sound good even at lower bitrate.
Most of the time distinguishing a 256-320kbps mp3/aac and flac is not easy for me so I usually bother not...
If things are available in flac good, if not a higher quality mp3/aac is plenty sufficient...
As to the 44.1/16 vs 96/24 etc... I am not even gonna go there :rolleyes:
 
May 14, 2014 at 5:47 PM Post #23,727 of 48,560
I'm hoping you guys can help me, I've bought some Bose Quiet Comfort 20i's that I got for half price. I want to use these with my PS4, now plugging them into the PS4 controller works (mic and audio) but the sound isn't loud enough and it's only stereo.

Reading the thread it looks like I need a mixamp, I'm looking to get an Astro 5.8 RX TX amp off my friend who wants to upgrade to the newer mixamp.

Will I be able to have chat audio through the amp? Is it as simple as plugging the headphones into the amp? As the only wire that goes to the PS4 is optical and I didn't think it carried chat audio?
 
May 14, 2014 at 6:32 PM Post #23,728 of 48,560
It's more to the mastering itself than the bitrate imo. A badly mastered song will sound bad irregardless of bitrate. Also, a well mastered track will sound good even at lower bitrate.
Most of the time distinguishing a 256-320kbps mp3/aac and flac is not easy for me so I usually bother not...
If things are available in flac good, if not a higher quality mp3/aac is plenty sufficient...
As to the 44.1/16 vs 96/24 etc... I am not even gonna go there
rolleyes.gif


I agree, this has been mastered well and sounds good on anything!  The audio was done with the universal audio Apollo(pro tools 11) and the image was recorded with a canon 1dc dslr camera(avid media composer)..looks and sounds $h!t hot!
 
May 14, 2014 at 9:35 PM Post #23,729 of 48,560
It's more to the mastering itself than the bitrate imo. A badly mastered song will sound bad irregardless of bitrate. Also, a well mastered track will sound good even at lower bitrate.
Most of the time distinguishing a 256-320kbps mp3/aac and flac is not easy for me so I usually bother not...
If things are available in flac good, if not a higher quality mp3/aac is plenty sufficient...
As to the 44.1/16 vs 96/24 etc... I am not even gonna go there :rolleyes:


I agree completely. I can't even begin to hear a difference in between 320 (or even 256) and ALAC. Generally, if a song sounds good on my PC in lossless, it'll sound just as good at 320kbps AAC. I can hear a difference when I switch sources or use an amp and DAC but lossless doesn't really seem to make any noticeable difference. I just have all my music in lossless just to be safe :p
 
May 15, 2014 at 12:49 AM Post #23,730 of 48,560
Evs - Great to see you trying to shoot people in the face on Twitch /CoD. Nice stream. You're too way too laid back to be a stone cold killer. Also Stillhart - great chatting with you too :)
 
Here's Ev's link btw, seeing as he's not a shameless self promoter:http://www.twitch.tv/evshrug/. Nice guy, crap shooter.
 

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