What gaming headphones to buy? - Page 351

Issues with the cable?

Oh yea, KBI... just so you know, I didn't just try to slide an AKG adapter in there... I've been grinding away material to make sure it sits flush, before I epoxy it up and make sure it's in there SOLID!

I like the cable (nice job by the way) and the can, but I prefer the ad700 when gaming. I eq both of them and found I had the best results with the ad700 with what I am trying to accomplish with them.

Ah okay, just like 'nerd. The K701/2 isn't a real upgrade over the AD700 if you're strictly gaming competitively. I can agree with this. Like I always said, if the AD700s had a real headband, I wouldn't have bought the K701 and used that money on something else, like a killer set of single player cans with some bass.

Heh...didn't you already did that when you bought the DT990/600 for single?

Yeah, but I meant back then. Ideally, it would have been an AD700 for competitive, DT990 for single, and DT770/600 or K271 MKII (dunno if they do good for gaming) for closed.

Just how much did you get your Califone mic for?

I think it was around $25 2 years ago. I wasnt exactly looking for the best bargain on it.

from all the models,what califone headphone are you going to buy?

I didn't know there were many models. I just want one that works well with my headphones on the 360, that don't need to be attached. As long as it fits my neck and picks up my voice well, that's all I care about. I just didn't expect it to be like 30 dollars. @_@

Too bad you weren't around last year.... you coulda picked these up...
AD700.

Ah, the babies... <3

Those are nice but I already have my mic modded ad700 and my astro a40. I also can buy back my mmx-300 for $125. Plenty of options. I also have my L7000 for single player.

King, how do you feel about the A40 vs AD700?

Personally, I thought they were pretty close. The AD700 offers better positioning, but it's close. And the A40 offers more (IMO needed) bass. Though I don't EQ either one, so you may have different findings I guess.

They look phenomenal Hector. You exceeded my expections.. If you need a bit of extra Christmas snow (money) let me know.. You really went beyond what most cablers would have done.. Thank you so much.. I will give you more work when you start again. I know a MOTT who MAKES a living re cabling headphones.. You have that talent. All the best. & thanks for treating my headphones like they were your own. I will name them after you. The SWZ Special. You truly made them into your own. I will never sell this pair.. I urge all here to have SWZ do all your cable needs. He had mine for over a month, but no fault of his own.. That's why I haven't been pming him every other day. I trust him... I will post a blog about them with pictures.. Hope fuly SWZ can work on one of my DT48 next yr.. Just some advice. You should gather testimonals to your work & practice to use as reference.

I think the positioning of the a40 is good. i never had a problem with differentiating where sounds were coming from. However, the larger soundstage of the ad700 helps spread out the sounds so that the positioning is more precise. Putting the ad700 on after the a40 really allows some space between the sounds which does help the positioning to seem better than the a40.

Also I been messing around with eq the cans. This is still in the works and will have to be readjusted for black ops when it comes out. I took the output of the mixamp and ran it into my computer and recorded the output so I could look at the best way to eq. I have come to the conclusion that the best sound signature I found so far to be the best for competitive play is a J shaped sound signature. Meaning, the bass is at a average level, the mids being recessed, and the high end cranked. I first started with private matches to adjust the sound and found that cranking the highs above 2.5k helps bring out footsteps and other audio cues. Then I look at there frequency graph and found an area in the bass to bring up in order to bring out the footsteps more. I then recessed the mids. The mids have all the non essential sound for being competitive. They are important though for immersion or fun factor. The mids have a lot of sound that can cover up important stuff since everything seems to be in the 600 - 2k range. The next couple of shots are for fun to show a few of the things I am talking about.

This is the break down of sound of just me running on the sub base. The red boxes show my footsteps. They extend the whole freq. range but tend to get covered up by the average noise in the mids (yellow box). There is a extra hard hit on the footsteps between 200 - 400hz (green boxes). By eq that range up, I get the impact of the footsteps brought out more. Also since not a lot of noises in the game tend to be in the 2.5hz on up (blue box), I eq that section up really high to get all the info like footsteps, reloads, and silent weapons, without getting it covered up by the rest of the sounds in the game.



