Be Excellent To Each Other

My finger has been hovering over the order button on these for over a month now. Should I do it? Anybody got any opinions on this sort of thing? What headphones do you use?

In advance: I actually much prefer the headphones experience to a 5.1 speaker set up, so I don't want to get any speakers instead. The reason I've chosen the headphones above as a possibility are:

- great reviews
- designed specifically for gaming
- they have a microphone built in for Live goodness

The negative is they're ridiculously expensive for a set of gaming-specific headphones, which is why, a month after deciding I wanted them, I still haven't ordered them.

My brother has a set of the Turtle Beach wireless things. They're alright, but a bit shit and cheapy. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of wireless nonsense. Re-charging and poorer audio quality and what-not.

So, does anyone else use gaming headphones? What's the low-down?

My thoughts went along the lines of:

They look rather nice.
HOW MUCH!
Well, I suppose a surround sound system would be comparable, although more for something decent
Despite that, still no, as I find headphones to not be so grand on the lasting stakes, and so wouldn't pay so much for them. I don't mind losing a £20 pair to standard issues (or cheating soul calibur floor humping lizards) but £190. I'd be very hesitent to buy.

You're right on the "lasting stakes" part I suppose. They do wear out pretty quickly. Having said that, I've had a set of heavily-abused Technics cans plugged into my PC for the best part of five years and they're still going strong. It depends entirely on the build quality, and by all accounts, these ones are great. But yeah, bloody expensive. I might try to convince Mrs TrouserBulge that I deserve them for Christmas...

I'm not sure if they're the same as the ones that one of my little brothers has, but his were about £200 also. Are they worth it? I think it depends on who you are. For me, definitely not, even if I wanted to play games all day, but they are perfect for my brother, and I have to say the sound is amazing and they are VERY comfortable. He plays games a lot, but he is also really into the whole 'gaming experience' thing.

I bought a new (standard) headset a few months ago and managed to cut through the wire with a pair of scissors as I was wearing them on the very first day. Don't do that.

Lizards, Dave?

Yes, Lizards.

I take it you haven't played SC4?

In soul calibur 4, theres a tower of souls mode that tasks you with ascending 60 floors, each with challenges. With one character, you have to beat floors 53 to 56 in one sitting to reach a checkpoint, as it were. Which means beating 14 characters with one character in one go. It's quite hard to even get to floor 56, as the enemies are on highest difficulty by this point, and no health recovery between combatants. And there are 14 of them. To one of you.

So, having finally got there, Floor 56 is 4 lizardmen, who, upon starting the battle start immediately humping the floor in a furious fashion, thereby becoming almost impossible to hit or defend against. And if you do manage it, they swap out, and start healing while another lizard furiously humps the floor.

Beforehand, I found it quite boggling that people broke pads due to games related rage. My headphones didn't survive being thrown at the floor.

It took me a while to return to the game to try again. I did eventually best the floor humping shits. Next 3 floors were much easier by comparison, and I got my own back by falling on the floor and making the ring-out immune final boss jump out of the arena and kill himself.

Update: I'm ordering the Turtle Beach X11s for £40, because I couldn't justify spunking £190 on headphones, no matter how shiny they are. My brother seems to like his X11s, so they'll do the job!

Haha I was just going to post and say "get some earforce" but it seems you already are

Good choice. Mine are the schnizzle

Picked up some X11s in GAME for £40. They're good! Just played a couple of games and I can hear where everyone is and stuff. Also, built-in headset is really clear and I never have to charge my wireless one again! Yay!

Tested the 'phones with GovYard in Reach - they're officially aces and recommended!

Fair play, they do sound much better than a wired headset. They bloody ought to at that price!

I'll be interested when they update the chat codec to see how the standard improves.

Don't suppose you could have a game of MW2 and let me know how good they are for it? Can you hear other peoples positions in relation to your own? I quite fancy a pair and I've eyed them up a few times but I've always been to worried that they'll be rubbish compared to the expensive ones.

Positioning is good with normal headphones plugged into yer telly, so aye they'll do the job & you can talk to folk without doing that funny headset round the neck thing like I used to do at night

If you're looking for some I'll see if any have fallen off the back of the usual lorry

I'll give it a bash! I was wondering how it would improve my CoD chances myself! Should we have a game tomorrow? (today) so I can further test the voice capabilities...

