[Mochan]

The journey is part of the fun my friend...

 

[Sinty]

I've used the same 300$ to buy and resell headphones for the past 2 years.  I've been through around 40 sets and only kept a few.  You name the major brands and models, I've owned them all except the AGK 701/2, all the grado cept the ps1000, all the sennheisers, all the ATH and each brands earbuds and portables as well
 
the following are the highlights
 
Shure 840 - immensely powerful and sparkled, great bass and just neutrality at its best.  It exaggerates nothing and I love them dearly, RIP because they busted a few days ago, took a nasty tumble and was broken beyond repair.
 
Sennheiser HD 485 - Amazing ability just like the Shure 840 to do anything and any genre very well.  Its got such a great warm amazing tone to it, It is my absolute favorite set of all time.  It is immensely fun, although not as spacious as the Hd 595, its still great and powerful, incredible bass.
 
Sennheiser MX580 earbuds - THE undeniable best value of the earbud world. For 30$, its almost as good as the Yuin PK1, minus a tad bit of bass and clarity.  After 150+ hours, you will wake up suddenly one day and go WHAT THE...THEY SOUND AMAZING!  They are spacious and clear, just amazing in every way.
 
Insignia HDradio stock earbuds - They have similar audio quality to the Monster Turbines, and this set is dirt cheap and a stock media player set.  You'd never believe the bass coming out them.  Pretty awesome and an amazing value.  
 
Senn HD800 - Out of all the expensive sets, grado, ATH, AGK, ect.  This set wins.  It's simply jaw dropping.  I enjoy it much more than the Edition 8s.  I dont own them sadly, but a friend does and every time i visit i sit there for a little while and make him go away so i can enjoy.
 
Sennheiser MX980 - This set is amazing as well, but does much more than you'd think.  They are in fact, the best gaming headphones I've ever used outside of the HD800.  They are immensely accurate, great bass and clarity.  A nice wide soundstage, although the fit is large, its still incredible as to what they can do and achieve.  I play modern warfare 2 on the pc every day with them.  I pinpoint at 90% accuracy often.  I can hear people using NINJA pro, which is a special ability to make your footsteps almost silent.  I can hear people in the midsts of gun fire and explosions around the corner still using this perk. It's just awesome...my only gripe is they are large for earbuds.
 
Hope that helped, these are my favorites. 

 

[chinesekiwi]

Sinty, try the SoundMAGIC PL-50 as well for gaming
If it didn't have the limitation of it being an earphone and the soundstage limitation of earphones, I would be my value gaming headphone/earphone of choice, over the much (and derservably so) talked about AD700.
By far the best imaging earphone for the price.

 

[Mochan]

How the hell did you buy an HD800 with $300?

 

[Sinty]

I clearly said i dont own it
 

 

[David.M]

@ Monchan and Phos
 
thx for your help guys.

How would the HT Omega Striker 7.1 do?
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271001 It's about 90 bucks or so, but i can probably find one for $75-$80.
 
I don't see anything that mentions the EAX or the CSM3D, but it is fully capable with 7.1 surround + has Dolby Digital Live.
 
Would this the card do the trick or  would need or would i need something better? I think my DAC has a free optical port, so i guess the easiest solution would be to buy a toslink cable and hook it from the back of the Little Dot DAC to the back of the new sound card? and use just the software provided to switch back and forth (only when i need to game) 
 
that would be the proper way to do things, I suppose? Cause I'm not about to let a inferior sound card take control of my system as its main source ^_^
 
 
 

 

[Mochan]

Well you clearly said you owned them all, assumed you'd sold it already.  It's mind boggling that  you were able to get T1, GS1000, RS1, D7000, W2000, etc. on just $300.
 
Quote:

I clearly said i dont own it
 

 

[Trysaeder]

90% accuracy, hear people with ninja pro...must mean you get shot down before you can make any shots, otherwise you'd be earning enough money through gaming to buy a HD800.
The loudness of a ninja pro footstep compared to other ambient sounds in the map make it extremely hard to hear unless your earphone has a problem and emphasizes quiet sounds. That or you have smart volume normalisation.
 
The hype is unreal.

 

[Sinty]

Quote:

Well you clearly said you owned them all, assumed you'd sold it already.  It's mind boggling that  you were able to get T1, GS1000, RS1, D7000, W2000, etc. on just $300.
 

 

Lol, i did say owned*  I did sell them, struggling college students need food, especially back then.  It's not mind boggling at all, depends on your charm and how good you are with dealing with payment plans from ebay sellers with great return policies


 
Quote:

90% accuracy, hear people with ninja pro...must mean you get shot down before you can make any shots, otherwise you'd be earning enough money through gaming to buy a HD800.
The loudness of a ninja pro footstep compared to other ambient sounds in the map make it extremely hard to hear unless your earphone has a problem and emphasizes quiet sounds. That or you have smart volume normalisation.
 
The hype is unreal.

Edit:How unfortunate your hearing must not be able to pick up on the subtle sounds inside the game.  I camp a lot.  I just sit there in a nice safe spot and wait. It's very easy to pick up on sounds when you practice a few hours a day every day and are looking to hear those specific sounds.  People always run and reload at the same time, it's incredible easy to hear certain things that will announce the presence of someone near by even with ninja pro on.
 
 Do you even have the mx980s and a great sound card on your pc for gaming? If not, well then I'm sorry again you are not training your ears to know each and every sound in the game and actually trying hard to pick them out of the fray of battle sounds...

