Bamfhammer

It has been a while since I have seen LTT review the NVidia Shield, and since then I haven't seen much in the way of streaming locally from your gaming PC to a TV and/or a handheld.

I am trying to cut down on time spent in my office and have been looking to stream to a TV on a different floor or to my phone with a connected controller and headphones. I know Steam Link works for this as well as Moonlight, but I was wondering if, for handheld anyway, getting a Steam Deck or an Asus ROG Ally would improve the experience over an S22 Ultra strapped to an old XBox or PS controller. Does anybody have experience with this? What are some pros and cons of going to a handheld, or is a controller attached smartphone just as good? Am I missing an obvious option?

I am currently using either Steam or the Geforce Experience Shield streaming functionality for connectivity because of how easy they are to use and how most things work immediately with a controller attached, but should I be considering something else?

Would be great to see a detailed video on these options (heck we got 2 videos on the steam cache, this should be easier and a lot more applicable for viewers)

Thanks!

The title is entirely appropriate, for several reasons.
 
First, it is helpful to anyone who doesn't know anything about the person in question and who they were before their decision, so it is providing relevant information.
 
 
Second, the person in question uses their "dead name" multiple times, including on other social media, which implies they are not at the point yet where the use of their old name offends them...if it ever does.
 
I would suggest that the thread title is reasonable because of these two reasons alone.
 
 

This is where they picked them up from https://www.game-tech.us/product-category/power-supplies/. I work at a retro store in Florida modding consoles. I've bought from said site and its always a solid experience.

 

Don't forget about the MSI B550 Unify, though it is more for overclocking than for regular usage, and is only $10 less than the X570 Unify.

Would like to see this B550 Unify land on the list up top.

It would be nice if the B550, at this price point, had some extra features for overclocking like a temperature and flow sensor connector for loops because it is clearly geared towards overclocking in regular use. I have an X570 on the way, but entertained the B550 for a bit and might end up changing my mind if my USB 3.1 connector cannot reach the port on the X570 (it is in a really stupid spot). Currently there are no extension cables of this type available.

And I am sure I would not use more than one PCIe 4.0 SSD. Also sure I wont use a full 16x PCIe card in addition to my video card as well.

Might as well pop in some short reviews of the others while I am thinking about them. Obviously these reviews are all opinions and will vary based on users as all headphones will because nobody's ears are the same.


HiFiMan  HE-400i - Currently tied for first with the Fidelio X2HR, these cans sound incredible. Very detailed sounding and in game, the positioning is spot on. I found myself looking exactly where the sound came from when playing, moreso than really any other set on here save the super expensive LCD-3s which are not an option. Very clear, but sometimes lacking a deeper bass hit when there are explosions or something really meant to rumble. The cabling is short, but removable so it can be replaced. Also, these require a plug to each can, so while they sound nice, removing them with a single hand is cumbersome and not really an option

Beyerdynamic Custom One Pro Plus - Sound better than the M50 and the SHP500 below, but the top end was really lacking. The bass adjustment slider is nice, but really only have 2 of the 4 positions available that provide a good balance to your sound. Not as muffled sounding as the M50 or as boring as the HSP500, but for the price, not nearly as good as they should sound. As a bonus they come with a variety of custom ear cup covers so you can change your look to any one of maybe 100 total combinations. Davie504 doesn't sound any better or worse with these headphones on.

Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro (250Ohm) - For me, I found they had a peak in the highs that was ear piercing and painful. Everything from cymbal hits to even just switching and reloading a weapon had a very high clicking sound that was unbearable. I know these are popular among youtube gamers, and outside of that ear piercing high they sounded pretty amazing. But I do not want to damage my own hearing and be in actual pain when gaming just to feel like a pro-tuber.

Audio-Technica ATH-AD700X - A ridiculous headband system makes these strange to wear. The band that goes across your head (same on the AD900X and other open can sets) is not connected to the band on the other side, so it is completely reliant on the spring pressure on that side. I found myself constantly feeling like these were going to fall off my head. They were always drooping down and had to be re-adjusted. They sounded ok, but a bit tinny and lacking on the low end beyond what I was expecting even from open cans. Being unable to comfortably wear these, though, meant they were passed on immediately.

Audio-Technica ATH-M50 (2011) - A great set of headphones for a budget. These have lasted me a good long while. The carrying case that comes with them is nice but barely fits the cans when folded appropriately. The included cable is super long and not phone or tablet case friendly, so a short extension is necessary unless you want to remove a corner of your case to plug in (irrelevant if you have to connect through a USB/DataPort dongle) Really heavy bass and fairly muffled sounding on most things compared to the rest on this list, but hard to go wrong with most music. Better than most wired beats of skullcandy that I have tried in the past. Flat exterior earcups makes attaching the Modmic Wireless a breeze. Headband leatherette cover wears out after a while, far earlier than the earpads do.

