Alright I want to give my thoughts in regard to competitive gaming on 4 Dekoni pads that I bought for my Beyerdynamic DT 177X Go. Currently I own the Velour, Fenestrated Sheepskin, Suede, and normal Sheepskin. I’m interested in getting the Hybrids but looking at the DT 1990 fr curves on the Dekoni website, it seems they lean more on the “fun” side.
Okay so on to the “review”. I tested these pads using Overwatch’s replay system. This is great because you can hear the exact same set of sounds over and over again using in-game audio. I also reviewed these four pads in 2 waves. The first wave was to determine if they were good for competitive and the second wave was to determine the best of the best.
For the first wave, I spent a couple hours swapping between the 4. Luckily for me, it was pretty easy. The Velour and Fenestrated were definitely “footstep” pads and the Suedes and normal Sheepskin pads were more casual/fun pads, respectively.
For the next wave, I spent a few hours swapping back and forth between the Velours and Fenestrated Sheepskin.
Firstly, the Velours have the leanest bass. In short, they provide the best, “undistracted by bass” footsteps between the two pads. Another advantage is the DT 177X gain better imaging from these pads (but not by much). Wait so are these the best pads for competitive? Review over? Well no. Although the Velours do provide these advantages, they come at a cost. Clarity and sound separation is lost to the overly bright highs. In best, I could describe them as “muddy highs” because as soon as the teamfight starts and bullets are flying and explosions are going off, you can’t tell what from what. All the advantages previously gained are lost. Technically yes, in a 1v1 situation, before the “real fight”, when everything is quiet, you could technically hear approaching footsteps slightly sooner, but when the teamfight starts that’s where the advantages stop.
The Fenestrated Sheepskins don’t have this problem. They fix the muddiness by smoothing out the highs and separating the sounds out a bit. But aren’t they worse for competitive? Footsteps and imaging is king. Well, not all the time. See the Fenestrated still make the “footsteps category”, they still have the analytical highs of the T1 drivers. They just provide clarity and calm in a shitstorm that the Velours can never provide and actually do the exact opposite of.
So which do I prefer? Well tldr, the Velours may be better in very handpicked situations, but the Fenestrated Sheepskins are better almost always. So I go with the fenestrated.