Oops, was reacting to the FP, for £40 I thought the quality was superlative, then. Thought they were the £180 pair.

Thinking about asking for a set of gaming headphones for Christmas. Anyone got the DX11's? Just wondering if they are better or worse than the older X41s. (Both are turtle beach).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Turtle-Beach-He ... 79&sr=1-10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Turtle-Beach-Wi ... dpp_ttl_in

Is there another manufacturer I should consider?

I dont have them but I've read a number of positive reviews of the Astro headsets if you wanted to look at alternatives to turtle beach's

http://www.astrogaming.co.uk/

Here are a few reviews

http://reviews.cnet.com/headsets/astro- ... 80823.html

http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/pro ... g-a40.html

I have a pair of Sharkoon headphones...they're pretty good and get decent reviews. May be worth a look at.

Those astro ones sound great but i cant get the website to load, is it just me? What price are they? Might be a bit rich for my mothers tastes!

Ramsea, do yours do surround sound for CoD?

You need a SUB for COD.

*chuckles*

Website is quite heavy if your on a mobile connection - price is high (I think the last time i actually looked at them it was around £160 for a basic set but you can keep adding things to it and get to silly amounts)

'tis the X41s I've got Gill.

Wouldn't have bought them if I wasn't getting them for mad cheapness off the back of a lorry through a friend, but now that I've had them a while I'd buy another set of them (or similar) if they broke.


The main difference between them DX11s & X41s appears to be that the DX11s are wired, which may or may not be a problem for you.

Wired to where? And does that reduce the risk of interference?

XD11 is wired like this (I think):
xbox > wire > box thing > wire > headphones < wire < controller

X41 is:
xbox > wire > box thing > fuck all > headphones < wire < controller


As for interference it should do, but then then the wireless signal's digital so the only time I get interference is if I wander off to the kitchen or something & the signal keeps cutting out.

The reviews I read of the wireless one said that they suffered from interference from wi-fi or something, which is why I was asking. I'll need to have a think, I'd love those expensive ones but I grudge the money!

Never had a problem wi' them, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I'll bring them round one day you're free. Probably best trying them for yourself in yer own house & that.

EDIT: In fact I had them going in your old flat wi' the two xboxen & laptops & pretty much every wireless device either of us have running

I think Miss Malabar has the DX11s, and they're pretty good. The mic is ridiculously sensitive, mind.

Nah, the mic is the same as usual, it's just MM is ridiculously loud

I have a (now discontinued but there are newer versions obv.) pair of sony wireless DJ headphones, they are simply phenomenal, iirc they cost me £60 about 5 year ago. The volume (controlled by a wheel on the headphones themselves) and range on them are awesome, I have media monkey running upstairs on my PC and am merrily dancing around downstairs in the kitchen with occasional bouts of swearing when shuffle hits me with rod stewert or connie frances.

These gaming headphones take a feed from the Xbox and act as a live! headset at the same time, I believe

Yeah its ones that do in game chat and simulate 7.1 surround sound I want. I wouldn't mind singing to rod Stewart though

Just checked. Miss Malabar has the Turtle Beach X12 model. They're still pretty good.

Yeah they do have surround sound gill, but in all honesty I think surround sound on headphones are pretty pointless. Afterall you only have two ears and surround only works like stereo by the sound reaching each ear at slightly different times.

Someone on here posted some sound links of stereoscopical or whatever it was called sound. They were great examples of how your brain can work out surround sound from stereo sound.

In hindsight id say get a decent stereo set for about 40 quid and use the rest to buy 2 or 3 games.

Ramsea I take your point but Jen and I play CoD on two xboxs in one room so I want to be able to hear people near me in CoD but without it getting in the way of her game.
I think I might just ask for the turtle beach ones.

@Ramsea, by that logic surround sound is pointless too as you still only have two ears

I've a feeling you're on about bi-aural(sp?) recordings which are done wi' a plaster heid & a pair of matched microphones. They work by recording the delays & reverberations.

Yon "Dolby Headphone" thingy in the Astros, X41s & most likely the DX11s appears to work in the same way. The headphones only have one pair of drivers & you can plug normal headphones into the box thingys for the same effect. You get it on fancy home theatre amps too which is how I first tried it (sadly not my amp, thanks though Richer Sounds).

