What do I look for when I buy a $100 gaming headset?

[Jiggalopuff]

Hai Guyz,

 

Over the past few years there have been a lot of expensive headsets coming out. A lot of gaming mice too now that I think about it. What would be the difference between say, one that is $170 and one that is $120? When I look at the boxes, they are generally covered in buzzwords(E.G. 7.1 HD surround sound, noise canceling), and sometimes give overly complex technical info(Such as decibel output and frequency range). When buying something like a hard drive, I can at least look up hard info such as read/write speed in addition to storage capacity. Anyway, aside from certain features(Wireless, noise canceling), is there a way to gauge sound quality just by looking at the specs?

[Vagrant0]

For sound quality, you're best off talking to resident audiophiles.

 

But, when you're talking about the differences between different models of the same manufacture or between different manufacturers and trying to consider value... You're best off trying to look at things from a cost to produce perspective.

 

First... Ignore the flashy packaging. The headphones that come in fancy boxes and have velvet carrying cases may still be good, but generally have both a higher material cost as well as a higher retailer mark-up. Meaning that $200 set of headphones is really more like a $60 set of headphones with an expensive wrapper. Eg. Razor.

 

Second... Consider the mark-up. Everything sold online or through a store will have some amount of mark-up which is where these retailers earn their cut of selling that thing. Any time you see something on sale, or with a reduced price through one retailer, it is usually that retailer selling it with less of a mark-up while still selling it for more than their cost. If you have any friends who work in a place that sells these kinds of headphones, they can usually look up the SKU for the model of the headphones and give you an idea about what the cost per unit is as opposed to the MSRP (Manufacturers suggested retail price). If you don't have a friend, or can't find the information yourself, figuring out the mark-up is a little less reliable and takes more effort, but is still doable. For starters, assume that well known brands will have a higher mark-up than others. Then assume that the more shelf space devoted to products of the same brand also relates to a higher mark-up. Then assume that things with a 3rd party branding (Microsoft, Call of Duty, sports teams, ect) will have an additional price increase just because of those extra logos and licensing.

 

Finally... start assigning an arbitrary cost to every part of the headphone. Assign a baseline cost for each component then modify it if any other ones appear better eg. Wires costing $2 base, but thicker wires might cost $2.50 and thinner ones being $1. Wireless module costing $14, ear cushions costing $3, noise canceling costing $18, ect. It doesn't matter what those things actually cost, what you are actually looking to do is to just create a sort of cost comparison based on what you can see about the headphones. You can then consider this against all other factors and try and figure out the quality of materials used. If everything has a cost, and somehow you end up with something that has more features compared to something of similar "cost", then that thing with more features likely uses cheaper materials or has lower quality control standards, or simply just makes more of them.

 

 

This is probably more complicated than you were hoping for... But it is also a sort of skill that you can apply to almost any retail product when you're needing to figure out if what you're buying is a piece of s#*! that will break in a few months or not.

[kalikka]

Mad Lust Envy's Headphone Gaming Guide

Don't look at the specs, especially when the product doesn't have a clear frequency response graph.

Here is a well done review of the Superlux HD668B and HD681 headphones. If frequency response is stated numerically it's completely useless information.

 

The only headsets that I can recommend are:

 

From Sennheiser:

- PC350SE

- PC360

- G4ME ZERO

- G4ME ONE

 

From Audio Technica:

- ADG1 (Overpriced, AD700X based)

- AG1 (Overpriced, A700X based)

 

From Beyerdynamic:

- MMX300 (the very definition of overpriced, DT770 based)

- QPAD QH-1339 (Overpriced, OEM MMX300)

 

From Kingston:

- Hyperx Cloud (OEM QPAD QH-90, which in turn is based on Takstar Pro80 headphones)

This is the only headset that fits your budget.

 

TL;DR

It's much smarter to buy headphones and a mic separately. For example Superlux HD668B or Creative Aurvana Live paired with Zalman clip-on or some random table-mic. I use Beyerdynamic DT770 and Hifiman HE-400 paired with a $2 ebay mic.

Edited January 19, 2015 by kalikka

[hoofhearted4]

if you dont already know what to look for, then you probably dont need to spend that much money on a headset. and by that i mean, if you were going to drop that much on a headset, youd probably already be an audiophile and be able to tell the minute difference of headsets, know what to look for, and care, etc.

 

since you dont, then you probably wont notice much of a difference between an expensive headset and a cheaper one. i say this from experience. in my case it was TVs. i was looking them up, learning all this stuff, and reading posts from visual and audiophiles, i realized the minute differences they were bickering about over one TV or another were things i probably would never even have noticed or cared to look for.

 

ill tell you I have a Corsair Vengence 1500. and its good enough for me. it did break once after like a year or so, but got a free replacement from Corsair quite fast. it has a mic, its comfy, i can hear things just fine. are there better headsets? im quite sure. would i notice? probably not. is it worth doubling the price? not to me.

 

that said, if you think you could be an audiophile or want to become one or what have you, check out the AVS forums. its where i learned about my TVs. the guys over there are the ones whod know the minute differences. im sure theres threads for headsets in there somewhere, though i think they are more on home theatre. but audio is audio, anyone who is picky about all the AV stuff is probably a gamer haha.

[Lakan]

Honestly, I would keep whatever pair of headphones you have now, and get the modmic. The sound quality your mic works out will at least be worth a hundred dollars.(or buy a pair of headphones, and then get this)

I was looking through headsets a long time ago, like those astro pairs. I thought mics sounded that terrible because the general state of affairs is not up to snuff, boy was I ever happy that I was wrong :P