I'm looking to get a headset, cause my sister's daughters are staying alot in our home, so i won't disturb them. It needs to have close to audiophile grade sound, and very good mic as well. My budget is pretty good, around 100-130 euro's. I need different options, cause i need to be able to buy them from my own country. And they have to be Over-Ear, on-ears hurt my ears. The one's i found myself are: Turtle Beach Z2 Asus Orion Pro Steelseries Siberia V2 USB Frost Blue (I like the colors and blue LED on the cups) Razer Kraken (Pro, 7.1) (bit skeptical about these, heard some bad things) Razer BlackShark Razer Tiamat 2.2 Sennheiser PC 350 Also, i'm going to use it for music as well, hence i want it to be close to audiophile quality.
Wait to buy anything right now and save some money. There are some new headphones coming out that are being touted as having audiophile quality sound for gaming. They will cost $350 (US). Feenix Aria headphones They made the news about a month ago but have not been officially released yet.
Is this for a "gaming" PC or gaming console? You would be better off buying stereo headphones and use them for gaming. Takstar Pro 80 (Gemini HSR-1000) are to me the best sounding headphones for under $100.
Out of all of those you listed I'd go with the Senns PC350. At least they're somewhat related to audiophile headphones.
I sure know that the mic of that one is amazing, that's why i listed it. But it lacks bass that i want, i've used one before, i think the PC 333.
The headphones I mentioned previously will come with a mic. I wrote the company asking what they can tell me about the sound quality and balance. They were upfront and honest saying it's a subjective question but that they are really shooting for good quality and balanced sound. I'm watching for their release.
Just buy a throat mic if you are worrying about talking too loud late at night ? http://www.ebay.com/bhp/throat-mic
I'd always get mic and headphones separate. The combination is far too expensive compared to two individual products. I wouldn't get Sennheisers for various reasons. Their normal headphones are open, not closed, and usually have a "veiled" sound with very light bass. Might be ok for some applications but gaming, to me, certainly isn't one of them. Beyer has a nice headset, the MMX, but it'll cost around 300€. If I were you I'd pick a nice set of cans and get a matching mic afterwards. Personally I'm still very happy with my Ultrasones, which can be had slightly above your budget, or you could look for some nice AKGs (550 should be around your budget, 70x if you find a deal) or Philips Fidelio (deals pop up relatively often).
The best thing you can do is get a seperate headphones like the DT990 pro-250 and use a clip on mic, Getting only headphones that has it attached will limit your options as well not give you the best bang for your buck. You do not list what sound card you have, But you can get a cheap Sound blaster Z for 60-69 off amazon and pair it with the DT990 pro-250 which goes for $139 on amazon as well. Then get either the mod mic that was mention or a clip on mic. None of the headsets you list will give you what you wanted and the Sennheisers headset is not worth it because of the DT990 pro-250 being in the same price point but cheaper and better choice. Even AKG Q701 can be had for 159-160 used like new on amazon or 199 new on both ebay and amazon. I also seen AKG K550 goes for 135 on AKG warehouse site.
This just came out! Audio Technica ATH-AG1 http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headphones/568b166395264eb0/index.html I'm not in Japan anymore, so I can't test these out...Looking at the build, it looks like it was based on the X series, so it's kinda pricey. The mic is apparently very good from review I read, since Audio Technica makes their own mics.
Sennheiser PC 360 GAME, if you like open back (noticed that quite a few of the others on your list got just that), but that would probably also be above budget. I prefer over ear as well, plus that I want cups that don't flatten out much over time and don't cook my ears (issue by having synthetic leather on them cups, like on the Audio Technica's above), that is why the 360's are my preferred set to use.
Many people use them but the 360s sound really, really bad in comparison to good headphones. If you get to know a good pair of headphones, the 360s are really hard to stand. The typical Sennheiser veil, muddy and weak bass, piercing/crackling highs and little in between. All this laid-down on an overinflated soundstage. A friend of mine came by with a set once and asked me what I thought of them. They had the same "signature" as my older HD 590, just worse in every regard. As he was on the fence to get these or a set of Beyers, the choice was very easy to make. He went with the MMX 300 in the end. Not exactly as "tight" as I like my phones but they were very, very good still. I couldn't honestly say that about the Senns.
Eh, I have a lot of pairs of good headphones and I think the PC360's sound fine? I mean yeah they are senn signature and they aren't going to have a strong bass, but muddy and a overinflated soundstage? Disagree. I also don't think they sound sharp at all at the high end. I think they favor higher frequencies because the bass is reduced but not to a fault. Now OP says he wants more bass so I would probably also recommend something different, but yeah. PC360's are fine.
They were rather fresh out of the box, maybe that played a role, but they really sounded awful. I checked then with stuff I knew very, very well and they were hard for me to tolerate. Even my mobile Audeo in-ears have better, far more exact bass and better separation. Soundstage may be a matter of taste but my closed/in-ear headphones replicate the sound of my living room speaker system rather well. It's the same scale at least.
