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gorillagarrett
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A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 1:28 pm

Hi there guys,

So basically i need a good headset 4 BF3.The one im currently using just doesn't cut it.I would like to hear some recommendations.And please, post why each headset is better in ur opinion.

I don't have a dedicated sound card and i don't wanna buy one.
 
tanker27
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 2:08 pm

All those 5.1 and 7.1 headphones are nothing but gimmicks. Buy a good set of cans and you'll be more than happy. My suggestion 1: Sennheiser HD-280 Pro which is a closed system or 2: Grado SR80i which is an open system.
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 2:40 pm

tanker27 wrote:
All those 5.1 and 7.1 headphones are nothing but gimmicks. Buy a good set of cans and you'll be more than happy. My suggestion 1: Sennheiser HD-280 Pro which is a closed system or 2: Grado SR80i which is an open system.


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ChronoReverse
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 2:46 pm

I like my Corsair HS1. It's just a closed stereo headset (with the mic) but it's comfortable.

If you're the type the fake surround using HRTF works for, then there's a 7.1 function too (I respond well so it positions for me). But the primary attraction is comfort, the noise canceling mic and USB connector.

http://www.corsair.com/pc-computer-audio/gaming-headsets/gaming-audio-series-hs1-usb-gaming-headset.html
 
gorillagarrett
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:25 pm

ChronoReverse wrote:
I like my Corsair HS1. It's just a closed stereo headset (with the mic) but it's comfortable.

If you're the type the fake surround using HRTF works for, then there's a 7.1 function too (I respond well so it positions for me). But the primary attraction is comfort, the noise canceling mic and USB connector.

http://www.corsair.com/pc-computer-audio/gaming-headsets/gaming-audio-series-hs1-usb-gaming-headset.html



I've never tried 7.1 surround.Been using cheap Stereo headsets.. But if virtual 7.1 works fine and the directional sound is right along with good sound quality, then that's all i need to hear.

There are a couple headsets that kinda fit into what im trying to get here: The SteelSeries 7H and the Cosair 1500.

Any recommendations..
 
rogthewookiee
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:41 pm

I love my HD 280s, but i'm not sure that i'd recommend them for games. Unless you really really need closed headphones. The sound is incredible, but I just can't take wearing something that heavy and stifling for hours of gaming! They are great for when my house mates go to sleep and i'm stilling playing.
 
gorillagarrett
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:58 pm

rogthewookiee wrote:
I love my HD 280s, but i'm not sure that i'd recommend them for games. Unless you really really need closed headphones. The sound is incredible, but I just can't take wearing something that heavy and stifling for hours of gaming! They are great for when my house mates go to sleep and i'm stilling playing.


How's the directional sound quality and what's ur sound card?
 
l33t-g4m3r
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 4:53 pm

gorillagarrett wrote:
ChronoReverse wrote:
If you're the type the fake surround using HRTF works for, then there's a 7.1 function too (I respond well so it positions for me).
I've never tried 7.1 surround.Been using cheap Stereo headsets.. But if virtual 7.1 works fine and the directional sound is right along with good sound quality, then that's all i need to hear.

"Virtual 7.1" is a fraud, as is all 7.1 headsets. The purpose is to emulate a specific soundstage, but it is completely unnecessary. 3d stereo should sound like you are directly in the game's environment, not emulating the soundstage of 7.1 in a room that you are playing a game in. TLDR: Virtual 7.1 is basically breaking the 4th wall. I consider a physical 7.1 headset to be fake as well, because it works on the same principles of virtual 7.1, and therefore you don't get true stereo imaging. Then again, you need proper stereo support from the game and your soundcard for normal headphones to work right, and poor support is probably half the reason these "7.1" abominations have popped up.
 
gorillagarrett
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 5:48 pm

l33t-g4m3r wrote:
gorillagarrett wrote:
ChronoReverse wrote:
If you're the type the fake surround using HRTF works for, then there's a 7.1 function too (I respond well so it positions for me).
I've never tried 7.1 surround.Been using cheap Stereo headsets.. But if virtual 7.1 works fine and the directional sound is right along with good sound quality, then that's all i need to hear.