Philips SHP500 - Sound better than the ATH-M50 set, but only just. Still a bit of a muffled sound coming out of these. Removeable cable is nice (and available with the ATH-M50x if you like that sound better)

Philips Audio Fidelio X2HR - Right off the bat, I did not think these would sound as good as they do. The price is pretty good, and about what I paid for my ATH-M50 9 years ago, but the sound and sound stage are incredible. These are just dynamic drivers, but they still sound relatively neutral across the board, maintaining a realistic sound with their open backs helping me locate where most sounds are coming from. Right now in my decision making process, these are in a dead heat with the HiFiMan HE-400i cans. The set is comfortable, but the way they adjust to fit is just with a tension band stretching from can to can under the large looping frame above my head. The pro in this is I never have to actually re-adjust the cans because someone else used them, but the con is that these feel like they could wear out sooner rather than later as this band gets fatigued over hours of being partially stretched. Claming pressure is good, bordering on the 'maybe a bit too much' side of things. Single sided headphone wire that is removable is a huge plus. Enough exterior surface area to mount the ModMic pro without turning one can into a closed can. High quality look and feel of the materials helps to make this feel like a premium product. I was truly shocked at how nice these sound. Bass is a bit fuller than the HE-400i, and the high-mids are a bit more lacking, so it will come down to individual taste here.

Audeze LCD-3 Fazor (lol, like this is a real option) - Incredible full, flat sound from even hard hitting bass to warm mids and clear, detailed, and sometimes airy sound. These cans set the bar for what is possible from headphones. Their price is about 10x+ what any of the rest of these cost so casual listeners need not apply (myself included). Shockingly, these can be driven well enough from even a Dualshock 4 to make gaming anywhere a possibility. They are pretty heavy, though I could still last over a couple hours wearing these things before my neck would need a break. If you have the budget and don't need the extra $2500 for a 2080 Ti, AMD Ryzen 3950X w/ Motherboard, and 32 Gigs of RAM, I would totally suggest these. ?

Bose QuietComfort 35 II - Uncomfortable high pressure feeling when ANC is on, sounds good otherwise, but the pressure feeling is to jarring for me to really listen to it more than a few minutes.



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Quick other notes:
Best Cable (PC) - Beyerdynamic Custom One Plus - Nonbraided, easy to tame, long enough, but not excessive, mobile case friendly plugs
Best Cable (Controller) - HiFiMan HE 400i - Short enough to not get tangled anywhere.
Worst Cable - Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro - Too heavy as a coiled cable, always pulling unless you are close enough to not need any extension on the coil, non-removable so could easily break and ruin your headphones.
Most comfortable - Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro - soft large earcups fit really nicely and a comfortable adjusting band takes a lot of the pressure off of other places on your head 
Least Comfortable - Philips SHP500 - Earcups were not deep enough to fit my ears without smashing them against the speaker. Didn't fit well with glasses for me either.

Might as well follow up for whoever runs into this later wondering about all these headphones.

I wound up settling for the Sennheiser HD 58x for at home listening. I have larger ears, so the addition of the luxury ear cups was almost a necessity for comfort. 

I picked the Sennheiser over the Philips for two specific reasons:

1) The adjustment mechanism on the Philips is an elastic band across the top of the head that stretches to fit. Over time and normal head movements, these start to pull the sear cups up. If you do not wear glasses this may not be as pronounced, but because I do wear glasses, the cups never are 100% sealed against my head and that could cause more movement in my case. Either way, this upward movement is a bit annoying to adjust to every 30 minutes or so and additionally with glasses, sometimes it would lift them up off of my nose.

2)  The right most circle on the attached frequency response graph. 

The biggest differences between these two headphones are circled in red on the graph.

The left most circle is really sub bass, or the feeling you get when the bass hits that makes it sound heavy, or that it would move you. Philips nails this, mainly because they have 50mm drivers (Sennheiser is 36mm). On properly mixed songs, the bass hits HARD on the philips. It was almost enough for me to keep it for that reason. In games and movies explosions have a little bit of extra power because of this.

The right most circle, however, has a noticeable difference in sound where detail is important. On most things you will plug these headphones into, there is an easy way to increase Bass. Bass boost, simple EQ, "Loudness" setting, etc. To adjust for the right most circle, you need to spend time in an actual EQ to get it sounding right. The sounds in this area are footsteps and normal gun sounds like reloading and shooting, etc. Obviously this varies based on game and weapon used, but for the most part in the games I tried the Philips was noticeably more hollow sounding than the sennheisers did performing the same actions. This was ultimately the biggest difference that had me pick the sennheisers as my primary use is gaming. It was more important to hear the sounds of footsteps, guns, and dialog as they were intended without having to touch an EQ, particularly because 50% of my gaming is done on a PS4 where there is no headphone EQ available.

