- Oct 27, 2012
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Hi im just wondering what is the best 50 dollar headset at the moment, iv liked corsairs stuff but their headsets appear to just be ok so what do you guys use and recommend.
Do you need a headset as in headphones with a built in mic?
I got a entry pair of Sennheiser headphones, HD 202s and I love them
Picking out a solid pair of headphones involves so much more than just buying from a reputable brand. You need to decide things for yourself like if you want open or closed cans, the sound signature, and other miscellaneous characteristics. Beats by Dre get shunned by pretty much anybody serious about audio, yet they do what they were designed to pretty well (if not slightly overpriced); which is play as much bass as possible using the onboard amplifier of an iPhone and still retain reasonable SQ. Many cans shit all over Beats for cheaper, but you aren't doing it much better without a portable amp or just as muffled sound.
The term "Gaming Headphones" doesn't actually mean anything. You don't get an advantage buying $10000 electrostatic headphones and having near-perfect sound quality vs the "so so" Corsairs you have mentioned. Do you want super tight audio brought by a reference phone, or the rumbling of a basshead can. I personally love being able to hear sub 20Hz with my DT770s and my better-sound-quality-SR850s are very boring in comparison. Hell, if Corsair only makes one headset, trying on your headphones is what made me ditch my SR850s.
Sennheiser does make some great headphones, but if you are just throwing darts, the odds are you are going to end up with a rather lame experience. You need cans that are tailored to your listening experience. I would head over to an audiophile forum and start taking in everything. The first decision you should make is if you want open or closed. Open generally have better sound quality and almost always has a wider soundstage. Closed generally has deeper bass and a very intimate soundstage although there is quite a lot of variety to be had.
Literally any pair of wired headphones with a microphone fits that bill.Ben90 is going way overboard for your use-case. Pretty much you need to hear the game with decent quality, clearly hear the people on teamspeak, and have a good enough attached mic that the people on teamspeak can hear you. You're not looking for perfect fidelity to listen to opera as if you were sitting in the audience.
I have a Razer Charcharias I got on sale for about $80. You can get them for $60-70 or less if they're on sale. Great quality, very comfortable though a little big, and keep all the ambient BS out so I can actually hear what people are saying.
Literally any pair of wired headphones with a microphone fits that bill.
Even though $50 isn't much in the headphone market, you can pick so much low hanging fruit here that I feel it is worth it to do at least a little research. So often vague questions like these get asked such as "What is the best Gaming Keyboard" where the actual answer has to be made up by the person asking. We can only guide him, and an audiophile forum is going to have more information than what we are going to be able to provide.
A great example here is that low end Sennheiser are being recommended when even their thousand dollar flagships don't have as good of sound quality as $50 reference cans. What sells the HD800s vs those $50 dollar-better-sound-headphones is their unique frequency response along with other features such as build quality and being able to retain their composure when pushed to 11.
I disagree. There's a big difference between a quality ~$100 headset and a $15 cheapo from staples, but anyone frequenting an audiophile forum is going to say that both of them suck and to buy a $500 pair of headphones that recreate perfect waveforms without blah blah blah. Unique frequency response and retaining their composure when pushed to 11 dont matter at all for the OP, he just needs a mic that doesnt sound like he's talking through a static filled wind tunnel and cans that fit comfortably on his head with a little better padding/design than a cheap piece of plastic with half a pennies worth of foam over it.
It's too much, it's like going to Corvette club asking people for advice on which fuel efficient compact you should buy to get you back and forth to work. They're gonna tell you to buy a Corvette.
Pretty much any $50-100 headset from logitech, razer, etc is going to be exactly what he's looking for. Just gotta find the one that sits comfortably on the shape of his head.