I can't decide which headset to buy, Help!

[hotelmariofan]

Ok, so I recently built a PC and I am looking to get a new headset. Well, before moving to PC gaming, I played Xbox, I had a set of Astro A40's. In my opinion, they sounded very good, and the virtual surround sound was good enough for me. Something ended up going wrong with those and, to make a long story short, I don't have them anymore. Just today I bought some Razer Tiamat 7.1's, ignoring the fact that a lot of the reviews said that the surround sound is good but the sound can be a bit "tinny" when playing music and such. Well they were right... big time. I also noticed that the bass sounds downright horrible. I mean, it sounds like there isn't any, at all. Luckily, BestBuy will let me return them for a cash refund, no questions asked. Now I just want something that will perform well in games, that has good bass(good enough to make me think "wow" when something explodes in BF3) and something with a mic, preferably something new. Here's where it might get complicated, I need it to be $200 or under, $200 is the most I can spend. I'd really appreciate some help, because I can't stand these things. Thanks!

 

[VonPelz]

First of all, I'd forget about any type of "surround" headphones. In my experience they have no advantage over good stereo hi-fi headphones. The sound reproduction is usually quite bad too and it's difficult to listen to stereo music since the headphones are seen as a 5.1 speaker setup. I used to have a pair of Zalman 5.1 headphones and they were utter crap, sound quality was horrible and the placement wasn't any better from normal headphones. The whole concept of "surround" headphones feels just like a gimmick to me.

If I were you, I'd go for good quality headphones, such as the Sennheiser HD-598 and then get a clip on mic, such as the Zalman Zm-Mic1 for a microphone.

I have a pair of Sennheiser HD-595s and they are just fantastic in games, soundstage is swide and placement is very good. In BF3 I found it best to set speakers to Hifi and enable Enhanced Stereo.