So i have my Sennheiser 363D for at least 5 years now, and they have been stepping up each time i play different games, specially now with Tarkov ( 7.1 user ) that positioning and sound clarity is so important.
But i’m reaching a point that i think i reached the peak of their awsome performance.
I’m looking for some opinions to upgrade, in the last 4 days i’ve been reading reviews, watching videos and so on…
I was focused on getting the HD 660S ( 429€ here ), but from what i’ve read they’re hard to drive and i really love having 7.1 at this point.
Do you guys have any opinions regarding what AMP/DAC i should run to fully enjoy the potential of the HD 660S ?
I’m a 70% gamer using the headsets, but the other 30% are used by listening to all type of music, from classic to bass.
lol, going to be honest I forgot this thing even existed. Quite an old but gold headset from Sennheiser and what became the game one, zero, and pc37 headsets.
I really can’t stress enough how 7.1 can mess up games like Tarkov. it really depends on the use case, but you stand to gain better from certain headphones without that software… plus 7.1 can be downloaded through Dolby Atmos, Hesuvi, and some other programs or even little cheap dongles. So you don’t really need that stuff built into the headphone/headset.
Like stated above, you shouldn’t have issues with just getting some nice software for your 7.1 if need be and doesn’t need built in. However, I would not recommend you use the Sennheiser HD 6-- series at all for games like Tarkov or larger competitive games of the sort due to just how narrow the Soundstage is and the imaging isn’t particularly fantastic either. You would be much better off with HD 58x Jubilee, HD 598, or HD 560S just depending on what your looking for plus these headphones are cheaper so you save a bit in the long run. You also have the new popular PC38X which is quite bad for music but it’s alright for games like Tarkov, mics… I want to say just decent though.
Depends on if your looking for a combo unit. Since your seriously wanting to keep 7.1 in your setup. You can always pick up a Soundblaster G6 or X3(look a bit into these two) as they have multiple gamer options of sorts. Otherwise just get some 7.1 software and pick up one of the entry units around $200 maximum like Liquid Spark + dacs like spark dac or topping d10, Schiit Stack, JDS Stack. Combo units such as the ifi zen dac work as well but aren’t the strongest, though they do save money.
Something to note is that Bass in Tarkov is going to be a big hinderance, look into Peace APO it’s a free equalizer and will let adjust your sound to whatever your doing once you get your amp/dac.
Humm the 38X i’ve seen the reviews and they do impress a bit on paper, but i was looking for something more since i’m doing a leap. So you guys thing that the 660S are “wasted” on games ? From those three the 58x,598 or 560S wich ones would you pick ?
Well the 7.1 in Tarkov for me as been giving me straight positioning, altought since i’m aware of the maps and everything ( 5000h+ in ) i can pinpoint them easly, been using the Dolby Atmos for free in the last 4 hours and haven’t noticed anything different ( Altough i’m using the 363D with the 7.1 atm ).
Regarding the G6X that you mentioned, i saw a couple of reviews from different people, at the tweaking and fine tunning of the DAC is what i’m afraid of to be honest.
Having a bit of both is impossible right ? An excellent gaming headset better that the 363D and a good music headphone ?
660S / HD58X Jubilee / HD 598 / HD560S or 38X . What would be you’r pick if you have the budget for all of them regarding the use i’m gonna have with them.
The more i see reviews from Z the more i get lost hahaha, pretty hard to choose at this point…
PS: Don’t know if it’s important but i’ve been searching some specs from my onboard sound from the Formula XI, the audio chip is a Realtek ALC1220, from the data sheet it can go up the 250ohms impendance. Don’t know if this is relevant or not.
Well it gives me more then right or left, it gives me a one clock sound, then a two a clock at least from my experience i think the 7.1 works, played it in 2.0 and 7.1 and it’s noticable the difference…
i meant that your brain does all the work for full (sphere surround) and sound only enters from left or right (ears). Not just that you hear left or right sound effects, like foot steps.
I fully know what the gimmick headset 7.1 does.
A good imaging headphone/iem/headset (pin point the where the sound comes (up, down, front, back, left, right and between) and well recorded surround sound is the only thing you need for surround sound and locating where the sound comes.
Like movies and games usually have nice surround effects.
Try https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3w4eq0 “virtual barber shop”. Use any headphone / headset or IEM and then you hear the surround effect. No need for gimmick 7.1 add-in.
