headsets

The one Turtle Beach I ever owned, was good for a short minute, but the wiring started to loosen and it became... sh*tty.

I currently use the Corsair Vengeance 2100 headset. Between it and the Vegeance 2000, I can't vouch for anything else. They are great (in my opinion).

First off, do not buy into a lot of this "surround sound" crap these headphone makers are saying. To get actual surround sound effects, the relative location of your head (your ears, more specifically) must be known in order to calculate the proper head-related transfer function (HRFT). There are a few systems out there that do track your head, but they are $$$$.

For an analogy with the surround, think of those claiming "surround sound" but do not track your head to function like one of those stupid "personal theater" wearable displays and the systems that do track your head to be like an Oculus Rift. When you turn your head with one of those personal theaters, the field of view stays the same. When you turn your head with an Oculus Rift, the image adjusts the perspective, so it looks like you are in the scene. The same thing happens with the phony "surround sound" and the systems that track your head position.

Are the head tracking systems perfect? No, the HRTF is different for everyone as everyone has different shaped heads, hair, ears, etc. But like an Oculus Rift, it's a very good approximation.

On to quality: I'd trust brands like Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, Ultrasone, and other high-end headphone manufacturers to create great headphones with excellent tonal response and transient dynamics.

BTW, I have a pair of Ultrasone's and the "surround" they advertise is not the same as what everyone else talks about with multiple channels. What they mean by "surround" is the they have a baffle in the headphones that tries to emulate room effects, as most sounds are mastered on monitors in a studio without headphones, and the expected sound would have some room effects that you would otherwise not have in a direct firing driver.

I thought about the Sennheisers but their ear cups seem a bit big and considering i have a smallish head they would probably dwarf my head. I could be wrong though.

You can get differences by fiddling around with the sound equalization, too...it just won't get you any closer to legitimately emulating surround sound.

So the size of the G4me Zeros or Ones are probably just intimidating but will fit any size head?

Also i should be fine without an amp as the Ones are 50 ohms?

The Ones are currently on sale for 211.99 which is about 40 dollars cheaper than the A40s.

Edited by ArkansasWoman777 - 16 Dec 2014 at 12:39am

Multiple speakers in the headphones does NOT help the least bit with the surround imaging of the audio, because as you move your head around, both the relative intensity and timing of the audio needs to change in relation to where the apparent source is located.

$300 won't get you this...they are just giving you a bunch of BS. Beyerdynamic's Headzone solution is over $1000, not including headphones; Smyth's I believe is over $3000, again not including headphones. Therefore, unless you are prepared to shell out $$$$, don't expect legitimate surround sound.

Instead you should focus on accurate sound reproduction: correct tone, amplitude, and timing. That is where you should focus your money, and forget all of the gimmicky BS all of these "me, too" companies try to sell you on.

I should add that if you notice how those solutions do not require headphones...it is all about the processing of the audio signal. Conceivably, if the latency could be low enough, someone could use a head tracking algorithm on a camera looking at you and run the audio through a DSP (AMD has their TrueAudio, so GPGPU processing of this could be doable) and transform the audio to a surround simulating binaural source. So, given a decent combination of commonly available equipment (the camera might have to be something like a Kinect v2 for enough fidelity of your head position and orientation; although parallax correction for 3D displays still requires active infrared tracking, so that may be necessary), development of a software solution for surround sound processing for headphones could be feasible.

So i have it narrowed to one of the Sennheiser gaming headsets, i just want to know whether i need a sound amp/mixer or will it be just fine without it?

I'll be using them for playing games, communicating on teamspeak and watching movies/tv shows and twitch streams whenever the boyfriend is home.

Course I have Klipsch Pro Medias for speakers so i am good on that aspect for when nobody is home so i can watch movies, twitch streams, movies and playing games by myself.

Edited by ArkansasWoman777 - 16 Dec 2014 at 6:50am

So in lighter note, i have decided on the Sennheiser G4me One headset, gonna try them out without a soundcard or amp and see how it goes. I'm hoping they actually fit my head.

Well...good stereo headphones >> fake surround sound headphones as well.

As for you selection, it looks good. A thing to keep in mind (I'm mentioning this because Sennheiser offers both) is that this is an open back pair of headphones, as opposed to closed back. An open back will offer better phase coherence, as it allows the out of phase sound to escape the headphones. On the downside, the sound is escaping the headphones and others may hear it. Also, as sound can get out, it also can get in, so you won't have as much sound isolation.

I mention this as you are saying this is for quiet use when others are around.

Quick recap: Open back = best sound accuracy; closed back = better sound isolation

Well i bought them: Estimated Delivery Date: Monday, December 29, 2014 which i hope it comes sooner that that...lol


I hope these last longer than 5 months (r.i.p Logitech g230s)

Edited by ArkansasWoman777 - 16 Dec 2014 at 9:14am

I ordered the black ones off the Amazon site

Indeed - I misspoke. I meant isolation. I have a set of noise-*cancelling* earbuds that my brother got for me. Not a huge fan of them.

That being said, not positive if I want the noise-isolating ones. Can't risk ignoring (not hearing) she who must be obeyed

Hey girl what's up.
I have the Sennheiser HDR 180 wireless and love them! Have over 7000 songs and they sound great!!!! Gaming is fabulous also. And I can here dear hubby when he's yelling at me to come watch Grimm.
Ya did fine.

So i got my headset finally and they are pretty comfortable and they sound great. These are a good quality headset, the ear cups aren't super huge like in the pictures but of course pictures of items are intimidating. They fit my head without an issue although i do i have to up the notches of the headband thingy but thats not a bad thing.