Yet another headphone thread

Am I missing something? I got a free pair of bone conduction headphones from an awesome GWJer and I feel like I've got two speakers strapped to the sides of my face. I thought I was supposed to "feel" the sound not just hear it. Noise bleed is terrible too. It would be annoying to sit beside someone with these on.

Your bones aren't good at conducting higher frequencies, they only really get used for conveying bass. The rest is handled by highly directed miniature speakers.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Am I missing something? I got a free pair of bone conduction headphones from an awesome GWJer and I feel like I've got two speakers strapped to the sides of my face. I thought I was supposed to "feel" the sound not just hear it. Noise bleed is terrible too. It would be annoying to sit beside someone with these on.

I use them all the time for audiobooks and podcasts. Not really optimal for music. Great for stuff like walking the dog when you need to hear traffic. Or I wear mine shopping a lot.

Also extremely comfortable (Aftershokz).

They're not going to be audiophile quality, but I love mine. Want the OpenComms if the price would come down a bit, because if the youtube reviews are to be believed, they have a very good mic for work calls, etc.

Side note, bone conducting headsets are supposedly one of the better options for those with serious hearing loss.

It depends what kind of hearing loss you have. An audiologist will test both your air conduction and bone conduction sensitivity when doing a hearing test.

MannishBoy wrote:
EvilDead wrote:

Mannish, latest drivers are here: https://www.xmpow.com/pages/download

It won't let me link directly but scroll down to BH456A

I know that's where they are. The site won't let download. I get a network failure error every time I try. I can't download anything from there.

The ASUS BT500 one downloaded drivers from Windows and has been working well. Youtube syncs up with my headphones but not all video sites. Certain headsets are better than others so I imagine it has to do with what BT spec the headset supports, hardware, and firmware. I can go down two floors to my basement without disconnections now.

Oddly, the Bluetooth 3.0 hub that I had it plugged into that's in open air seems to be the root of my drop outs. Plugging into the front panel adapter that I have on my tower works fine, even though that's below the desk and nearly fully enclosed by desk and couch.

The ear buds I was testing with are both bluetooth 5.0 and don't have lip sync problems on my phone.

Update on this, once I finally got the latest drivers installed and am running the Soundcore Q30 headphones, even with noise canceling I don't see any lip sync issues. Don't remember if I've tried those ear buds again to retest.

So now I've learned a couple of things about that Mpow Bluetooth 5.0 dongle. Don't use stock Win 10 drivers and don't run it on the USB 3.0 6 port strip I use for lots of other stuff. Updating the drivers and moving it to the front panel USB 3.0 port on my PC fixed both of those issues.

Oh nice. It always feels good to to solve a tech issue!

So I'm looking for a wireless headset to use with my PC. I'm replacing a (refurbished) Razer Man o' War that's served me well for about three years, but the headband is cracked so it's no longer comfortable for sessions of any length.

I like the over-the-ear "cans" style, and I like the retractable microphone. And I REALLY like the fact that it's wireless. I hate feeling like I'm physically tied to my desk.

Most common use case is Discord and Zoom voice calls, sometimes while gaming.

Hoping to keep the price range below $150 or so.

This seems to be Razer's current version of the same thing, but the reviews are kinda spotty.

Any recommendations?

Reviews for this seem higher, but then they're mixed in with the wired version's.

My Steelseries Arctis 7 fit the bill.

Over ear, wireless, retractable mic, very low latency, great battery life, good sound quality, massively comfortable for hours-long gaming sessions. Only possible downside is it'll take up a USB port for the dongle/antenna and doesn't support Bluetooth.

Jonman wrote:

My Steelseries Arctis 7 fit the bill.

Over ear, wireless, retractable mic, very low latency, great battery life, good sound quality, massively comfortable for hours-long gaming sessions. Only possible downside is it'll take up a USB port for the dongle/antenna and doesn't support Bluetooth.

That hits all my sweet spots, the price is right, and the reviews are good.

Lack of Bluetooth isn't an issue for me; they're for use with my desktop, which has a plethora of USB ports and no Bluetooth.

Thanks!

I'm a big fan of the Artis 7. Has an added benefit of having 2 separate channels so you can separate Discord vs. Game audio and balance between them with a control on the actual headset.

If memory serves, while the passthrough works if you also have external speakers, you can't simultaneously use both the headset and your external speakers. That may be an edge case, but if that's you, its something to think about. Can be solved with software like voicemeeter.

Carlbear95 wrote:

If memory serves, while the passthrough works if you also have external speakers, you can't simultaneously use both the headset and your external speakers. That may be an edge case, but if that's you, its something to think about. Can be solved with software like voicemeeter.

Can be solved with some hardware tomfoolery too.

The passthrough is just a 3.5mm female jack on the dongle, which switches audio either out of that jack when the cans are off, or through the cans when it's on.

If you don't route your speakers through it, that switching won't occur, though you'll have to manually switch Windows audio outputs to the headphones every time, so it isn't perfect.

