Sennheiser HD 558 external sound?

[Stickwolf]

​Hi, I recently purchased an Asus Orion Pro headset, the reason I chose it was because of the comfort it offered as well as reasonable sound I believed it offered, however since getting them and using them I have had many issues with the speakers dulling the sound unless in the Windows properties they are turned down to about 60%, I could probably live with this except they also seem to pick up every external sound on the microphone instead of doing the noise cancelling they are supposed to, and to top it off the sound isn't that good, it seems better than my old turtle beach PX21s but not as good as I was hoping, so back to the title of this topic, how loud are the Sennheiser HD 558s outside of the headphones? As I usually sit at my computer at night when everyone else in my house is asleep and they are only in the next room, the walls are not paper thin and I don't listen to music or play games very loud anyway but I have no experience with open headphones, so was wondering if anyone could help me on how loud they will be? I was also looking at headphones like the ath m50, however comfort is very important, I wear my headphones for hours at a time and wear prescription glasses, and some reviews say these along with the Shures are not that comfortable for extended periods, I also have issues with leather earpads, the Asus headphones I have just bought have them and most reviews say they are warm but not hot enough to make you sweat and be uncomfortable however I find they are, so was probably after some that were not leather, more like the sennheisers.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated, I have looked at lots of reviews on all these headphones, but would like some personal input if you own any of them and can give advice =)

Thanks,

Stephen

[h264]

What do you mean by dulling the sound?

If you listen to any open headphone other people will be able to hear some level of noise. Mind you some are worse than others (see my he-500 review)

[Stickwolf]

Sorry that wasn't very well explained, if the sound is turned above about 60% in windows and you are listening to music or anything, when it reaches say a louder part of the song the sound will drop, as if I have grabbed my volume slider and dropped it to 25%, so instead of building into a song a peaking, when it should peak the sound dips and becomes muffled it is like lowering the sound except worse as the sound quality becomes worse, it seems to be fixed as I said above if you keep the volume at 60% or lower, but I don't really want a brand new headset that I already have to adapt things to get it to work properly and the microphone seemed to be playing up as well, now it could have just all been bad luck on my part as when they arrived the actual USB sound card, the spitfire, was scuffed and looked beat up, except this was supposed to a brand new headset from Amazon, so maybe I just got one from a bad batch, but it put me off enough to return it and order myself the HD 558s, so now I just need to find out if my onboard sound is good enough for the headphones or if I will also need an internal sound card =)

Thanks for your explanation of open headphones, I literally had no idea what they would sound like as every pair of headphones I have ever owned have been closed, some have been better at isolating noise than others but they were all closed =) But hopefully the 558s will be great and I don't think they will produce enough sound to bother any housemates, but we will have to wait and see in that regard =)

[NewKID]

you can add some extra foam in to the HD 558 for more isolation. it improves the bass as well

[h264]

Sorry that wasn't very well explained, if the sound is turned above about 60% in windows and you are listening to music or anything, when it reaches say a louder part of the song the sound will drop, as if I have grabbed my volume slider and dropped it to 25%, so instead of building into a song a peaking, when it should peak the sound dips and becomes muffled it is like lowering the sound except worse as the sound quality becomes worse, it seems to be fixed as I said above if you keep the volume at 60% or lower, but I don't really want a brand new headset that I already have to adapt things to get it to work properly and the microphone seemed to be playing up as well, now it could have just all been bad luck on my part as when they arrived the actual USB sound card, the spitfire, was scuffed and looked beat up, except this was supposed to a brand new headset from Amazon, so maybe I just got one from a bad batch, but it put me off enough to return it and order myself the HD 558s, so now I just need to find out if my onboard sound is good enough for the headphones or if I will also need an internal sound card =)

Thanks for your explanation of open headphones, I literally had no idea what they would sound like as every pair of headphones I have ever owned have been closed, some have been better at isolating noise than others but they were all closed =) But hopefully the 558s will be great and I don't think they will produce enough sound to bother any housemates, but we will have to wait and see in that regard =)

Let me get this straight. So the headset produced this "dulling" effect, so you've returned them and ordered a pair of Sennheiser HD558s, correct?

You shouldn't be disappointed. And your onboard should drive them just fine, just use the ports on the back of the card, not the front panel, or you'll hear the noise from your case.

[Stickwolf]

Thank you all very much for your help, I think I will see how the onboard sound handles them for now and later I can always buy a separate sound card to improve performance =) And I will look into adding extra foam if they are too loud, although I am hopeful I will not even need to =)

Thanks again!

[unraw]

I have the HD 558's and they are not that loud at all outside the headphones. I love them so far! I would recommend a dedicated sound card for them because onboard sound generally sounds like crap.