Tigerleon

Imo the best are the Audeze Maxwell but they're well above 400AUD
There are still good headphones in you price range, I've found this interesting vid (before buying my Maxwell haha)
 
 

Uhhh I would say they have a wealth of data and questionable conclusions with the data.

Yes, disable surround. Even CS states that you should turn off any sound virtualisation outside of the game because it has its own HRTF audio system and like many other games stereo for headphones is the way to go. It has always been because you only have two drivers in a headphone. *Cough* *cough* Razer Tiamat

Btw, this is just marketing BS and you will not get better sound positioning because that relies heavily on the headphones themselves and the soundcard. With EQ you can get better sound positional cues for footsteps gunfire etc because of those boosted frequencies. Virtual surround sound more often than not degrade sound quality and in return sound directionality. I can say from experience with testing Dolby Atmos, DTS headphone X, and my soundcards "surround" that my soundcard has by far the best "non-echoey" effects and less quality loss. It is not better but it is a different experience for movies or maybe some music but doesn't sound necessarily good for anything really.

I'd say 770 pro 80ohm or 250ohm if you have a good amp/DAC chip in your laptop. I'd recommend either these or K371 from AKG. A headphone DAC/amp paired with those are gonna make them louder and more fuller sounding if you don't have a decent enough built-in audio. You could also get an external USB or 3.5mm mic later if you need it for better quality. Then you could pair a mic as well as the headphones with the desired amp that supports a mic as well.
 
Edit: You might get some interference as well with the laptops audio because they usually have it.

I'm personally a huge fan of the DT770 Pro as my general purpose headphones because it's closed-back but somehow still a wide soundstage, but I've also never owned any of the legendary HD600 variants.
 
While I won't discount Tigerleon's advice, I will say that audio is extremely subjective and that you ultimately need to try everything for yourself. His impression of "aren't that fun" can be wildly different from yours.
 
As for DAC or amp... it's pretty unnecessary. If you're in the US, then the Apple USB-C to 3.5mm dongle is the best deal in audio.

Better but depends on which mobo. But yes the headset only works as its own DAC when used with USB

Clean(er) audio. It depends on how good your onboard soundcard is in your motherboard, getting an external soundcard will alleviate that. Which mobo do you have? Also driving headphones that have a low sensitivity and headphones with higher ohms generally benefit more with an amp with more power which can drive all the potential out of the headphones.

They sell separate as well but yeah that USB mic is pretty good.
 
Yeah, I mixed it up as well. Thought, it was the Fiio DAC/amp soundcard without even looking at which model you stated.
But any DAC/amp soundcard around the $100 mark would be great from brands like Fiio, Topping, Sound Blaster, or ifi

That's a pretty good combo I guess. But I don't know how those headphones are. 
I recommend the Tygr 300R for FPS games and other use cases as well. I play EFT and I love these headphones for sound cues and directional audio. I would say a smaller DAC/amp like the ft30 would be good or something from Sound Blaster like the G6 or something in that pricerange.

For work purposes something like a HyperX Cloud wireless would be close to the top of my list, they don't touch Maxwell but frankly nothing does touch Maxwell (Seriously even in the world of closed back headphones the only pair that a lot of people agree is a real upgrade is $900) the Clouds isolate fairly well, the upper bass hump isn't nearly as bad as other gaming headsets so voices tend to sound more natural. If you can spring for Maxwell then obviously do so, Rode NTH-100m are a great wired option that might be better for you, wires are super reliable and don't die when you forget to charge like wireless does

If you're just using computer speakers, Creative Pebble is quite good in that regard. Very small but still solid sound

I decided to get the HyperX Cloud 3 wireless last week and I am very happy with them. Thank you for your suggestion!

I have to say now that I have taken free deep dive into the premium quality Tidal, that there is a difference.
 
They have some very bad mixes.
 
That can be also my taste in music but, seriously, holy fucking shit where the fuck they have gained so flat mixes that I have heard more dynamic planks in hardware stores?
I had to go through and I even disabled any post-software EQ's and all that to find out was it just something in my signal chain that makes Tool sound like wooden hammer with as much balls as castrated cat and Deep Purple sounded like someone recorded them from C-tapes, even my self ripped LP rips from my fathers collection somewhere around 90's to early 00's with garbage level mp3 had more dynamic range than Tidals whatever mix they found from the Goodwill. And I don't even want to talk more about Rainbow... Stargazer's into snare is dead on Tidal mix... And I have some really high quality rips and some absolute garbage rips from the Rising album but none managed to turn "tshhhh" into "tsk" (even the Deluxe Edition both mixes lack the lower spectrum compared to the SHM-CD from which the "New York Mix" should be from, those are way better mixes than the non-Deluxe ones on Tidal but I have no idea where they got that bad mixes).
 
And I am not talking about something that would come from fileformats or bitrates (while those can affect but not this much). The low level rumble is just gone especially from Tool, in Jambi it's like Tidal mix was afraid to break something by really driving that bass and before someone says I have higher quality rips from my CDs and CDs have higher quality audio, no, Tidal should have "superior dynamics" because 24-bit and 96kHz compared to my 16-bit 44.1kHz FLACs but no, stuff like the Schism's 1:20 bridge is just not there and 2:00 mark sounds like someone booked Tool to play in a fucking school disco because the soundstage sounds that small.
 