 

[imdaffy]

@ sinty
 
The world would be better off if all Campers were to be forcefully euthanised. seriously though, which shooters do you play then? I pretty much get bored with FPS games quite fast, even on multiplayer. But the bigger problem is that if you don't own a multiplayer shooter from the release on by the time you get it all the other people are insanely better. That and I'm not really good with shooters in general so usually its pretty frustrating pretty fast. On another genre I do hope diablo 3 is coming out in 2011, damn Blizzard and its way too early game announcements!
 
Still I wonder if I'll hear the monsters coming with a decent audio setup. For close combat it hardly matters because you need to run at them and fight like a madman anyway, but for the long rangers it really must be quite helpful. Not sure if there are many hack and slash or diablo fans around this forum though...

 

[Mochan]

It's definitely mind boggling, the T1 alone costs $1,300US, I know you meant you were keeping them one at a time and selling them off to buy new cans, but many of these cans go for twice your lifetime budget used, so I can't imagine what kind of charisma you must have to manage what you did.
 
As for the ninja footstep thingee... I agree with Trysaeder there is a LOT of hype around here about how people can hear stuff in their games. Some of teh stuff being mentioned is just pure BS, like how some guy could hear through his AD700 everything on the map from people crouching and could tell exactly where everyone was at any given time. That is pure BS, because the headphones will not magically create sound that the game isn't sending, and there isn't a single multiplayer FPS out there where you can hear where everyone is at the same time.
 
I haven't played MW2 Multiplayer so I don't know how the ninja perk works but as long as the sound is still there I would tend to agree that you can hear them with headphones if they try to sneak up behind you.
 
Quote:

Lol, i did say owned*  I did sell them, struggling college students need food, especially back then.  It's not mind boggling at all, depends on your charm and how good you are with dealing with payment plans from ebay sellers with great return policies


 

Edit:How unfortunate your hearing must not be able to pick up on the subtle sounds inside the game.  I camp a lot.  I just sit there in a nice safe spot and wait. It's very easy to pick up on sounds when you practice a few hours a day every day and are looking to hear those specific sounds.  People always run and reload at the same time, it's incredible easy to hear certain things that will announce the presence of someone near by even with ninja pro on.
 
 Do you even have the mx980s and a great sound card on your pc for gaming? If not, well then I'm sorry again you are not training your ears to know each and every sound in the game and actually trying hard to pick them out of the fray of battle sounds...

 

[Mochan]

I can't see the need for the competitive headphone advantage in a game like Diablo, it's really only something for FPS IMO. But you can certainly enjoy something like Diablo more with a nice headphone setup, especially if you don't have nice speakers.
 
Quote:

@ sinty
 
The world would be better off if all Campers were to be forcefully euthanised. seriously though, which shooters do you play then? I pretty much get bored with FPS games quite fast, even on multiplayer. But the bigger problem is that if you don't own a multiplayer shooter from the release on by the time you get it all the other people are insanely better. That and I'm not really good with shooters in general so usually its pretty frustrating pretty fast. On another genre I do hope diablo 3 is coming out in 2011, damn Blizzard and its way too early game announcements!
 
Still I wonder if I'll hear the monsters coming with a decent audio setup. For close combat it hardly matters because you need to run at them and fight like a madman anyway, but for the long rangers it really must be quite helpful. Not sure if there are many hack and slash or diablo fans around this forum though...

 

[imdaffy]

Well I guess so, but perhaps it's a good incentive to practice more on my FPS skills. It's more than likely that a friend of mine is organising a small lanparty somewhere in the next few months so any practice is welcome seeing as it's usually shooters and racing.
 
But yes I dont really have nice speakers, it's a hifi set I bought a year or two back for 200 euro, a Philips. It's hardly "bad" but I can hear the sound coming out of it isn't very, well, if i had to choose a word I'd go for genuine. It sounds kind of mechanical? Besides, it's quite cheaper to invest in a decent headphone setup than when you start with speakers. A friend of my uncle has a setup of about 100.000 euro and it sounds great, but seeing as I'm never gonna be all that rich I think I'd rather set aside that kind of money for something more important like a house!
 
It does bother me that games these days are starting to leave out the lan party option without an internet connection but I guess it is as it is.

 

[Audioholic]

WOW, just got DT770 pro 250 ohm. My god... I realy realy like these... They are not better then 880 but they are not inferior either. Just different. The thing I like the most about them is the softness of the sound. I can't pick up all the sounds I hear with 880 but I can immerse myself more in the game. I can listen to them and turn the sound volume up more without hurting my ears(and brain). And offcourse the wonderfull bass... For competitive gameplay I would still like DT880, but for everything else, including movies, I would defintely choose DT770. howgh!

 

[ninjowned]

Forgot to say thanks, this clears up a lot for me and I should have my setup within the next two weeks

 
Quote:

Originally Posted by chinesekiwi /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
You can bypass the STX amp by going for the RCA outs or optical out. The annoying thing is that (AFAIK) you can't use Dolby Headphone modes with the RCA outs.
You can try a 3.5mm to 2 RCA cable to your amp to keep Dolby Headphone however it won't bypass the STX amp so to minimise the amping the STX amp does, you can the headphone amp gain to the lowest.

 
Quote:

Dolby and CMSS do work with an amp in between the soundcard and the headphones. Whether you use RCA or whatever other input output method your amp and soundcard supports.