Either 58x or 560s depending on the kind of signature you want honestly. They are a bit different. I wouldn’t say “wasted” they just aren’t good for competitive shooters due to such a narrow soundstage unless your playing like… cod or overwatch or something.
7.1 isn’t positioning. it creates an artificial sound environment like you would through a 7.1 speaker system and can massive screw things up to a big degree. Imaging is your placement and it depends on the headphone/headset in that regard.
it’s… I want to say decent for what it is. Not particularly bad but not the best. Good if you can find it around the $100 region. Otherwise there are better options.
Oh, no definitely not impossible. Depends on your sound preference. If it’s for competitive, 58x does well at both as neutrality wins in the jack of all trades sort of thing… at the same time the ever popular recommended headphone beyerdynamic DT 880 is good for pretty much any use case less you have some treble sensitivity… both respond well to equalization and beyers can be easily pad swapped to change their respective signature a bit further.
58x jubilee, cheaper, I know it better and own it personally(one of my first Sennheisers and still haven’t budged away from it), can be balanced which is nice, responds well to tube amps as well as equalization much like it’s higher alternatives. 560s is nice too but its brand new, a bit more expensive, and everything about it is still more average… for a gamer I don’t see the necessity to goin the 560s when you can just grab the 58x at that point and be just fine. 38x sucks at mic quality and musicality so I will immediately rule that out and normally I would say the 6-- series is better for musicality but for gaming in competitive large scale… it loses by a good amount to the others
not that strong, and I wouldn’t recommend trying to use onboard audios as you will lose a lot of sound quality in about… I want to say 95% of use cases. Only the much higher grade motherboards that have the built in amps have less issues but they are a bit more costly and a lot of gamers don’t even have them.
Humm been searching in the stores that i have here in portugal, and none of them have the 58x… Getting things throw costums is a pain in the ass here…
Don’t be mean this is a high grade board …
I’m looking at various reviews from all of them, but now i’m gonna be focusing on the 58X so that i can make up my mind… Been at this for a couple of days now and it’s been hard as hell making a choice, i love quality so that’s why i wouldn’t mind spending money on the 660S.
The only game that i play that as “some” competitive line is Tarkov, altough i’m afraid that with Cyberpunk the 660S would be better ? I’m just trying to roll back to the 660S couse i’ve never heard so many people saying how my god this is god tier headset…
What do you think about the 600 new version 2019 ?
That’s what i have available from to grab like right now hahah…
it’s a massdrop item, since your from portugal this could be complicated to get your hands on. Go towards the 598 or 560s in that case… 598 was discontinued but you can find it here and there should only be around $100(thats in usd not sure on your conversion rates)
If it wasn’t for large scale shooter gaming I would say go ahead and grab it as it’s quite nice. Just not suitable for Tarkov and others unfortunately… Sennheiser just don’t generally have that particular large soundstage.
I would say for social gaming? It’s more… subjective still, it’s is quite nice indeed for that kind of gaming and definitely much more intimate as there isn’t much space to the sound around your head. In Tarkov however, as you know the further out you can hear and pinpoint the better your going to play by a very large degree. Sound in that game is pretty much everything.
In general the 600 series are fantastic… just again, not for large scale gaming.
The Sennheiser lineup has a bit of a trend for soundstage between the two series. 500 series has the better soundstage but not as high quality sound imo meanwhile 600 sounds better by a good degree by lacks in the soundstage. Still even though 500 series has better soundstage it’s relatively average in size for an open back.
hmm, I don’t see any of them on there other than the 600 series… rather unfortunate. Well, it won’t particularly hurt you to go the 600 series it sounds great… just as long as you don’t have higher expectations in gaming with Tarkov so to speak. However, consider an amp for those
Yeah i’m at a big lost here at this point… having 20 tabs open in youtube hearing to so much different opinions from the mine top four reviewers… This is the hardest choice that i’ve been across for several years, couse when i bought the 363D i was like, i can hear everything this is amazing.
And now wanting/needing a better one and making a good choice it’s hard as hell, all of you have been awsome regarding my lack of knowledge of the sound/headset part…
But i still don’t know wich one to choose, couse i do have high hopes to get a headset and be even more amazed since sennheiser as grabbed me since i bought this…
That’s the hard part about this, you will get conflicting points of view and opinions no matter where you look in this hobby. However, definitely be careful of those over hyping up products or shilling. We all have our own preferences in sound, for example my preference is towards bright or V shaped headphones so I am not the biggest fan of Sennheiser, therefore you won’t see me heavily talk up the brand.