"Virtual 7.1" is a fraud, as is all 7.1 headsets. The purpose is to emulate a specific soundstage, but it is completely unnecessary. 3d stereo should sound like you are directly in the game's environment, not emulating the soundstage of 7.1 in a room that you are playing a game in. TLDR: Virtual 7.1 is basically breaking the 4th wall. I consider a physical 7.1 headset to be fake as well, because it works on the same principles of virtual 7.1, and therefore you don't get true stereo imaging. Then again, you need proper stereo support from the game and your soundcard for normal headphones to work right, and poor support is probably half the reason these "7.1" abominations have popped up.



Ok mate, I have the onboard Realtek chip, which doesn't do surround sound.I don't have a sound card.I need a cheap (sub $150) audio solution that can give good positional sound .

I have been told that the software based surround sound headsets, the ones with USB audio cards, can do a good job at providing good positional quality audio...

any suggestion..?
 
JustAnEngineer
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 8:56 pm

tanker27 wrote:
All those 5.1 and 7.1 headphones are nothing but gimmicks.
QFT.

Get a good set of stereo headphones and you'll be much better off.
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rogthewookiee
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:09 pm

How's the directional sound quality and what's ur sound card?


My sound card is a Creative X-Fi Titanium the PCI-E version. I think the positional sound is fine. I primarily play FPS's but i'm not an ultra serious gamer so maybe a more fanatical player wouldn't like them. I normally use my 5.1 setup, so that's what I have to compare them to. Now that i've graduated, i'm not doing much sound designing, but that is what I purchased them for originally.
 
ChronoReverse
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:17 pm

Fraud is way too strong of a word to describe it. HRTF is something that does work for some people and is in fact what Aureal 3D used back in the day before Creative bought them and killed them. And many would fall all over themselves to tell you how good A3D was.

On the other hand, the physical "7.1" headphones are worthless because the sound is still just piped into your ear. Software based HRTF just uses regular stereo headphones to do a semi-decent job at providing positional sound.
 
JustAnEngineer
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:26 pm

There is zero benefit to "7.1" headphones. You have two ears. The headphones are attached to your head so that their position relative to your ears does not change. Any positional audio effects should be properly calculated in your PC and sent to stereo headphones.

The SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium is a good sound card for gaming with headphones. The versions with the drive bay amplifier are even more accommodating.
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:47 pm

I have the steelseries 7h and they're really comfortable, have a retractable mic, and came with a USB sound card. I don't use the virtual 7.1 options though. And I received them as a gift, I'm not sure if I would have paid for them just for the "7.1" though. The only thing that I can compare them to is a 10 year old set of Sony headphones that were falling apart, so of course the 7h's are much better!
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 10:07 pm

I agree completely with the folks dismissing the "surround" headsets as a gimmick.

The way your brain hears the direction of a sound is by how your head and the outer parts of your ear (pinnae) absorb, transmit, and reflect sound coming from all around you at different frequencies, and the subtle phase shifts which occur due to sound taking shorter/longer paths to each ear depending on the direction it is coming from. Putting multiple drivers in the headset isn't going to simulate this properly, and may even interfere with the positional audio calculations being done in your PC.

A high quality stereo headset and software that does a decent job of implementing HRTF is going to be as good as it gets.
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gorillagarrett
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 10:36 pm

Skullzer wrote:
I have the steelseries 7h and they're really comfortable, have a retractable mic, and came with a USB sound card. I don't use the virtual 7.1 options though. And I received them as a gift, I'm not sure if I would have paid for them just for the "7.1" though. The only thing that I can compare them to is a 10 year old set of Sony headphones that were falling apart, so of course the 7h's are much better!



Can you try to use the Virtual 7.1 option in BF3 and tell me how well it works?
 
gorillagarrett
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sat Dec 03, 2011 10:44 pm

Skullzer wrote:
I have the steelseries 7h and they're really comfortable, have a retractable mic, and came with a USB sound card. I don't use the virtual 7.1 options though. And I received them as a gift, I'm not sure if I would have paid for them just for the "7.1" though. The only thing that I can compare them to is a 10 year old set of Sony headphones that were falling apart, so of course the 7h's are much better!


