Outside of like, the actual hardware that plays the games (like transitioning from PS3 to PS4) my recent change in audio setup has been the most noticable change in my hardware that I've used to play games, in the past 10 or so years.
I tend to spend a lot of money on gaming tech. In terms of headphones, over the course of this generation I've bought or borrowed the following:
Hyper X Cloud IIs (probably my favourite wired closed back of the gaming headphones)
Steel Series Arctis Pro with Game Dac
Steel Series Arctis Pro Wireless
Penrose X (more expensive than, and worse than Arctis Pro)
Astro A40 with mixamp
Astro A50 with wireless base station (my favourite of this lot, though by a fairly small margin)
Playstation Gold / Platinum and Pulse (these are the worst by a mile)
Of these I generally prefer the Arctis Pros or A50s, but after some time I felt like they were missing something. While these headphones offer on the whole, adequate sound reproduction, what they all do really poorly is their soundstage, they all sound narrow, as if the sound is all squashed together and because of this I find that you miss a lot of detail. Everything sounds muddy, blurred together.
So, I fancied trying something new. Posted on here about how I felt about my headphones and a user recommended the Philips Fidelio X2HRs. I looked into some reviews and they looked great, so I picked up a pair for £150.
Also note that I know that this setup isn't unique or unheard of, but I think a lot of folks aren't aware of the difference you can get from a good pair of non-gaming headphones, so I wanted post about my experience.
These are the Philips Fidelo X2HRs, recommended by ERA user
dralla. These were £140 on amazon.
These headphones don't have a mic, so I'm pairing them with the v-moda boom pro. £30 on amazon.
and they're driven by the Astro Mixamp to provide split control of game and chat audio, as well as simulated 7.1 surround sound. I got this ages ago with the Astro A40s, but it's £140 on amazon now. There might be better DACs for PS4, but I couldn't find any others that split the chat audio, and the EPOS gaming DACs aren't fully featured on the PS4, so the Astro still seemed like a strong option. These won't do justice to headphones that require higher impedence (like the beyerdynamic 80 or 150 ohm), but the impedence on the X2HRs is actually 30, so this is a perfect fit.
With this setup, I immediately noticed a whole host of improvements that I wasn't getting out any of the existing gaming brands. This is despite all of those headsets having pretty good reviews.
- The soundstage is so, so much better. It more closely resembles the audio experience that you would get from being present in the game-world, with the sound emerging from the sources around you. In the other headphones, it really just feels like all the sound is just playing in your ears. It feels artificial by comparison.
- The mic quality is considerably better. At first I was concerned that because these are an open back pair of headphones, the audio would leak into the mic, but I was able to tune the sensitivity of the PS4 mic (in the PS4 settings) so that this isn't happening. My friends say the sound is better, more personal, closer to my real voice.
- I think that one of the issues with non-gaming headphones is that they often lack bass, favouring a more neutral sound. But this isn't true with the X2HRs, the base reproduction on par with any of the gaming headphones, but at the same time this is paired with clear treble and mids, giving you all the detail without missing out on the punch that gaming scenarios often provide through explosions and whatnot.
- The audio clarity and separation is much improved. Individually everything sounds clearer and more pronounced, and because of the sound stage it doesn't feel like everything is overlapping. I can pick out footsteps happening alongside an explosion, even when they're co-orring in the same direction. On Wipeout 2048 I could hear the engines of the ships flying along side me, and I was genuinly picking up sounds that I'd never heard before in the game.
I'm going back to loads of my older games and replaying parts of them to see all the detail I was missing before. It's a really lovely experience.
I had my girlfriend listen to a few games and compare the Fidelio's with some of the gaming brands, and her shorthand assessment was 'they just sound worse in comparison, like all around worse'. She's not an audiophile (and neither am I) so she doesn't have the vocabulary to describe the difference but her general sentiment was that she preferred the X2s by a mile. For me the difference is more noticable than any recent upgrade with my equipment that I've experienced.
The only downside to this setup is that because they are open back, they leak audio into the room. So if you share a space with someone then they're going to hear what you're playing (at a reduced volume, but still they'll hear it). When I'm playing sound at 100db my girlfriend probably hears it at around 20 db when she sits 6 feet away on the sofa. This is the same experience that you get out of something like the Astro A40s/A50s, but much louder than closed cans like the X Cloud II's or Arctis Pro's. That aside though, I don't think there's any reason I'd ever go back, everything is just miles better.
Just thought I'd make a thread about this since I see a lot of folks considering audio setup upgrades with next gen and whatnot, but truthfully, you can get a much better audio experience if you steer clear of the typical gaming brands. Of course, devices like the Pulse Wireless are quite cheap and wireless, which comes with its benefits too.
www.astrogaming.com
