MrHumbucker
New Head-Fier
Hello. A couple of weeks ago, my Gamecom 777 headset's band suddenly cracked. It was holding together pretty well after a bit of wire insulating tape and glue was applied, but the UK is now actually having a decent summer, and of course, that has softened the glue, so I'm having to keep reinforcing it with more tape while I look around for a new pair of headphones.
I do like this Gamecom headset, it's served me well, but I decided that this time I would go for something more focused on sound quality than a gaming headset, and just get one of those cheap clip-on mics after, which seem surprisingly good. I found this forum while I was looking through Google for some reviews, and I noticed quickly that the replies were pretty high quality, so I thought this would be a good place to ask for some advice : D.
I'm in my mid teens, so I've only had a fairly small amount of experience with proper headphones, but I'll do my best to describe what I'm after.
I'm aiming at spending around £40, but I guess I can stretch it to £50 if need be.
The main use for the headphones will be casual music listening, I'll also be using it a lot for gaming, but I'm more concerned about the music quality than it's ability in games.
That being said, it would be very nice if it has some decent directional sound, sometimes even for music, as one of the independent musicians I'm into often has subtle details in where he places and moves around the instruments.
As I mentioned, I'm not very experienced with music equipment, but I think I would prefer something that's biased a bit towards a powerful bass, but the mid and high ends are also pretty important, and shouldn't be damaged too much by the bass. I usually have my music playing as loud as I can have it without hurting my ears, so it'll be fairly high.
I listen to a fairly large variety of music genres, the main ones are:
Rock (Elvis Presley, Kaiser Chiefs, the Beatles, etc), some of the songs made between the 50s and mid 80s that I wouldn't call Rock, but I'm not sure what to label them as (some of the Everly Bro's stuff, some of the Beatle's slower stuff, etc), some modern, electric music (Daft Punk, Owl City, this inde guy), as well as old synth music such as Peter Schilling's older albums (he's the guy who did "Major Tom (Coming Home)", but this is also a good example), a lot of Chiptune, both real and fakebit, and both simple and very complex (Some good examples: this track and almost anything in the OST it's in, and anything from this album for real chiptune that's complex), and, finally, there's an inde musician I like a lot (who also does chiptune), who makes music that is kinda a law unto itself : P, but if anything, I guess I'd say it's sort of like the american, Beatles-style bands of the 80s, but more complex. Link.
I do also listen to other genres, but the above list is what I listen to most.
As for build quality and sound leakage, I'll be using them almost entirely for my desktop PC, but they do need to be good enough to withstand an occasional (not too major) accident, and I don't really want them to be leaking a huge amount of sound, but they definitely don't need to be as sound-holding as a headset for using in public. They do need to be decent comfort wise, so that I can wear them for a few hours straight, and I am also a little (read: very) biased towards the ear cushions that are made from a fabric rather than the leather/fake leather cushions (I'm comparing to the Gamecom I'm wearing now, and to the HD 201s I had before these), they feel very nice, and high quality, while I find that fake leather just feels slightly cheap. If I would have to sacrifice better headphones to get the fabric cushions, though, fake leather is okay, just not ideal.
I don't have an amp yet, (unless my speakers, which have a headphone input, are actually amps rather than just a pass through), and I'm either going to use the soundcard the mobo of my home built rig has, or the external card that came with my Gamecom.
I've picked out a couple of Sennheisers that seem fairly promising, but I'm still a little uncertain. The HD 419, and the HD 429, both of which I can get from Amazon for about £45.
Thanks in advance
(that took so long...)
I do like this Gamecom headset, it's served me well, but I decided that this time I would go for something more focused on sound quality than a gaming headset, and just get one of those cheap clip-on mics after, which seem surprisingly good. I found this forum while I was looking through Google for some reviews, and I noticed quickly that the replies were pretty high quality, so I thought this would be a good place to ask for some advice : D.
I'm in my mid teens, so I've only had a fairly small amount of experience with proper headphones, but I'll do my best to describe what I'm after.
I'm aiming at spending around £40, but I guess I can stretch it to £50 if need be.
The main use for the headphones will be casual music listening, I'll also be using it a lot for gaming, but I'm more concerned about the music quality than it's ability in games.
That being said, it would be very nice if it has some decent directional sound, sometimes even for music, as one of the independent musicians I'm into often has subtle details in where he places and moves around the instruments.
As I mentioned, I'm not very experienced with music equipment, but I think I would prefer something that's biased a bit towards a powerful bass, but the mid and high ends are also pretty important, and shouldn't be damaged too much by the bass. I usually have my music playing as loud as I can have it without hurting my ears, so it'll be fairly high.
I listen to a fairly large variety of music genres, the main ones are:
Rock (Elvis Presley, Kaiser Chiefs, the Beatles, etc), some of the songs made between the 50s and mid 80s that I wouldn't call Rock, but I'm not sure what to label them as (some of the Everly Bro's stuff, some of the Beatle's slower stuff, etc), some modern, electric music (Daft Punk, Owl City, this inde guy), as well as old synth music such as Peter Schilling's older albums (he's the guy who did "Major Tom (Coming Home)", but this is also a good example), a lot of Chiptune, both real and fakebit, and both simple and very complex (Some good examples: this track and almost anything in the OST it's in, and anything from this album for real chiptune that's complex), and, finally, there's an inde musician I like a lot (who also does chiptune), who makes music that is kinda a law unto itself : P, but if anything, I guess I'd say it's sort of like the american, Beatles-style bands of the 80s, but more complex. Link.
I do also listen to other genres, but the above list is what I listen to most.
As for build quality and sound leakage, I'll be using them almost entirely for my desktop PC, but they do need to be good enough to withstand an occasional (not too major) accident, and I don't really want them to be leaking a huge amount of sound, but they definitely don't need to be as sound-holding as a headset for using in public. They do need to be decent comfort wise, so that I can wear them for a few hours straight, and I am also a little (read: very) biased towards the ear cushions that are made from a fabric rather than the leather/fake leather cushions (I'm comparing to the Gamecom I'm wearing now, and to the HD 201s I had before these), they feel very nice, and high quality, while I find that fake leather just feels slightly cheap. If I would have to sacrifice better headphones to get the fabric cushions, though, fake leather is okay, just not ideal.
I don't have an amp yet, (unless my speakers, which have a headphone input, are actually amps rather than just a pass through), and I'm either going to use the soundcard the mobo of my home built rig has, or the external card that came with my Gamecom.
I've picked out a couple of Sennheisers that seem fairly promising, but I'm still a little uncertain. The HD 419, and the HD 429, both of which I can get from Amazon for about £45.
Thanks in advance
(that took so long...)
. Yeah, I'm not expecting something super amazing, but hopefully I'll get something that's a little better than my headset, and that I'll be happy with for a while until I can afford something slightly higher end. I've never spent a huge amount on headphones, so I shouldn't be very hard to please.