What is a decent over ear headphone for gaming noob?

[Coyle]

I've never bought myself over-ear headphones before and would like a nice pair. My head is on the smaller size, and I don't need the ear cups to swivel/rotate or be portable but would like the cups to be comfortable over time. Will be using connected to my pc which I know has the virtual surround and might even support actual 7.1 though don't know if that's applicable to headphones or not but would like to take advantage of whatever surround is possible since it's for gaming. Thanks so much!

Edit: price range under $200 but would consider up to $300.

 

[dunring]

Which price range are you looking in? I'm an avid gamer also who's had over 450 headphones and IEMs for my business, so got to try them all in games while in inventory over the years. The best out of the box tuned have a flat bass response or explosions drown everything out. Imaging is important too for accuracy when you hear other players.

 

[GREQ]

Don't bother with any headset with multiple drivers that supports 7.1 analogue output.
They all sound awful, and the positional cues get messed up.

A good set of stereo headphones will always give superior positional cues because that is how video game audio is mastered in their studios.
Just set your in-game audio output to stereo headphones and let the game engine take care of it.

There are also some virtual 7.1 DSP effects that work much better than any 'real' version.

What kind of budget are you thinking of?

 

[Coyle]

Which price range are you looking in? I'm an avid gamer also who's had over 450 headphones and IEMs for my business, so got to try them all in games while in inventory over the years. The best out of the box tuned have a flat bass response or explosions drown everything out. Imaging is important too for accuracy when you hear other players.

Ideally under $200.

 

[earmonger]

You should look into the new Audio-Technica ATH-R50X, $159. I haven't heard them -- I have the older ATH-R70X, which are great. But here's one reviewer who loves them for gaming; you can scroll through the sections of the video to get to the gaming section near the end.