I wasn't sure was I fucked up or just added some EQ to my rips and started to strictly compare Tidal to Spotify (without any EQ) and there was the same thing, Tidal mixes were flat. Spotify mixes were as far as I can tell identical to my rips.
 
Also how fucking stupid must someone be to fall for the "Max/MQA" garbage? They don't even fucking hide it that it's just some mumbo jumbo garbage, they literally say directly "Max/MQA up to 24-bit 192kHz", just to make it even clearer:
"UP TO"
No, they aren't saying the "Max/MQA" quality is something superior from "Max/FLAC" or whatever High or anything. It's just probably up to somewhere there or not even close to but fuck they tell you. Same garbage scamming as I would sell my car as "You know Toyota Yaris can go over 300km/h on dirt roads?" and in reality, yes, Toyota GR Yaris (Rally2) tuned and made for WRC can fucking rip the dirt road, but my Toyota Yaris 1.0L can hardly get to 150km/h downhill on highway, but hey "Toyota can go over 300km/h", I am not wrong but I am misleading you like a pig to the slaughter house.
They're not afraid to tell the bitdepths and sample rates for FLAC recordings but MQA and you get basicly no information unless you rip the songs and look at it by yourself at which point they would probably pull the normal audiophile scamming argument "it's not our system, it's yours" even if you had airtight proof that it's non-altered file from their servers.
 
And when it comes to audiophile stuff. Always remember that most of the Beatles albums were rough mixed with the Beatles in studio that only operated in mono and everytime you hear stereo mix of the Beatles, it's completely mixed by some audio technician as "extra mile" without the Beatles giving two fucks about it. Back then and earlier stereo systems were so rare that pretty much no one had them and what little stereo mixes were done were mostly just to market that the studio can do it, not that the music sounded any better, just that the studio had the capability to do it. That's an example what goes in the other side, unless you have insider knowledge, you will have pretty much zero idea how the thing was supposed to sound and the best you can do is to listen it however you think it sounds the best. So, go crazy and experiment, add bass, twist the V, play with the reverb and remember that there's a reason why it's "studio monitors" and "high-end HiFi" separately.

I would recommend getting some replacement cable like this one https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-Braided-Shielded-Compatible-Headphones/dp/B0B1242RVW/ref=sr_1_2?crid=29JX8Y90WFID4&keywords=ugreen%2B3.5mm%2Baux%2B3%2Bpole&qid=1708211517&sprefix=ugreen%2B3.5mm%2Baux%2Bpole%2Caps%2C405&sr=8-2&th=1
 
 

+1 on the Maxwell these are the best sounding wireless headphones imo ATM. They sound solid.  While not as good as a cheaper wired solution this is definitely a hifi set of cans

If you have a higher budget. Get the Audeze Maxwell. Also definitely look up reviews on them!

If you have a higher budget. Get the Audeze Maxwell. Also definitely look up reviews on them!

a50s never were wired. a50s have always been wireless, i dont remember if they had a wired mode. a40 use to be the top tier for ASTRO, then a40 TR. Very comfy headsets.
 
Generally speaking it comes down to what you want from the headphone audio wise. If you enjoy the astro sound signature be my guest and buy their new ones, although they are getting quite expensive.
 
I wouldnt really consider anything from logitec, their recent headphones are all having major issues, and im not sure if that will bleed into astro since they are owned by them.
 
Would you say your budget is 300-500$?
 
i went from A40s, to a40 TRs, to Sennheiser HD6xx. Honestly the sound improvement was well worth it. I am bias to not liking wireless headphones/headsets due sound quality.

Tygrs

I'm a bit late to this thread. I've run blind tests  for myself. Using my liquid spark DAC and Asgard 3 off my PC as a source and a friend to run it for me and note down we both agreed to use his pair of HD 800s. We ran 20 songs we were very familiar with and did 3 runs. Going into this I already knew I wasn't super sensitive to this already but wanted to do a more comprehensive test than before I was correct 8 out the 20 times on our first run , 11 out of 20 time on our second time, and 7 out of 20 time on my third run. My friend who definitely has better hearing than me (he's younger and both have gotten our ears tested fairly recently) barely did better. He got 10 out of right first run , 12 second run and 10 again third run. This was of course using Spotify premium and Tidal all music used was downloaded and settings were set to highest possible quality. We were both consistently guessing the majority of songs correctly when at the lowest quality settings for Spotify vs flac on tidal though. I will admit this testing method was probably flawed and I could have used my more expensive DAC but I wanted the sound to be as neutral as possible for the setup that I had regardless I think was good enough for me to come to the conclusion the Spotify premium is good enough for me.
 

Even Crinacle, one of the stingiest audio reviewers, said in their AKG N400 TWS review that lossy audio doesn't matter as long as it still sounds good. (referring to the useage of a lossy Bluetooth format, which is a no-go for many audiophiles) I feel like many audiophiles fall into the hole where they overanalyse music and technicality to a point where they can't "just enjoy it" anymore. It's similar to people who just completed their PC build and get stuck benchmarking and hunting for bottlenecks instead of just enjoying games, which was the entire point of building the PC in the first place.

Alright, I will check it out. Thank you very much! I appreciate it.

Not that I know of that is worth the price as the Maxwells are

Otherwise the HyperX Cloud 2/3 wireless