Studio Headphones vs Gaming Headphones for Gaming? Looking for Opinions.

[Kelp5127]

I have just never had luck with headphones, either I get wired ones that end up with the classic having to be held at weird angles to work properly, or wireless I always run into the earpads not being replaceable and getting not the most comfortable to wear after a few months (this happens on wired too though).
So as i'M onto my 4th headphone purchase in the past 3 years. I have found myself debating between 2 different pairs: The Astro A10s, and the AHT-M20X(BT).
The Astro A10s were recommended to me by a friend because the wire and earpads can be replaced, thus meaning I could in theory replace either if it becomes a problem. The AHT-M20X I've also heard good things about, but obviously its not made for gaming, so would I need anything like software to get good "surround sound" in games? I'm aware that the "surround sound" on gaming headphones is mostly just the work of software. I have a dedicated mic so having a mic on the headset isn't a deal breaker for me. And the blue tooth variant of the AHT-M20Xs would allow me to use wireless when they are charged or wired if they aren't which also solves any battery life issues, I just don't know much about using them for gaming or if its even a good idea.
Sorry for such a long post but I'm just looking for opinions as I'm sure there are people on here that know a lot more about this than me.
Thanks

[8tg]

I think you should up your budget for headphones because the issues you described are symptoms of low end products, and then you suggested more low end products.

Have you considered how many times you’re going to buy $50 headphones and have them break over and over before you just give in and buy a proper set of headphones?

Beyerdynamic DT 770 pros or 990 pros (closed versus open back respectively) are $150, highly recommended across the board by all circles, have an abundance of ear pad options out there.

They are headphones from the mid 1980’s, there are people still using their pairs from the mid 1980’s

 

That’s my opinion, stop buying cheap headsets, and then replacing them with more cheap headsets when they inevitably break.

[Slottr]

I agree with @8tg

 

Spend a few bucks more. Doesnt even have to be that much. Headphones like the SHP9500's exist, theres no point to keep buying the cheap crap if you know its just going to be expendable (when you obviously dont want it to be)

[Kelp5127]

1 hour ago, 8tg said:

I think you should up your budget for headphones because the issues you described are symptoms of low end products, and then you suggested more low end products.

Have you considered how many times you’re going to buy $50 headphones and have them break over and over before you just give in and buy a proper set of headphones?

Beyerdynamic DT 770 pros or 990 pros (closed versus open back respectively) are $150, highly recommended across the board by all circles, have an abundance of ear pad options out there.

They are headphones from the mid 1980’s, there are people still using their pairs from the mid 1980’s

 

That’s my opinion, stop buying cheap headsets, and then replacing them with more cheap headsets when they inevitably break.

I have tried some slightly more expensive headphones in the past which did lead me to just go "screw it, if they're gonna break in a year anyway, Im not going to spend $100+ on them". Which is the only reason id be worried on going for the DT 770 pros. However I am finding a lot of reviews stating they are worth it. Thanks for the tips

[Kelp5127]

1 hour ago, Slottr said:

I agree with @8tg

 

Spend a few bucks more. Doesnt even have to be that much. Headphones like the SHP9500's exist, theres no point to keep buying the cheap crap if you know its just going to be expendable (when you obviously dont want it to be)

Thanks for the suggestion, unfortunately the SHP9500's are open backed and I live with many other people so closed back is kind of the only option for me. I'm also worried about getting game audio to work properly with studio headphones, I've heard about issues with Audio Technica headsets and game audio such as footsteps not being in the correct place. Now this also could just be AT headphones in general, that just happen to be the headphones I first looked up when looking into Studio headphones.

[cmndr]

If your headphones are breaking in a year, it's possible that you might need to shift your behaviors. I have a pair of HD800s that have lasted me around 10 years. They're seemingly fragile and the only thing I've done is swap a cord. I probably need to replace the earpads but that's easy to put off.


----

 

I haven't researched budgety options for a while but ATH-M50 and DT770 are pretty solid and I've used both.




As far as open backed headphones leaking noise... ehh... I've listened louder than I felt comfortable with at work using my HD800s and asked my coworkers (5' away) what they thought. None of them could hear it.

If you have a keyboard, the keyboard is going to be FAR FAR louder than anything coming from your headphones.

---

 

Doing some rough math, assuming 1/3rd the sound is leaked out (so you get 2x as much) - that implies that 3db less sound goes out. Let's say that it's 1/2" to your ears. Every doubling of distance cuts sound pressure by half. let's say the other person is 128" away (10 feet roughly) - that means 8 doubling or another 17dB softer (20 total). If you're listening at 70dB, the perceived sound would be around 50dB, or about what a "quite office" is.