If I were PC gaming only, I would have selected the Philips. Sub bass is significantly better, they can get plenty loud, they are slightly more comfortable with thicker earcups and angled drivers that make touching it with your ears a near impossibility. All you would need to do is spend an hour or so adjusting your system EQ and then never have to touch it again. They are also significantly more robust. The frame is mostly steel vs. the sennheiser's mostly plastic frame. They also cost less when you factor in the luxury earcups, an additional cost of $38 if purchased at the same time as the headphones. If you have normal ears and no glasses, for $150 it is hard to go wrong with either.

Finally, I pre-ordered the Pandas to complete this comparison as I still need something to listen to on the plane and open back headphoens are not it. Will update when I get those.

(Graph and other frequency response information borrowed from DIY Audio Heaven. Graph compares Fidelio to the HD650, similar to, but not exactly the 58X. 58x information here: https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/brands-s-se/hd58x-jubilee-massdrop/  Fidelio information here: https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/brands-philips/fidelio-x2hr/ )

2nd  Update:

My Sennheiser HD 58x arrived and I was able to check out an Audeze Mobius, here are my impressions:

Audeze Mobius - I expected more from a company that makes thousand dollar headphones as far as the sound goes. They are closed back and they sound closed back. Have about the same soundstage as the other closed back sets I tried. Positional audio was mildly better, but overall, probably not worth the pricetag. They are planars, so the sound is accurate, and the closed back gives it a fuller sound, but i was expecting more response from the top end and it just wasn't really there. Both the Philips Fidelio and Sennheiser HD 58x are comparable in sound quality but both of those are better at positioning sound and have better top end sound as well, imo. Frequency charts show these to be mildly worse than the Mobius, but I could not get the EQ set to where this was true.

Speaking of EQ, there are 24 different listening combinations. You get 2 Channel, 2 Channel HiFi, and 7.1 Surround settings as well as different EQs that you can set to Default, Flat, Warm, RPG, Racing, Music, Ballistics, and Foot Steps. 24 total different combinations to find one that works well with your application. Good luck cycling through all of them before giving up. I found default and flat to give me the best sound and RPG did help give it that open feeling, but cut out a lot of the midrange. Sure you can make adjustments manually to an EQ as well.  When you plug in an AUX cable like you are gaming on a PS4 or XBox, you get stuck on 2 Channel audio mode, and can only change the EQ.

Speaking of gaming on console, the mic quality is terrible and has a buzz that cannot be eliminated. There is side tone, and that works really well. I had to adjust the mic volume nearly all the way down in the PS4 menu to make the volume i was speaking at bearable for my teammates, but nothing i could do would get rid of the constant buzzing on the other end for all players. It was constantly intermittent, that is, it buzzed 90% of the time, stopping every minute or so for a few seconds. All of these time intervals were random and unpredictable. I even had someone tell me that if I decided to stick with this headset, that they would stop playing games with me. On PC you can drop the MIC gain in the control panel to fix this, but not an option on PS4.

Finally, the comfort of this was not great. The top band sat squarely opn the crown of my head giving me a small area to support the heft of this model. The light density memory foam was no match for it's own weight so this got uncomfortable fast. I am bald, so you might not have this issue at all.

Overall, not worth the price at all, imo. You would be better off adding a Boom Pro, or Modmic to the Bose or Sony noise canceling headphones if you want high quality wireless sound.

Sennheiser HD 58X - This sounded incredible out of the box. Comparable in sound to the Philips Fidelio X2HR. More midrange emphasis than the Fidelio, but the difference is slight. Fidelio has slightly more bass and sub-bass present when listening. The openness of the 58X is less than that of the Fidelio, which i was a bit surprised by. It still sounds good and open. The slightly less openness made the soundstage a bit smaller and positioning was maybe a little worse in the few games I tried, but testing continues.

I am currently torn between the Fidelio and the 58X. So similar in many ways, different in others. It might come down to something as simple as the convenience of using a standard cable connection to one ear as opposed to cables to each ear cup with proprietary connections. 
 

the post is from 2015, you answered in 2017 and to me in 2019 you helped me thank you

I am not an audiophile or anything myself and never really invested in expensive headsets until recently.
 
Anyway I was using a Steelseries Artic 7 from gaming and i thought the audio was really good.. but recently picked up the Hyprer x Cloud orbit.. did not really need the wireless side of things.. but anyway I guess as you would expect the audio quality is night and day especially in High Def mode when listening to flac files, but even for gaming you can tell the difference.

I play Escape from Tarkov and being able to tell the location of someone is important and again the Cloud Obit in surround mode are a lot better than the Artic 7...
 
But other than that I cant really help haha but ill prob never go back to cheaper headsets..