I currently have a pair of Arctis 7X’s which I’m not getting on with too much. I’m finding them a bit too loose around the head for the most part. I also have a pair of WH1000XM4’s that I use for listening to music while I work.
I’m wondering if I can sell both of those and get a set of headphones that I can use plugged into my Dualsense and Series X controllers that will be driven well enough, and what can be used plugged into my iPad Pro 10.5.
My consoles are across the room so I don’t want a DAC. I have two young kids so running a cable across the room isn’t really feasible, so that rules out quite a few headphones which require amping I guess.
the headphones must be good enough to be driven solely by the controllers but still have good sound. And also driven well by the iPad. I don’t need the portability or noise cancelling of the Sony’s as I don’t travel so it’s all wasted really.
So now I’m after that one pair of headphones that i can use for all situations. I prefer a darker sound, high treble does tend to hurt my ears a little, but I would like a bit of soundstage. No competitive gaming at all, it’s all just single player gaming. Music genres are mostly hip-hop, R&B and rock.
From reading about here and various other forums, the Tygr 300R’s sound like they’d be my best option but they don’t seem to easy to pick up from the UK. They’re out of stock at the Beyerdynamic store and Amazon only has them bundled with a microphone for £300.
Are there any other headphones that you can recommend instead?
Edit: Just noticed on the Beyerdynamic website that they’re not shipping to the UK nowadays so it does look like the Tygr is out of the equation unfortunately.
If you’re okay with open headphones (little isolation) for use at home, just buy used Sennheiser HD-558 for 40$ lol… very efficient, super comfy, cheap, good soundstage, warm, okay for gaming, can change earpads, cable can be changed, ability to mod them (foam mod), did i mention these are comfy af & don’t get hot on your ears? Sounds very good even on my motherboard realtek chip from 2014. You really don’t need to spend alot of money to get something decent, buy music instead.
Btw. high treble hurts my ears aswell and I’m very happy with those.
The bass bleeds slightly, not sure where to get them for $40 as here I only see them for $100 and over, agreed on efficient, debatable on comfy the pads are on the thinner side despite being able to be replaced and headclamp out of the box is typical skull crushing as per norm of sennheiser, soundstage is relatively average of an open back, good for casual gaming.
A lot of people I have seen buy these and just not like them… steel series is quite popular amongst the gaming crowd and I will give credit to the game dac arctis pro for being decent… but they are quite uncomfortable and honestly… compared to most of the headphones I have tried? They completely suck.
tygrs unfortunately lack power and amplification connected through the controllers despite low ohms…
this is honestly going to be a bit of a tough one, the consoles themselves without an amp barily power anything especially in the case of ps4 as they can barily push maybe 20 ohms of impedance. The 58x jubilee doesn’t even properly run on the ps4 and that runs on my phone. Since you appreciate a dark signature… at your budget things are quite limited. The Sennheisers do come to mind as they are usually quite efficient as schmu has mentioned here… so something like an HD 500 series may work for you depending on the signature your looking for 558 and 599 for bassy and 598 for a more balanced approach however, these are not dark signatured. The only one that comes to mind that -might- work is the nighthawk Carbons as they are designed for low output devices… this is a dark bassy headphone that was discontinued yet is quite fantastic for what it is… you have to search a bit for them on the used markets but they do tend to go between like 300 - 400 in the price margin. Try to make sure it’s the Carbon though and not the original so you get both pads
Outside of that, I am drawing a blank on what could feasibly be ran through the controllers… you’d be stuck with the gaming headsets still which is alright i suppose but they don’t offer the greatest of sound quality lol
IEM? I got my buddy a pair of shp9500s because he couldn’t find any gaming headphones he liked and though he loves them, the xbox controller has a hard time powering the 32(?) Ohm impedance and they don’t get very loud. Options are fairly limited for gaming headsets that sound good without processing AND can be powered by a controller. If you buy a portable amp to set next to you and don’t forget to charge it the world opens up quite a bit.
Im remembering sennheiser game one/pc37x/pc38x all get really loud through a controller. I wouldn’t call it audiophile grade for music but they’re head and shoulders better than most headsets out there for most gaming and can be had for pretty cheap. They all feel pretty cheap but are surprisingly tough.