The next screen shows me firing a silenced tar. You can even see all 30 bullets (blue box). I was burst firing it. Once again the sound of it extends the whole frequency so by eq the highs up, I have effectively brought out the silent sound without muddling it up with all the other game noise. A couple of other noises in it that are also brought out by eq the highs up are the bullet casings hitting the ground (green box) and the reload sound the last 2 sec (red box).



I will leave you with a picture of how my eq is adjusted at the moment. Constantly tweaking it of course...

king is doin it up seriously.


and to think that some people still play on TV speakers, or think that the astro setup is a gimmick as far as increasing your gaming performance.

woah...

AMAZING!

Seems that with that analysis, you can tweak any cans to be superb for competive :P

So,the amazing AD700 are being much much better with this crazy tweaking... is almost cheating :P

So, you can hear everything that matters now only, it seems.

Holy cow, I thought I was obsessive over my sounds in CoD.

King, you are a TRUE gamer.

I'm borderline impatient and want my stuff to sound right without much work on my part, but I can see that massive EQ-ing being very beneficial. Kudos.

Thanks for the analysis, King. I'm not surprised to hear that you can pull out some extra details with the EQ. Do you still find that the AD700 EQs better than the 702s (or did you not have the 702s)? I just hate the AD700s after using the 702s. The clarity comparison is no comparison, it sounds like the AD700s are under water or stuffed with tissues. I do think the AD700s have ever so slightly better positioning than the 702s, but the clarity and over all sound is worth it to me. I'm curious how the 702s react to tuning?

Also, how much did the EQ run you, if you don't mind my asking?

You guys seem to be really up to date with these gaming headphones so I was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on the Astro wireless Mixamp (5.8)? I have in the past wanted to pick up the A40 Mixamp package but the wires stringing across the room where always a no go for me. This new mixamp seems like the perfect solution so I was just hoping to get some thoughts from this crowd.

Thanks in advance.

it's not out until the 22nd, I think - so no one here has tried it yet.

I did have the K702 at the same time as the ad700. I could never get the sound the way I wanted compared to what I was able to pull out of the ad700. Putting the ad700 on after using and eq the k702 for a week, the ad700 had an immediate jump in bringing out audio cues that I wasnt able to eq and get out of the k702. Well... I could get it out of the k702 but it wasnt to the level of the ad700. For single player the k702 is superior, but for competitive play the ad700 bring more to the table. Of course, if you are doing single player there are better options than the k702.

I am curious if you tried the ad700 out of anything besides your mixamp. After using my eq and then going back to just the mixamp with the ad700, it was dark and murky compared to my eq. My setting on my eq will make it bright, but I was shocked on how thick the sound was out of the straight mixamp in comparison.

The eq is on sale for $169 at guitar center and I think I have seen them used for around $100 on ebay.

Holy cow, I like a bright sig, but I definitely wouldn't want it brighter than they already are. O_O

Though I haven't exactly compared them side by side... more like one house to the next.

I find the AD700 pretty bright without EQ, but I have tried mine on my two hybrid tube amps, my pure tube amp, and my pure solid state amp. I actually really don't like the AD700 much at all. It's among my least favorite, but alas, I cannot deny its soundstage and good multiplayer positioning. If I was after ONLY positioning, in order to play a game like COD as best as I possibly could, the AD700 would be it, but if I also want to enjoy the game with great sound, the AD700 is not it, for me. I do think with some EQ I could be more pleased, but EQ won't bring the clarity I've been spoiled with from the K702 and my other cans.

Stage 1 of the molding process.... a little Epoxy here, a little there...

i dont know if he'd want to keep the old textured look, but i think those would be sexy if you smoothed out the texture (maybe some bondo) and had them shot with some automotive grade paint

Sideways is the man!

He didn't say... but my intention was to smooth them out.... shoot them in black... and then buff them to a nice shine. These should put my re-work of my Grados to shame.

Just work your magic man..

SWZ, are you wiring them with silver internally?

Should wire them with UPOCC, if you're going to go with something other than the standard OFHC. Silver can be too bright. But I don't know what the sound signature of the DT48s is to begin with, maybe a little brightness would be great.