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The purpose of this thread is to try and provide a guide for those tempted to throw a “what headset should I get thread” on the forums. It will take into consideration cost/sound quality/comfort as well as other contributing factors to improving your in game and general audio. If you’re only interested in what headset skip to Part 3
I wouldn’t describe myself as an “audiophile”, but I do appreciate clear, crisp and rich sound probably more than the average user, as such my personal audio system, while built on a budget provides very high quality sound. Parity between all your audio devices is essential as well as how much money you are prepared to commit to your system.

Part 1
First and foremost your soundcard, most of the time when I mention this people will respond with “Onboard sound is fine, there’s no difference, what a waste of money”, well while onboard sound might well be “fine”, saying there is no

difference is mostly just the individuals ignorance to using a quality soundcard (no your £20, 5 year old Creative Soundblaster is not a high quality soundcard). At the moment unless you’re wanting to spend huge bucks on professional audio cards, you have 2 choices; Creative or Asus. I’m a bit of an Asus fanboy, the drivers are much better (especially in W7/Vista) and in terms of bang for buck they’re slightly ahead imo.
If you’re working to a very tight budget, around £30/€35 (any less and there really isn’t much point as the difference between the card your onboard audio isn’t great enough to warrant the investment) then you’re looking at the Asus Xonar DG 5.1 or a Creative SB Audigy SE 7.1, they’re both okay if you’re really tied to that budget, you will notice a difference between the onboard and and the sound card with sound having more definition rather than just being mushed into noise which the onboard will tend to do. Be careful, I remember the Xonar DG suffering with interference from my graphics card fan when it was reasonably close, being a budget card it doesn’t have any sheilding so this problem may prove to be unavoidable. Summary: Don’t expect miracles, but you should notice the difference with a decent set of headphones.
If you’re prepared to spend a little more, say a £60/€70 budget, it opens up a few more options, the Xonar DX is a very good card, again unsheilded but it as long as you have it as far away from the graphics card or anything else which might cause interference, as possible. Also around this price range is are the X-Fi Xtreme audio and Xtreme Gamer. I haven’t tried either of these so can’t really comment.
After this the cards become very high fidelity, it’s only really worth getting one of these soundcards if you have the rest of the hardware to back it up. The Xonar D2 is my card of choice at approx £90, Creative offer the X-Fi Titanium and Fatal1ty soundcards around this price, personally I would avoid anything with Fata1ity in the name as it seems a bit gimmicky, but that’s just me I’m sure they’re decent cards in fairness. Beyond this range you have to be a bit of an enthusiast (more so than me anyway), cards upwards of £150 like the Xonar HDAVI and the Titanium HD are probably very good cards, but probably not so much better than the Xonar D2 that I could justify spending the money on either of them.

Part 2
For me the next stage is the Preamplifier, not strictly neccissary as the output from a soundcard is normally at line level, negating the need for a preamp. This means the line out from the soundcard (red/white RCA connectors or a green 3.5mm jack -> RCA’s) into the amplifier, normally into the auxiliary input. I’m not going to go into which amplifier you should buy, there are far too many variables, I can only suggest you don’t buy a crappy 5.1 system which “totally outputs 350W so it must be good XDD” because in 90% of cases it’s just the same plastic shit with terrible cheap drive units and sounds dire. Which brings me onto Speakers, whenever I buy choose speakers I make sure the wattage rating on the speakers exceeds that of the output on the amplifier, that way it’s harder to blow the speaker by excessive volume. Established brands are where I go for speakers, Wharfedale/Tannoy/Denon/Onkyo/Roth/Quad are all safe bets, do a bit of research, What HiFi do pretty good reviews on speakers. Make sure the power output is RMS not Max.

Part 3
Headphones/Headsets. These are, to your system what tires are to a car, the part that actually makes contact. There’s no point spending silly amounts of money on soundcards/amplification equipment if you’re going to plug in a pair of iPod ear buds, it’s like attaching skateboard wheels to a Ferrari.
I’ll start off by saying that I’m an advocate of Headphones + desk mic, the quality of the sound from a pair of £50 headphones will be far better than that of a £50 headset and you can pick up a mic for pennies, even if it only lasts a couple of months.

I’m on a budget but I want a decent set of phones!
Sennheiser HD201’s or 202’s + mic make for a decent budget setup, alternatively Sony MDR-XD200’s (they fit strangely, might just be my bean shaped head) don’t expect anything too great, but it’s okay.
If you really want a headset I don’t know what to suggest, they’re all terrible at this price.
Expect to spend around £20/€25 for this setup.

Okay, so I want something a bit better than that
Senheisser HD428 for decent sound quality in this price range, I know it’s tempting to get a Steelseries or Roccat headset around that price, while they will be fine if you’re only gaming, won’t stand up to much if you’re planning on listening to music.

I’d like to spend more than that in order to get very good sound quality
Senheisser HD555, HD280 Pro, HD595. If you’re really wanting a headset, PC350 or PC360’s. Expect to pay up to around £100/€120

I want amazing headphones, I also counterfeit my own money
Grado’s, Bayerdynamic. Mostly Grado’s. Sick phones.

I hope this has somewhat helped, I’m sure Namu will voice his opinion, he seems to be pretty hot on HiFi audio :D
You may disagree with everything I’ve said, some of it is slightly brand biased, but on the whole I think it’s a pretty good guide to getting a basic HiFi setup sorted or just getting a reasonable set of headphones.

Nice guide! Definitely sticky-worthy material here.

i really enjoyed my hd 201’s untill they were cut by mori :/

nice thread toby

good job. :)

Quoted from Skyride

Nice guide! Definitely sticky-worthy material here.

+1

Quoted from Lateralus

What about the steelseries siberia v2 headset? It’s not very expensive and gives great sound.

Its not actually that good imho, great for gaming but once you try to enjoy some music you would rather be using sannheiser.

Those Plantronics GameCom 377 ones are meant to be good for their price, you should include pro’s + cons of a headset and of a standalone mic.

For one if you are on a wooden desk and you’re typing whilst talking, it pics up on the microphone from the clacks on the desk :D

I was going to expand it, but it got to 1 in the morning so I went to bed instead. Will add some more to this later :)