After a good 10 hrs of poking around Z Reviews and DMS on YouTube I still can’t find the answer…
I would appreciate your recommendations as I have $300 to spend and am looking for headphones that:
Note: I do not already own a DAC/AMP and prefer wired headphones
its pretty easy to just adjust your mic sensitivity and get it to not pick up open backs. the windows mic “volume” is totally just mislabeled and is a basically a sensitivity slider. past that theres options in streamlabs that are a lot better and i think it was harris heller that did a video on how to basically set up noise cancellation so that the mic doesn’t hear what the headphones are playing by playing the reverse to cancel them out.
I am currently using NVIDA Broadcast with my Elgato Wave 3 mic and I haven’t had sound-bleed problems more than once or twice, though as I’m looking to upgrade to ‘open-back’ to hear myself speak more naturally while streaming, I’m concerned about soundbleed. I’ll look for that Harris Heller video. Any recommendations on a model of headphones for gaming/streaming? Maybe something that acts like a PC38X without the mic? something else? Thanks
without an amp, and at the $300 range, the options are fairly limited in terms of being on the super competitive side. I’d say if you can stretch the budget ever so slightly, and have a bit of trust in someone that’s gone through a lot of headphones for gaming, I’d say Hifiman HE400se, with brainwavz XL gaming micro suede pads (pads make these headphones), and a schiit fulla as a dac/amp and you could be in a pretty nice spot for about ~$300 and if you can find a deal on a used pair (as long as it comes with a better cable or the updated newer cable) and maybe even a schiit fulla (or schiit hel, which is the bigger brother of the fulla) used you can squeeze >grills< into the budget and they become an absolute monster for comp gaming.
I heavily recommend the he400se for that purpouse, its as open as it gets in this price range. Dont get this if you dont also get a powerful headphone amp. Beyerdynamic dt990 is the alternative.
Its definitely not going to bleed unless you are using a condeser microphone, and if it does you can filter out the bleeding with software like voicemeeter banana.
Speaking of voicemeeter banana, you can monitor your voice with that software (its donationware you can use it for free) even with closed backs.
I’m going to 3rd the hifiman in this case. Hifiman unlike beyers are very open sounding and I can definitely hear myself more using them than a beyer or sennheiser. 400se is also rather low power so he possibly wont need an amp depending on source. I will say you’ll more than likely need some sensitivity adjustments on the mic since they leak quite a bit but its definitely manageable…
Bass will suck without power, straight of a dac is ok for competitive but not for music IMO
Anyway the OP can upgrade its source later if he lacks funds now
My Wave 3 is a condenser mic and its only about 8-10-in. from me, so using my closed pair of headphones, even while using NVIDIA Broadcast I still get rare soundbleed. I may be speaking blasphamy here, but I am willing to consider less rich or bassy sound-quality than the he300se if it means I can hear myself and won’t have to worry as much about running my mic through another program/filter before it gets to my mixer. If you run across any alternatives, do let me know, as I appreciate all the input I can get before dropping money on this. Thanks!
In this case I dont believe we can help you more than we have, youll have to buy them and hear for yourself, I still think the he400se is your best bet.
If you wanna try something else audio technicas of the a700x, a900x, a1000x are as open sounding.
Buy somewhere you can return the product in case you dont like it.
It all really comes down to adjusting mic sensitivity, which is super easy. Up the gain if your mic gets too quiet and you’re good.
going to agree with the others here… regardless of your headphones if your using a closed back now and getting sound bleed, its on your settings side… not the headphones you need to tinker with it and maybe move the mic as well find a good spot for things. Open back will increase the odds of the headphones going through the mic especially in a hifiman where the sound bleed is louder.
bass on them sucks imo to begin with and not a strong point for the brand of headphone. Though the 400se barely needs power to begin with and was designed not to need a lot… runs fine off my motherboard, then again I have a higher grade chip and I don’t hear bass degradation from it only a bit lacking in sound quality compared to the dedicated amp and dacs
Not my experience, out of cellphone and fiio btr5 dynamics (bass punch specifically) were very lacking, but when connecting to a desktop amp, or even a zen dac HP out they got much better.
As always sound perception may vary, lets peacefully disagree.
eh, I can’t really speak on cellphone as I don’t have one of those with a high grade sound chip… my phone can’t even run a 58x jubilee. Don’t really have a btr5 but I know they aren’t particularly the best at bass tonality.
I do agree they get better with the amp and dac setup, though thats a general consensus with headphones it seems.
but nonetheless since we hear things differently agreed, we can just leave it at that… its still a very solid headphone