If you want to do a sanity check - listen to music on closed back headphones at normal levels, then turn it down a dash. Then walk 5 or 10 feet away. See how loud it is.
 

[Islam Ghunym]

If you want to hear footsteps properly you gonna need a good amplifier + a good software. The kind of hardware the headphone is not going to do much if anything for that. You gonna just hear more close to real sounds + more low and high frequency sounds. Footsteps, explosives or all other similar sound effects have really much higher frequency than being not present by any kind of headphone.

 

On the other hand better headphone can give better sound staging more close to real and with that kind of vibrance footsteps would be more clear from which direction, but you can still determine where are these footsteps even with dump headsets with good software processing. It comes down to how good the game engine handle these 3D sound and output it properly to your headset so that you can easily determine these sounds and where they came from.

 

It is all about software in the end + good amplifier for clear sounds while the premium sound staging is an additional very expensive and not a vital feature that helps you to win your games.

[cmndr]

35 minutes ago, Islam Ghunym said:

If you want to hear footsteps properly you gonna need a good amplifier + a good software.

If you're not using super hard to drive headphones, the amplifier won't matter that much. You can mostly avoid the need by NOT choosing the higher Ohm models.

 

35 minutes ago, Islam Ghunym said:

The kind of hardware the headphone is not going to do much if anything for that. You gonna just hear more close to real sounds + more low and high frequency sounds. Footsteps, explosives or all other similar sound effects have really much higher frequency than being not present by any kind of headphone.

 

On the other hand better headphone can give better sound staging more close to real and with that kind of vibrance footsteps would be more clear from which direction, but you can still determine where are these footsteps even with dump headsets with good software processing. It comes down to how good the game engine handle these 3D sound and output it properly to your headset so that you can easily determine these sounds and where they came from.

As far as I'm aware most headphones (nearly all?) can do high frequency sounds just fine. Higher than most people can hear. How well a headphone does the highest of frequencies will start to depend on how you put the headphones on/position them as well as a person's head and earshape more than the microphone itself at some point (let's say 10,000Hz) though.

Using the DT770 as an example, https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-5/graph#440/7903
RTings is clearly able to measure frequency above and beyond this range.

 

Also, footsteps and explosions are NOT high frequencies. They're relatively low frequencies. Going off of this thread they're in the 100-200Hz range. Here's someone going out of their way to EQ that frequency range a bit higher.

 

EQ isn't sophisticated signal processing. With that said there are probably SOME benefits to additional DSP - this is outside of my wheelhouse, I kind of stopped caring about shooter games.

 

 

 

 

35 minutes ago, Islam Ghunym said:

It is all about software in the end + good amplifier for clear sounds while the premium sound staging is an additional very expensive and not a vital feature that helps you to win your games.

While I won't say that having a good amplifier is pointless, usually the headphones chosen will matter far more. More expensive headphones generally demand stronger amplification since they often use smaller coils (requires more voltage to push power through) which allows for greater detail... at a cost. Some of this matters less with newer designs since there have been improvements in material science over the last decade and manufacturers are optimizing towards "this won't be returned" more than the last 0.1% of performance in an ideal set up.

Anecdotally, I'm just lazy enough that I don't bother plugging in my HD800s (retail price new was around $1600 10 years ago) into my amp. I'm just using my "shitty" AVR. Which is "good enough". The HD800 headphones are some of the hardest units to drive. The newer HD800S (extra letter 's') is easier to drive.

[Islam Ghunym]

20 hours ago, cmndr said:

If you're not using super hard to drive headphones, the amplifier won't matter that much. You can mostly avoid the need by NOT choosing the higher Ohm models.

Also, footsteps and explosions are NOT high frequencies. They're relatively low frequencies. Going off of this thread they're in the 100-200Hz range. Here's someone going out of their way to EQ that frequency range a bit higher.

The idea is that having a good amplifier that last forever is useful especially when the user change his headset more often. That device will give an improvement once hooked with the headset eliminating confusing noises. Could be small improvement, could be good.. The amplifier can outperform any premium sound card that is about a 100$. You can use the device anywhere. It is not a lose to have it .

 

However you said something interesting. (I didn't know that lower ohm headset doesn't need that)

 

I didn't say footsteps are high frequency waves, but they are relatively higher than not being heard by different headsets. Most cheap headsets struggle to present less than 40Hz waves, but the footsteps contains a high percent of much higher frequencies 100-300Hz you already said it so the gamer should not worry about that.

 

 

Software what usually fks up the experience like Windows sonic virtual surround... or improper game sound configurations or drivers not playing nice with windows version (outdated). I don't even know why that sonic virtual shit is still there.... all these years.

