A heads-up to those looking for a smashing deal on what is widely considered the best PC headset, the Beyerdynamic MMX 300:
http://north-america.beyerdynamic.com/shop/mmx-300.htmlThis is normally a $399 headset, but Amazon occasionally discounts it, sometimes for as little as a couple of hours. I've been checking its price for weeks now, wondering on whether it's worth pulling the trigger on it, but the lowest I'd seen it until recently was $320. So last week I ordered it at that price, and then the next day it was down to $293 -- first time I'd seen it so low in all the time I'd been watching! So I cancelled the order (it hadn't shipped yet), got a refund, and placed a new one for $293, and it finally arrived yesterday. And now the price is $280 lol.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001BY ... 07_s00_i00Note that everyone else is still selling it for $399, and Amazon's price fluctuates more wildly than the stockmarket. It could be back up to $340 or $380 within hours, and then back down again for 20 minutes, before it goes up again -- I've seen it all in the time I've been watching the damn page. Do they actually have some dude who sits at the computer all day changing the price of this one piece of merchandise?
Anyway, the actual price right this moment is $281.82 (Sold by Web Offers and Fulfilled by Amazon), or if you want it from Amazon itself (which is how I got it) it's a few bucks more at $287.72. All other top headsets that I've done research on: the Astro, Turtle Beach, Razer, SteelSeries, etc., suck ass compared to this (and some of them are widely reported to have serious reliability issues), and the only one that comes close is the Sennheiser PC363D (with, interestingly enough, both companies being German...):
http://en-de.sennheiser.com/pc-363d-sur ... ng-headset
- square_stage_PC363D.jpg (29.61 KiB) Viewed 86456 times
Here's a comparison:
http://versus.com/en/sennheiser-pc-363d ... mic-715565The Sennheiser wins out on such bullshit features as "Control panel placed on a device", "longer cable", and "lighter", while the Beyerdynamic wins out on almost all the acoustical aspects. The only thing that could potentially tilt the scales in the Sennheiser's favor is that it is an open backed design, while the Beyerdynamic is closed back. Here are some people's explanations of the difference:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/587085/closed- ... st_8000888elemein wrote:In layman's terms:
Open: Higher fidelity and sound quality since the waves produced from closed headphones have nowhere to go after they have been used, so you get a more crystal clear and more quality sound from open headphones. Though they usually leak BADLY, have POOR isolation, and they're usually more expensive (the good ones at least), also, most people find them less comfortable than closed headphones, and lacking in bass as they have less potential to seal.
Closed: Lower sound quality as you have a seal between you ears and the drivers, and lots of isolation, so while sound wont get out and in as easily, the sound quality will suffer (now, the sound quality isnt BAD in comparison to open, there are VERY VERY good sounding closed headphones, its just that there are better open ones). Also, they usually have better bass as the seal between your ears and the driver is good for the bass, and they're usually more comfortable and circumaural.
One isnt better than the other, they both have their cons and pros and suit different people with different needs. I personally have closed ones and love em.
UCLA 15 wrote:I'll give you a generic answer since I'm new to headphones and can't give the proper answer others can:
Open back headphones generally deliver more impressive sound and have a better "soundstage" as a lot of people like to say. Being open, they don't really isolate outside noise and they also leak whatever you are listening to into the environment around you. Closed back headphones generally deliver less impressive sound, but the bass can sometimes hit harder than open backs, and of course closed backs isolate and don't leak as much.
Deciding between the two typically comes down to whether or not it is OK for what you are listening to to be leaked. Primarily used in a quiet setting, without having to worry about others around you? Probably open. Primarily used in public, at work, etc.? Probably closed.
jupitreas wrote:elemein wrote:also, most people find them less comfortable than closed headphones
This is a broad generalization. A lot of people find open headphones more comfortable because their open nature allows for the ears to breathe more. People with ears that are prone to sweating can find closed headphones very uncomfortable indeed. Besides, I'd hardly call the likes of a Beyerdynamic DT880 or Sennheiser HD650 uncomfortable - they are consistently mentioned as amongst the most comfortable cans one can own...
Personally, my ears get tired relatively quickly from headphones, plus I always play in a deadly-quiet apartment when alone, so isolation and sound leakage mean nothing to me, so overall I think I would have preferred an open back headset. However, I am not willing to forgo the Beyerdynamic's clearly superior specifications for those small advantages, so I went with that. Plus, though my apartment IS deadly quiet at night, when I usually do all my gaming, there IS the occasional car going by, even at 5AM lol, so if these can be paired with the Oculus, I think the total sensory isolation that would result from the combination would more than overcome the ear fatigue that I am expecting to experience from them.
As far as reviews go, it doesn't look like anyone consistently puts out in-depth reviews of gaming headsets, so I had to make do with Amazon's reviews, and the Beyerdynamic is the only headset with universally glowing ones. All the other top-end headsets are plagued with complaints of units breaking down randomly and inferior sound quality, so considering also that I will be using the unit outside the states, I steered clear of them.
And, on top of everything, the Sennheiser is ugly...
There is of course also the option of going for audiophile-grade headphones and adding your own mic, but I am not sure how the whole thing would hang together, nor am I willing to fork out several more hundred bucks for such a setup. If anyone has done this, however, or knows the market for this sort of thing, I'd be interested to know details, and you can post them in this thread.