Btw, how's the built quality of the headset?
 
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sun Dec 04, 2011 9:41 am

Well, I have a 4.1 set of speakers for the positional audio, and then use a 7.1 virtual speaker shifter setup in the drivers over that 4.1 real world setup. My soundcard is Xonar Xense with the Sennheiser PC350, which is a decent headset, although I often prefer open phones. But when playing with friends I use the headset as not to distract everybody with piping the speaker sound into the mike and have it setup for using dolby headphone setup together with the 7.1 virtual speaker shifter. It actually does a very decent job for positional audio in BF3 with that setup. Although I havent tried the pure stereo mode in BF since it forces pure stereo and I tend to switch between phones and speakers.
 
l33t-g4m3r
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sun Dec 04, 2011 7:07 pm

*sigh* How's that kool-aid? Mmmm, cherry flavored 7.1.

No, let's not directly virtualize the position of a game's sound effects through the exact number of speakers you have, instead let's listen to a virtualized 7.1 setup that is virtualizing positional audio. Yeah, that sounds sooo much better. :roll: If you can't comprehend what people are saying about the pointlessness of virtual 7.1, then why not go buy yourself a 7.1 headset and save us the trouble. Learn the hard way, if even.
 
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sun Dec 04, 2011 8:04 pm

Hows the view from that high horse you are on ?

Pray do tell how you input the physical positions of your speakers to the games sound engine when they cant be placed in an optimal position and angles accourding to what the normal directions are coming from. Oh, you can modify that with the Xonar virtual speaker shifter, but not without. Could it be that something dispite of being a virtualized setup, actually manage to produce a better soundfield and better directionality from a quadrophonic speaker setup than without. Yes it actually can.

Or could it be that directionality has more variables than simple # of speakers to work with for it to work. If you are to be picky, distance+latency, height, frequency, toe-in and on-axis response, volume, frequency/volume masking just to mention a few of the things that pertains to the speakars themselves, then you have the whole room and bits about your own position in the room to think about. A 7.1 virtual setup is underequipped to say the least, but it does take directionality and distance of the virtual speakers to mind and let you modify them to suit your needs by dividing a virtual speaker to let sound come in different volume from two of the physical ones, thus giving you a shifted perception of the position. Something most gaming engines fail to do since they dont have any ability to position the speakers in relation to your listening position before applying their own directional processing.
 
rogthewookiee
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sun Dec 04, 2011 10:10 pm

It is funny how sound production brings out the strangest arguments.

The human ears do a great job of detecting lateral position, it is quite amazing how precise you can be really. You can deliver a sound that appears to come from any direction as long as you have at least two speakers. Anything beyond that is just icing on the cake. simulating extra channels where there are no physical channels works because it allows the not very smart game audio system to make those sounds available. One can do the exact same thing using stereo speakers.

Multi channel speaker setups are very fun and useful because they compensate for non-ideal listening environments. If you listened to all of your sounds in an acoustically neutral room with perfectly tuned stereo speakers you'd be fine. Like I said before the human brain is really good about lateral position. the multiple channels placed in the room in a surround configuration gives you more options to compensate for your listening environment. Which is an entire profession to set up!

I'm tempted to give a soliloquy about how awesome the engineering that goes into sound production is and the ability of the human brain to adapt and comprehend sound is, but i'll save that for later!
 
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Sun Dec 04, 2011 11:02 pm

Get this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829132020 (only downside is it's PCI which may be gone on the next generation of sub-ATX sized motherboards, shouldn't be a problem if you stay with full ATX motherboards)

and these: http://www.amazon.com/JVC-HARX700-High- ... B0013OWPV4 (shop around for better prices if you like, supply for these phones seem to have gotten a bit tight lately with prices going up)

You'll have a good soundcard which can drive headphones well and a good set of closed headphones which can be made 'great' with some simple modifications.
 
gorillagarrett
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Mon Dec 05, 2011 4:35 am

virtual surround sound is not a fraud. I had the opportunity today to try the Steelseries 7H headset- USB version in Battlefrield 3, configured in 7.1, and in all honesty, it sounded amazing.The Foot steps were 100% noticeable, and the over all sound itself was clean and crisp.I could tell where exactly is the sound coming from and what weapon is shooting.It almost felt like cheating..