You will generally get better performance out of a pair of stereo headphones than gimmicky surround sound headphones, though. I'd rather have a set of cans with two good speakers than five shite little speakers in each ear hole. Stereo when it's injected directly into your ears is absolutely fine for hearing exactly where people are around you in CoD et al.

See above. Fancy amp, any headphones.
1 speaker per ear. Fucking voodoo!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Headphone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-relat ... r_function

I've got these for my PC: http://uk.store.creative.com/headphones ... 16337.aspx

They end in the standard green and pink 3.5 jacks - I tried today to run the green into my amp and the pink via an adapter into the 360 pad, as opposed to buying a Turtle Beach pair. Problem is I can't get the mic working, but when I jack the green lead in instead, that does work, one can even record voice for messages as it'll record what the speakers in the headphones pick up. Obviously that's not good enough though, so does anyone know of a box that'll turn a PC headset into something that'll do the same job as the speakers on my amp, and my 360 headset?

I think this might be the thing: http://www.limexb360.co.uk/product/Stee ... _360_SSSAM

Sounds like to broken or muted miles Elphinstone.

Just what I was thinking, Dave.

Let's try again.

Sounds like the microphone is broken or muted by a switch.

Well, finally got a pair of gaming headphones sorted. Went for these in the end. Turtle beach PX5s.
Jen got these, Turtle Beach X41s.

Just spent about twenty minutes trying to figure out the differences between them, there doesn't seem to be much in it despite the X41s being released in Sept 2009 and the PX5s coming out April 2011.

The PX5s have bluetooth to allow wireless use with the PS3 and remaining wireless from the controller. A bluetooth adaptor can be bought for the Xbox controller but it seems pretty pointless when I'm used to being wired to the controller anyway. You can connect your phone to it so as you can take calls while your playing which is a pretty neat feature of the PX5s.

Other than that, I don't if there are that many additional features that I'm really going to notice over the X41s.

APOD has mentioned he is getting the PX3s for £75 from play.com which is a bit of a bargain, they don't have 7.1 surround sound but can be upgraded with a bit you can buy for £50. They also have the advantage of being rechargeable, the X41s and PX5s take standard AA or AAA batteries.
The extra bit which adds on surround sound also seems to be compatible with the other cheaper headsets in the Turtle Beach range so if anyone has any Christmas money to spend then a nice wee headset could be quite affordable.

For both the X41s and PX5s to use them with an Xbox connected via HDMI you need an extra connection, this RCA adaptor. I don't think I have one of these but I'm just ordering one from amazon for a fiver.

I'll just leave this here in case anyone else in future is confused about what they are getting with each headset and I'll be letting you all know how I get on with mine when I get them.

Jen has said I can play with her ones in the meantime but I don't think I want surround sound in my ears when I'm playing L4D dead, too creepy!

I got some X31s for Christmas. They seem pretty decent, albeit stereo only, and are comfortable and light. Thumbs up from me so far.

My brother in law got a pair of turtle beach headphones as well bit i forget which ones. Might be them, its another pair without surround sound but his main problem was chat volume levels making it hard for us to hear him during cod and he says the new headphones have made a huge difference plus it obviously means game sounds can be restricted to the headphones to avoid disturbing the baby.

Gill - if you go on the turtle beach website it has wiring diagrams and I thought that for an Xbox on hdmi it has everything in the box for a px5. For a px3, it looks more complex. I don't have my old xbox cables to route it through the Xbox in the standard setup but the alternative of using audio out on the tv should work. Will annoy the wife though as I'll have to switch my tv hdmi inputs.

What do you reckon then, Gilly? I have the X11s and they're absolutely brilliant for voice chat. It makes you really clear to others, and you can hear them perfectly as well. Much better than the wired/wireless official chat headsets. Plus you're getting the game audio directly into your lugs as well, which is great.

edit: Oh. You can't get them to work? The X11s are wired and pretty straight forward really, so I can't really help much!

Are you drunk WTB?
I haven't got them yet, get them next week. Can't wait. Riles was responding to me saying that I have had to order another lead to connect them on an old Xbox via hdmi.

Looking back I didn't actually mention in this thread that I don't have yet. Get them next Wednesday.