Can’t deny you’re friend’s logic. You do get more quality with a separate headphone and microphone, but it takes space. The mic will probably need to be on your desk before your keyboard or hanging over it. The mic’s quality depends on if you want to do any recording with it, and the headphone’s quality on if you want to do any work with sounds, like sound mixing. Tbh, I don’t have much advice in that area. I’ve only ever used headsets.
Sony MDR7506 or V6 are the best headphones under 100 dollars with no competition. They have a very balanced nearly flat sound with a slightly boosted bass. They are used in many studios and radio stations as cheap monitors. They look flimsy but are surprisingly durable.
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If you plan to invest more than 100 let me know and I’ll think of something that might be better.
About microphones… there’s just too many variables and expectations. Cheap USB condenser microphones became common after a few Twitch streamers grew big while using them but I don’t think they’re very good for gaming. Cheapest is probably to get a USB AT2020 but YMMV. Getting a separate pre-amp/mixer/USB-audio-interface is probably a better idea as you open your possibilities to use nearly any microphone.
Microphone: depends on your style. Some people prefer a big side-address condenser or a dynamic mic on a flexible arm (with a pop filter), some people simple $3 desktop electret mic, some other people can’t stand anything other than a headset mic.
For headset, I can recommend Antlion ModMic 4.0 (see ie. youtube) - it has an adhesive magnetic base and a snap-on headset-like microphone. Reasonably good sound quality for ~ GBP50.
As far as headphones go, … see, I’m a hifi person. No matter how many mini speakers you have in those gaming headphones with "3D sound" (yes, multiple drivers per earcup!), nothing beats a reasonable quality "hifi" headphones in terms of stereo imaging. I personally use AKG K240 MkII for gaming (really lightweight), but there are tons of other options like the Audio Technica ATH-M50, various Sennheiser offerings, etc.
Plus, you can use them for music.
PS: I managed to dig up my old stage setup (few mics, mixpult, …) so I’ll be joining the Quality Talking club soon as well, hopefully.
I have a pair of AKG K240 lying around somewhere, they’re pretty damn good but I can’t stand their leather cups, especially in this heat. AT M50’s are the most overhyped headphones next to Beats by Dre.
Antlion Modmic is a great microphone if you have the proper sound card to support it. Check out their website for supported cards before buying. I had a terrible experience with that mic because it doesn’t support pro/enthusiast audio equipment so I couldn’t use anything to plug it in. It only works with PC soundcards that supply 5V power via 3.5mm plug and sounded terrible with my on-board AC97.
Actually, I can stand the leather cups much better than ie. the velour pads of K701 in this heat. The sweat can be just wiped off, although, TBH, I was considering some cheapo apple earbuds, ~37C around here!
I can’t agree with the M50’s, though. Yes, they sound like any other closed-back (with the exception of AKG K550), but the highs were clearer than on K240 MkII and also the bass was tighter, which is to be expected as the K240 MkII have a nasty bump in the upper bass / lower mids. I wouldn’t buy them, but I certainly wouldn’t put them in the same "utter shit" category as the beats.
edit: Like with 24V/48V phantom, it’s easy to insert that 5V on the line if you have some basic soldering skills.
edit edit: Actually, if you have basic soldering skills, forget $60 microphones and build your own for $1 with a BC547 transistor for amplification, like this guy - note how clean the mic sounds even more than 50cm away!
I am using HyperX Cloud 2, its great, however i do have some problems with the jack. It is said to be one of very few all-in-one solutions that dont suck.
About buying separate solutions - definately, just watch this clip (there are more for different price ranges):
[justify]An out-of-the-box gaming headset I really like is this one:[/justify]
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[justify]I like the memory foam which is comfortable and adjust well to my glasses and ear piercings. Usually, most headphones make my ears hurt after a while due to the pressure. I also really like the daisy chain hook-up, so whenever one of my mates comes over to watch some gameplay and have a couple of beers he can listen in on his own headset (got a few piling around my place :oops: ). I use the analogue converter and plug it into my sound cards bus but I’ve heard decent things about their USB mini soundcard thingy too.
One last thing I am a huge fan of is that one can hide the mic away, this is mainly due to me having cats and one of those furry bastards really likes chewing on protruding microphones and TrackIR’s for some reason… :furious:[/justify]
Thank you guys again for support and information right now i feel bad… you gave me a lot of information and i finally took a decision … less by your information’s (even if they where helpful and maybe later i will come back on them) more by surprise for me… i stumbled over a "SteelSeries Siberia V2" for 25 Euro… it’s a decent headset, not newest generation but i think for the price i can’t have more expectations :=)
Honestly, I don’t know how 200$ mics and headset setups even became an option. From what I’ve gathered, Dulabu needed something with decent sound and A mic. Any mic… For games, not for recording or producing.
For those purposes, I’d go with something well-known in the rank of 40-60$ as that’s more than enough on the mic department. If you’re really itching to have great sound, though, I can see how it is wise to spend a bit more.
Personally, in the past 5-6 years I have used a Creative Labs HS800 Fatality headset with a plug-in microphone which stil works perfectly fine and the mic is more than enough to satisfy our TS communication. The sound could be better, but at 40$ i really didn’t expect HiFi.
I also fail to see how having a cheap 10$, stock table-mic would improve the sound compared to a plug-in mic like this one.
