Last year I ordered (and returned) over 12 of the "top" gaming headsets. All of them sound like garbage compared to traditional headphones priced much lower.
Do yourself a favor. But a pair of good $100 real headphones and slap on an Antlion removable mic.
The sound quality is eons better. "Gaming headsets" are about the convenience of wireless - and you are paying a steep price for it.
RochambeauxThese are the HD598 headphones with a mic attached and cheaper. I got this pair on the previous drop and they are identical in quality and clarity to the HD598's. I guess you can say that Sennheiser made these "Gaming" by adding a mic to them and making them all black. FYI, I do own both of them, HD598 for work and PC37X for the home battle-station.
RochambeauxYou are absolutely correct. I use Beyerdynamic dt990 600ohms and the modmic 4 and paired it with Creative Sound Blaster ZxR since it is a 600ohms headset but any kind of sound card will make a decent headset sound that much better.
RochambeauxA. These are pretty high quality drivers, pretty close to the 598's, as Drummer said.
B. The PC37X are not wireless, but it will have less wires than a modmic + headphone combo.
C. By "Top" gaming headsets, I assume you mean most popular. The most popular gaming headseats are mostly under $100 and definitely not the greatest sounding.
Also, I like having the ability to simply flip up the mic arm to mute it. Can't do that with an antlion mic.
I own the Game Zero's from Sennheiser, and they are just as good as any other headphones that I have used.
RochambeauxI agree when it concerns 90% of the gaming headsets out there but in this case, the other 10% you are wrong, dead wrong. Btw the HyperX Clouds are another pair that you'd wrong about to if you made the same suggestion.
ZatarotHere's a partial list of gaming headsets I actually tried: Some of these were far more expensive than my ultimate solution.
Logitech G430
Corsair Gaming VOID USB
Turtle Beach - Ear Force Stealth 450
Turtle Beach - Ear Force Elite 800
SteelSeries Siberia 800
ASTRO Gaming A50
Logitech G933 Artemis Spectrum
Mad Catz TRITTON Katana
Sennheiser GAME ZERO PC
Kingston HyperX Cloud Gaming Headset
Kingston HyperX Cloud II Beyerdynamic MMX300 PC Gaming
Creative Sound BlasterX H5 Professional
ASUS STRIX 7.1
I ended up using the Beyerdynamic DT 990 Premium 32 OHM with an Antlion mic.
The DT 990's were far more comfortable than any of the gaming sets and sound quality was leagues above.
DrummerXephI really don't think these are the same as the HD598 headphones. The 598's have a much more open-ear design with the mesh hard plastic so you get a very natural sound. Also for slightly more you can get a pair of HD598 and a Antlion modmic and the microphone will be much higher quality than the one attached here.
OleDaneBoyI don't think they are either, as my HD 518' s sound way better than these. Don't get me wrong, they do sound good but I think they are very far off from 598's.
RochambeauxOther than three: Sennheiser GAME ZERO PC, Kingston HyperX Cloud Gaming Headset, and Beyerdynamic MMX300 PC Gaming all the others were pretty much expected. Now wondering what you found wrong with them and what you settled with.
ZatarotI ended up using the Beyerdynamic DT 990 Premium 32 OHM with an Antlion mic.
The DT 990's were far more comfortable than any of the gaming sets and sound quality was leagues above.
RochambeauxThat I find especially odd since the MMX300 is just a closed version of the DT990 with a mic, so you pretty much ended up with more or less the same thing, with the other two not far off since they are also just variants with a mic.
ZatarotMMX300 is really a DT770, I'm not sure if it's because it's closed, but the DT990s have a V-shape sound than the bass-heavy 770s, and the soundstage on the DT990s is incredible.
Do yourself a favor. But a pair of good $100 real headphones and slap on an Antlion removable mic.
The sound quality is eons better. "Gaming headsets" are about the convenience of wireless - and you are paying a steep price for it.