I want a decent (ish) pair of analogue wired stereo headphones to emulate 5.1 surround when gaming, luckily my motherboard (ASUS Z270 TUF Mark 1) comes with DTS HeadphoneX which "should" do a decent job of emulating 5.1 surround from a DTS encoded source and can apparently use ANY set of stereo headphones to do so. So far so good...
Now, I'm completely new to modern headphones as I've been using an analogue Roccat Kave 5.1 gaming headset for the past few years, I know they are frowned upon but it sounds "OK" and gives VERY good directional sound, so it did its job for the past 5yrs or so up until the front 2 channels developed a crackle recently so I've been blindly searching for a decent (ish) pair of stereo headphones to see what all the fuss is about as all I hear when I mention my headset is "nope, they're crap, a decent stereo set will be MUCH better etc etc etc". So, I've very blindly and broadly been searching and the following models keep popping up:
Sennheiser HD598
Audio Technica ATH-M50x
Audio Technica ATH-AD500X
Grado SR80e
Beyerdynamics DT770 Pro
Beyerdynamics DT990 Pro
All I really know is I like a nice bass for gaming for explosions and whatnot, I like nice strong clear mids and highs and I need a large soundstage for very good directional sound (so I can shoot that Taliban before he shoots me), so do any of the above meet that criteria?
If so could my motherboard drive any of them without and amp/soundcard? If not, I've been told I could retain the use of my motherboards DTS HeadphoneX encoder if was to buy a headphone amp that has an optical input and use that to drive the headphones, so again, can anyone recommend a decent\cheap\simple one?
As for budget, ideally I'd like to get the whole lot done for under £200 (bearing in mind the ModMic will cost me around £40), although I know it'll probably be more like £250 by the time it's done.
Now, I'm completely new to modern headphones as I've been using an analogue Roccat Kave 5.1 gaming headset for the past few years, I know they are frowned upon but it sounds "OK" and gives VERY good directional sound, so it did its job for the past 5yrs or so up until the front 2 channels developed a crackle recently so I've been blindly searching for a decent (ish) pair of stereo headphones to see what all the fuss is about as all I hear when I mention my headset is "nope, they're crap, a decent stereo set will be MUCH better etc etc etc". So, I've very blindly and broadly been searching and the following models keep popping up:
Sennheiser HD598
Audio Technica ATH-M50x
Audio Technica ATH-AD500X
Grado SR80e
Beyerdynamics DT770 Pro
Beyerdynamics DT990 Pro
All I really know is I like a nice bass for gaming for explosions and whatnot, I like nice strong clear mids and highs and I need a large soundstage for very good directional sound (so I can shoot that Taliban before he shoots me), so do any of the above meet that criteria?
If so could my motherboard drive any of them without and amp/soundcard? If not, I've been told I could retain the use of my motherboards DTS HeadphoneX encoder if was to buy a headphone amp that has an optical input and use that to drive the headphones, so again, can anyone recommend a decent\cheap\simple one?
As for budget, ideally I'd like to get the whole lot done for under £200 (bearing in mind the ModMic will cost me around £40), although I know it'll probably be more like £250 by the time it's done.
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