Forum

Quoted from Edd

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

nice thread toby

I didn’t actually do that mate, I was taking the piss when I said I did

Also head-fi nerd speaking here.

If you want to ensure maximum fidelity and a high SNR from your audio interface, buy an external soundcard. You will be ensured of having no interference from your computer’s internal hardware. These units will cost you about 100 euros, depending on the quality you want. Most of these units have a pretty decent built in headphone amp too, so that’s a plus. If you have a little extra money, the E-MU 0404 is great. Also, the Chinese are very apt nowadays at getting quality components directly from the factories, and assembling these in pretty awesome designs, and selling these for low prices. Look on head-fi for the latest models, because every month there seems to be a good new audio interface. These usually go for about ~100 euros on eBay.

Furthermore, I have to strongly disagree about Grado being gaming headphones. They are very well known to have a collapsed soundstage (even on the “big” soundstage headphones like the GS1000) and this is not helpful in videogames, where a slightly exaggerated soundstage will provide much more useful audiospatial information. And this comes from a Grado user. (got the SR80 and RS-1)

Usually headphones with angled drivers (so not aimed straight at the ear canal) provide wide and pinpoint-like audiopositional information. Brands that have this are Beyerdynamic (Dt880), Audio-Technica (AD700), Ultrasone (HFI-something), and AKG (K701). Also Denon makes an affordable and sweet set of headphones that suits a lot of music styles and is very good for gaming: the D1000 or D1001 (i think they are basically the same).

But if you’re gonna spend that much money on a headphone, you’d want it to be sweet for music as well.

Also, 50 pound can give you nice headphones. Cloud mentioned the MDR-V6. While this is a long EOL declared headphone, if you search well enough you can find it. It’s got lots of emphasis and resolution in the high frequency range, which is useful for hearing small details ingame. It also provides a fairly wide and accurate soundstage, and is a closed model so that’s useful when on LANs. It’s my HP of choice for LANs too. Other good headphones around that price usually are open. Sennheiser PX100II and Jays V-Jays, for example. The latter has a better soundstage.

I don’t get that part where you go into amps and speakers. I’d say just forget that whole part. For gaming you want headphones, and to talk about amps+speakers in general is too big of a subject. There are just so many amps and speakers out there. Personally I’d recommend active powered monitors anyway (active crossover > passive crossover, power amp matches the drivers, etc) but that’s a totally different story.

Shorter guide?

1. Soundcard that never resamples the spdif output
2. Good DAC
3. Good Amp

btw, it’s »Beyerdynamic«, not »Bayerdynamic« ;)

also, may wanna add the AKG K601 & K701, both amazing headphones

Quoted from octochris

i can feel a classic head-fi burn-in thread coming on.

Over 9000 hours of burn in

Quoted from Skyride

[…]

You got that completely the wrong way round. They are very expensive (as far as headsets go) and the sound quality is absolutely awful. That’s coming from someone who owns a pair. What you’re paying for is how amazingly comfortable they are.

+1 most comfy headset on the planet

I’d just like to add that a cheap £20 soundcard from 5 years a go are actually 10x better than onboard audio. I bought a Creative Audigy SE like 6 years ago, but only decided to use when I had to replace my DAC and I couldn’t stand the onboard audio from my motherboard. I was actually surprised how good it was. Plugging my HD650s directly into it was actually listenable and sounded far far better than my onboard audio, from a pretty decent motherboard too.

So if you’ve got an old soundcard lying around, it’s worth trying it out. Chances are it’ll be much better than your motherboard’s audio.

Quoted from Cloud

[…]

Over 9000 hours of burn in

only pink noise.. NO WHITE NOISE FFS