Newbie needs help not buying trash again

Headphones Headphone Discussion / Help
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Hello people, i just found this forum through watching some guy ramble for 50 minutes abouts gaming headphones here, very interesting but anyways:

i have this Denon PMA-480R and i’m putting together a new pc setup and i wanna use it, but i’m having some questions and i am having trouble finding answers so here goes:

Can this amp substitute a dac/amp thing, one like everyone praises?

if so how do connect this to the pc, how do i handle microphone input when needed?

i do have speakers, but assume they are vibrating tincans and i dont plan on upgrading them cause thats expensive :slight_smile: thats something to do at a later date. i also wanna use my xbox with this, but xbox only supports mics through their controllers or an proprietery mixer made by astro, so i wouldnt be able to talk to my friends when using the amp for the headphones, this is actually the only problem where i dont even have an idea how to solve without buying that mixer or cableing up the controller again. one could just always talk through the xbox desktop app, but that lacks even basic microphone settings like push to talk.

now i just ordered this CoolerMaster MH752 Headset for 66€ before finding this forum, now i think i’m regretting that, what could i do better with a seperate mic / headphones? i had looked at these AKG K240 for a similar price than that cooler master headset, but the whole situation with mic in on xbox is horrible, also i think these dont have a standard 3.5mm input cable something like the v-moda

so this is what i researched up to now and i am honestly overwhelmed, i just dont want a shitty gaming headset again when i use it all day every day and i have that amp just sitting there basically collecting dust. also i really wanna stay under 100€ if thats even a possibility, but its not a hard limit here.

i hope this is the right category, even though theres a amp involed, but its still about headphones i think?

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So if you want to stay under 100, I think you already made a good choice with the mh751. Going higher than that you would end up spending about 200-250 USD or more imo.

If you got the mh752, it already comes with a dac and amp dongle that works just fine for your use case, so no worries there. Another challenge is getting something that works on Xbox as you mentioned, so if you did get a fancy mic setup you would need to use your PC as you say

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Can this amp substitute a dac/amp thing, one like everyone praises?

Not quite; that appears to be just an amp–it only has analog inputs, so it will not do the digital-to-analog conversion. You would still need a DAC, or would need to connect an audio line out from your PC to the amp, which would not reap the benefits of a DAC/Amp.

FWIW, at a budget close to 100€ I expect it may be a losing battle to put together a whole chain of DAC/Amp + headphones that is resolving enough to bother with a DAC/Amp. For that kind of setup, I personally would aim for something like an Aune X1S (~$200) and a Massdrop x AKG 7xx (~$200), and then you’d still need a mic. A modmic would work. But that’s about a $500 setup (I imagine similar in €, though I’m not taking into account terrible shipping costs from Massdrop → EU).

I am pretty sure Zeos had some cheaper chains in either the video you linked or another one, but the above is gear I own and am familiar with, and it’s a quantum leap from typical gaming headsets.

i also wanna use my xbox with this…

Chat for XBox is kind of a pain in the butt, but the CoolerMaster specs say they include a “3.5mm 4-pole jack.” You should be able to plug that directly into your controller, and it should work fine. I have used a < $100 Steelseries PC headset that way, and it’s perfectly acceptable. It’s not a next-level experience, but it’s functional.

If you were to build something like the Aune stack that I mentioned above, the best chain for audio would be to connect the console’s optical audio out directly to the Aune and connect the headphone/headset to that for game sound. You would still need to figure out the mic situation for chat, though, and for that there are a couple routes that would work:

One would be to connect the headset mic to the controller for mic only. You might need some splitter/adapter cables to make it work. Cable management would be a problem, and the whole thing would look pretty gnarly, but it would work.

A second option would be to use the PC for XBox chat (via the XBox app). If it works in your space you could use a desktop mic with a setup like that and then at least it would be a pretty clean setup.

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Actually for a full on gaming setup with a standalone mic, I would say a focusrite scareltt solo + a jds labs atom, with a shure sm48lc and for a headset the dt880 600 ohm would be my kinda budget but great setup. That would be about 400 usd, but would be pretty killer imo.

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I believe some USB mic work on the Xbox. Google search to make sure, but I believe some of the blue microphones do

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I’m not familiar with the Focusrite, but the Atom is well-regarded. I peeked at the back of the Focusrite, though, and it looks like USB only? If that’s the case then it won’t work with XBox. Sounds like a sweet setup for PC, though.

I use multiple inputs on my X1S to switch between my personal laptop (USB) for music, my work laptop (HDMI → monitor → 3.5 line out → RCA) for conference calls, and consoles (Optical), which I have mounted under my desk. :slight_smile:

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Yeah it’s a usb audio interface with a pretty good dac, so you can have a nice flexible xlr mic setup, but no xbox as you say (but there ain’t many things that work natively with xbox)

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I can try that out tonight and report back. :slight_smile: I have a Yeti and multiple consoles.

I don’t think support for USB peripherals is very good on XBox. They just recently added some level of keyboard and mouse support, but I dunno that I’d trust it (I haven’t tried it yet). I used to use a fullsize logitech wireless keyboard for text messages on 360 and that worked great, but it never worked on the One. Now that there are apps everywhere, I use a tablet or my PC for text.

Last time I looked up mic support on XBox I came up with recommendations to use an Amazon Echo Dot. That might work with some setups, but not for me. Plus I’d want just a mic, not a spybot, lol.

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Found this video while looking for info on the Xbox USB ports

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thanks for the help guys, i’m gonna stick with what i have and save up some more and hope these cooler master last longer than a year :slight_smile:

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Stuff can last for ages. Treat them well, don’t have them on the floor, give them a cleaning once in a while.
There are two things that last forever:

  1. Cheapest shitty trash you want to replace when it breaks
  2. Super expensive gear
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