[cmndr]

38 minutes ago, Islam Ghunym said:

The idea is that having a good amplifier that last forever is useful especially when the user change his headset more often. That device will give an improvement once hooked with the headset eliminating confusing noises. Could be small improvement, could be good.. The amplifier can outperform any premium sound card that is about a 100$. You can use the device anywhere. It is not a lose to have it .

 

However you said something interesting. (I didn't know that lower ohm headset doesn't need that)

So there IS some validity to "amps last a long time" and this is especially the case with solid state (aka class D) amplifiers.

With that said at the price points OP is looking at (under $500) on headphones pretty much any "not bad" onboard sound will do.

I'll make the caveat that ON AVERAGE lower Ohm headphones are less sensitive to amps (as are more recently designed headphones). I wouldn't be surprised if there are exceptions to the rule but I'd need to do research. The other main factor is sensitivity or efficiency here's a reddit thread on the matter -

 

38 minutes ago, Islam Ghunym said:

I didn't say footsteps are high frequency waves, but they are relatively higher than not being heard by different headsets. Most cheap headsets struggle to present less than 40Hz waves, but the footsteps contains a high percent of much higher frequencies 100-300Hz you already said it so the gamer should not worry about that.

So let's touch on the specifics.
Most headphones use full range drivers. They'll do pretty close to the full 20-20,000Hz audio range that's considered audible. Cheaper headphones are usually more susceptible to things like distortion, group delay and imbalanced frequency response (so playing certain frequencies louder or softer than they should). If you limit yourself to more or less the "buy this" guides from 10-15ish years ago (I haven't done much research lately, sorry) pretty much all of the $100-150ish suggestions (DT770, ATH-M50, Sennheiser 598) are "god enough" in most of these measures.

 

If we're referring to frequency range when you say "higher" - footsteps are LOW frequency waves. People usually hear sound that is between 20-20,000Hz. Footsteps appear to be in the 100-200Hz range, based on my VERY quick and superficial research. The top end of human hearing is around 100-200x higher than that. The bottom range is around 5-10x lower than that. Most people would describe footsteps as being in the bass region.

 

From a "is it hard to get sound" perspective, there's not really anything special about the 100-200Hz region. It's not THAT hard for drivers to produce that frequency range. It's usually the very low (stuff 5-10x lower) or the very high (stuff 50-100x higher) areas that are harder to do since full range drivers usually do best in the middle ranges (think 100-1000Hz if I had to pull a guess from my rear)


I did just find ONE research study -https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjg_9iM35T5AhUWJEQIHenfBKA4FBAWegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt%2FdownloadFile%2F395137453651%2FResumo.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0qWxwILL_oMiJOHyLlwqGG

They mention ranges similar to 100-200Hz (though it can vary because footsteps interact with the materials being stepped on).

Anectotal experience - my SO has a condo, the guy above has a heavy step (one bachelor was louder than the entire family before him). It annoyed the heck out of her (sleep issues at 2AM). There was acoustic testing done. The very LOW frequencies weren't insulated enough and didn't pass modern standards. Mids and highs were fine.

 

38 minutes ago, Islam Ghunym said:

Software what usually fks up the experience like Windows sonic virtual surround... or improper game sound configurations or drivers not playing nice with windows version (outdated). I don't even know why that sonic virtual shit is still there.... all these years.

If you're referring to down mixing 5.1 or atmos audio to 2.0 stereo audio...

yeah. Don't do that unless you find it's better for that specific application. The game's NATIVE 2.0 audio is often better than "virtual" mixing.
I think at this point it's mostly marketing and "wow" factor. It's possible to turn UP the perceived surround effect (at the cost of accuracy) by doing weird stuff when you down mix. If you want a wider sound stage or better imaging... that's usually best done by getting headphones which do that better. Usually decent quality, open back headphones. (closed back headphones have to content with more of the sound echoing and bouncing around).

 

[rikitikitavi]

TLDR

 

That’s a lot of headphones you went through…

 

Gaming headsets are mostly crap.

They are supposed to be tuned for games / have chat features etc. In reality, most of them focus on the latter.

Tuned, as in firing/explosions should not be tiring on your ears for example, good imaging, etc

 

Highly suggest Sennheiser/Epos PC38X (open back), nothing I’ve tried comes close.

Second, with a big gap - Logitech Pro X (closed back).

 

Music headphones might sound better, but they might make you ear heart after all those bullets flying around, while software tuning might just make them sound worse.

 

Surround sound that ‘comes’ with the headphones/headset is a gimmick.

Your game/AVplayer is what pushes surround sound into your ears, either prerecorded or calculated on the fly.