I mean, there is a select few gaming headsets that are deemed worthy of purchase for a gamer. around 95% of the headsets are trash or cut so many corners it’s not worth the price tag. Once you hit above … I want to say around $150 USD and up your better off going to an actual headphone setup.
This is a big step forward and the start of a journey so to speak, we can’t necessarily pick the headphone out for you as we don’t know your tastes in sound in particular, we can only recommend options to you and try our best to explain it. If at all possible find a way to try out different sound signatures. It’s a good idea to try and narrow down what your preference is. preferences in build quality, sound signature, sound stage, detail retrieval, comfort / pad style, budget, etc all are quite different and vary drastically. You also have headphones that can be driven ampless just fine.
Depends on what you go with. Sennheiser generally keeps their sound signature around the same area of neutrality with smaller changes, outside of being cleaner or more detailed of sorts and in other cases a bit more impactful and bassier. They are just known for great neutral or “reference” grade headphones and are really fantastic for those who love vocals in music. Beyerdynamic and Hifiman are for those who like the higher sounds of the music such as cymbal crashes, orchestra, classical, etc at the same time they are some of the better choices for your competitive gaming due to the brighter signature. Other brands fit other areas quite nicely. Just all depends on what your looking for in particular. If at all possible, if theres a return policy, I don’t see the harm of auditioning one of the Sennheiser 6-- series see what you think, if you feel it’s worth to you.
Thanks a lot Falenkor for all the insight, yeah this feels like going down the rabbit hole at this point.
Been seeing a bit more of reviews, probably gonna try to test out the HD660S if they have the return policy to see if they suit me or not, if not back to square one…
Regarding DAC’s i’ve been reading a bit more about the Schiit Hel from a lot of reviewers and it has caught my eye, anything insight about it ?
I think if i can have twice the capacity of the sharpness,clarity and positioning of the 363D i’ll be jumping, if it’s even more well i think it’s just the start of another “hobby”.
And i’ll be testing the Dolby Atmos for headphones, since i have 35h free to see how they differentiate from the 7.1 surround “hardware” from the 363D. ( also been reading some thoughts about it here and there ).
Yeah, it’s not by any means a bad unit and will definitely have plenty of power behind it to power anything you really want to throw at it. However, at it’s price point you can get a dedicated amp and dedicated dac that would provide better sound quality in my opinion.
Sharpness and Clarity would be a no brainer going to the actual headphone line from Sennheiser and should definitely be a noticeable upgrade. However, as for positioning while the 660s is no slouch it’s not the “best” and I wouldn’t say laser accurate… but it is very acceptable.
It would be worth trying out the dolby on it to kind of make up for that lacking soundstage though I don’t know how well it will perform for you. You will have to be the judge of that one. Give it a whirl it can’t hurt. If you find things can be better or your preference is towards a certain other style of sound, well you took a step forward and now know a bit more about what you are looking for.
Humm then what combo of amp/dac dedicated would you recommend on the 190$ range ? Or even better to fully use them.
Yeah i’m kinda curious of trying to test them in the “regular” position tests that youtube has, 8D audio and so one with the Dolby Atmos.
Monoprice liquid spark stack, JDS atom stack, Schiit magni Stack, maybe topping a30 stack. Combo units, ifi zen dac, soundblaster g6 or x3, schiit hel, schiit fulla if it’s a weaker demanding unit
always make sure to shop around.
Youtube is definitely not a good testing ground due to their lack of higher quality frequency capabilities if you plan to test musicality or something. You need hi-res / lossless music files.
The ifi zen stack harmonizes wonderfully with my Sennheiser headphones, but also with the DT series from Beyerdynamic, especially with the DT 880 600Ohm, as it has enough power at gain level + 18dB to drive them very energetically, plus there is both X-Bass and 3D has the same positive effect on the 880 as on the HD660S.
But my HifiMan’s also benefit from the overall slightly colored sound of the Burr Brown DSD DXD-D / A converter.
And the Zen CAN drives the drivers with a lot of pressure, so that a crisp sound is created that is difficult to escape.
For a large part of my headphone collection, the Zen DAC / AMP combo meets my taste exactly.
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