Now im not n an audio expert, and i've never had a dedicated sound card, but i can confirm that virtual surround sound works.
 
WarBastard
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Mon Dec 05, 2011 4:42 am

I have been happy with the Logitech G35 7.1 headset I have. I do notice a difference when I switch from stereo to surround. Just my 2cents lads. :D
 
tanker27
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Mon Dec 05, 2011 7:36 am

I have been through countless headsets/ headphones in the past 10 years, too many to count really. I have bought everything from the Medusa's to 10 dollar off the shelf Koss; and I am here telling everyone that NOTHING sounds better than my Sennheiser's and Grado's. Spend the money if you want, its not like its mine anyways.

Discreet sound cards do make a difference, I run the Asus Xonar DX. I have stayed away from the Creative only for the fact that their dirvers have sucked in the past, but I hear (no pun intended) they have gotten better. Also I have heard from friends that some of the newer Realtek stuff sounds pretty good too.

And in case you need a mic for Vent or Mumble I highly suggest the Zalman ZM-MC1. They are so cheap and so good you can get 2 or three if need be.
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Re: A Good 7.1 Headset for Battfefield 3

Mon Dec 05, 2011 8:02 am

gorillagarrett wrote:
i can confirm that virtual surround sound works.
WarBastard wrote:
I do notice a difference when I switch from stereo to surround. Just my 2cents lads. :D


You're being fooled by marketing, as many of the engineers and physicists in this threat have already tried to explain. There will be some drivers or electronics in the headset that take the 7.1 input and use it to fake HRTF just like a good soundcard and stereo speakers. Switching between modes will of course give you a difference, because you're enabling and disabling something that alters the way the sound is recreated, but you're still only getting stereo.

Sound is not instantaneous, it has a travel time. The sound from something happening to your left moves in waves that take longer to reach your right ear than your left ear, and that delay is what your brain compares to tell you the sound is on the left. Now, here is a test that any five-year old can do:

1) cover up one ear really well.
2) snap your fingers in various places around your head.
3) now do the same without your covered ear.
4) cover up one ear again.

See how difficult it is to tell which direction sound is coming from with only one ear? There you go. It's like depth-perception with only one eye uncovered. Now, tell me how sound from the left side of your 7.1 headphones can reach your right ear any better than sound from the left side of normal stereo headphones can reach your right ear. We are ALL telling you that it's just not physically possible. You have been had.

That's not quite the whole story. The shape of your ears actually distorts sound waves slightly, this is how your brain helps to tell if a sound is coming from the front or the back of your head (an example where sound is directly in front or behind your head and the sound waves reach each ear at EXACTLY the same time). HRTF accommodates this, and 'muffles' sound that's supposed to come from behind you to fool the brain into thinking that the outer ear is interfering with the sound, and it must therefore be from behind.

THIS muffling is something that 7.1 headphones can do in practice, by transmitting sound from behind and letting your ear physically muffle the sound. HRTF does it too, but the brain knows exactly what muffling effect your ears have on sound, and HRTF is modifying the sound based on modelling done with a generic ear shape. Since people have different ear shapes, your mileage with HRTF may vary. There is every chance that you will find the sound coming from a 'back' speaker more convincing than the sound modified by HRTF to sound like it's coming from behind.

Let's get one thing straight though, 99% of your positional awareness is to do with your brain measuring the time difference between one ear and the other. You can tell, because the effect is almost identical with earbuds, which pipe the sound waves directly to your eardrum, bypassing the effect your outer ear shape has on the sound wave.....


IN SUMMARY

Good 7.1 headphones might be of a high quality, and thus produce beter sound than your old $5 bundled walkman headphones, but they absolutely cannot do their magic without some sort of faking, like HRTF. To say otherwise is to completely misunderstand the physics of sound waves, and the biology of the human hearing system.

If I had to spend $200 on a set of headphones, I'd want the highest quality drivers. You can bet that the 7 drivers needed for "7.1" won't be of the same standard as those used in a really good pair of stereo headphones.
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