EDIT - realized I entirely missed Carlbear's point about having audio through speakers and cans AT THE SAME TIME, and he's right, there isn't a way to do that, as Windows will force you to pick a single output.

Carlbear95 wrote:

I'm a big fan of the Artis 7. Has an added benefit of having 2 separate channels so you can separate Discord vs. Game audio and balance between them with a control on the actual headset.

If memory serves, while the passthrough works if you also have external speakers, you can't simultaneously use both the headset and your external speakers. That may be an edge case, but if that's you, its something to think about. Can be solved with software like voicemeeter.

I already use voicemeeter so that I can balance Discord audio with game audio while streaming in OBS, which has the happy side effect of allowing me to pipe sound to two different audio devices at once, so that works.

hbi2k wrote:
Carlbear95 wrote:

I'm a big fan of the Artis 7. Has an added benefit of having 2 separate channels so you can separate Discord vs. Game audio and balance between them with a control on the actual headset.

If memory serves, while the passthrough works if you also have external speakers, you can't simultaneously use both the headset and your external speakers. That may be an edge case, but if that's you, its something to think about. Can be solved with software like voicemeeter.

I already use voicemeeter so that I can balance Discord audio with game audio while streaming in OBS, which has the happy side effect of allowing me to pipe sound to two different audio devices at once, so that works.

Perfect, then this headset will allow you actually add an additional hardware output in Voiceemeter so the volume going into your headset can be independent of the volume going into whatever you're streaming.

Carlbear95 wrote:
hbi2k wrote:
Carlbear95 wrote:

I'm a big fan of the Artis 7. Has an added benefit of having 2 separate channels so you can separate Discord vs. Game audio and balance between them with a control on the actual headset.

If memory serves, while the passthrough works if you also have external speakers, you can't simultaneously use both the headset and your external speakers. That may be an edge case, but if that's you, its something to think about. Can be solved with software like voicemeeter.

I already use voicemeeter so that I can balance Discord audio with game audio while streaming in OBS, which has the happy side effect of allowing me to pipe sound to two different audio devices at once, so that works.

Perfect, then this headset will allow you actually add an additional hardware output in Voiceemeter so the volume going into your headset can be independent of the volume going into whatever you're streaming.

Is there also a physical volume control? That would be nice.

Another nice-to-have but not quite need-to-have would be a physical mute button for the microphone. Those of you who have played Overwatch with me know what that's about.

Spoiler:

It's about preventing people from hearing when I leave it on as I tinkle.

I still think, as someone who has used a bunch of them at this point, the best wireless "gaming headset" is the HyperX Cloud Flight. Which is funny because other than the built-in mic and a silly LED lit logo (that you can turn off with a button press, and it remembers the setting) it's not very gamer-y.

But that's because it's much more straightforward, more comfortable (YMMV of course), and (IMO!) sounds better than the Arctis 7 and the others that I owned and/or have used.

If you're really after a retractable mic (and a removable one isn't the right fit for you) and/or the other sort of input options you get with that little puck receiver the Arctis 7 comes with, then it won't do what you want.

But if anyone is after one that just... works, the Cloud Flight is excellent. Battery life is great at like ~28 hours, it's a simple little USB dongle that just plugs in like a thumb drive, and there are no other parts. You can install software if you're worried about monitoring the battery status, but otherwise it just doesn't need software at all. Physical volume control is on one earcup, and one of the earcups is basically a big button that you press in near the bottom to mute and unmute.

Mine happily took ~9 months worth of constant packing around in my backpack, bouncing around through 4 airline flights per week and all the coming and going that entails, and kept ticking. It got used for Teams meetings in my hotel room and on the work site, and then at night served me fine for playing Warzone or getting on Discord and playing Street Fighter or whatever with folks on my gaming laptop from the hotel.

It has been an absolute workhorse.

Also works on the PS4 and PS5 just like the Arctis sets, for whatever that's worth.

I'm still looking for good sounding wireless headphones (gaming, music, movies) that use a base station that takes 3.5mm analog audio input. Why 3.5mm? I have a pretty elaborate setup on my desk where audio from multiple computers and consoles and other devices (phone and tablet over wireless receiver) all feed into a mixer where I can control the balance by device and output it all over 3.5mm. I've been tweaking it for years and I'm pretty happy with it. The mixer outputs analog audio on 2 outputs so any wireless headphones need an analog input.

I'm currently bouncing between a wired headset or an old wireless one depending on what I'm listening to. I want to replace the wireless one. I don't want a mic on it at all, I use a nice mic on a boom arm already and have no intention of using a headset mic.

I know the Arctis Pro Wireless and Astro A50 have a base station that takes in analog but that's a lot of money for a bunch of features I don't want. There's gotta be a better option.

I used to use a USB wireless headset on one of the PCs and ran the mixer into a line-in so I'd have all audio go through that PC but I don't really like that setup.

I was looking at various "wireless TV headphones" but I don't really know how to judge whether any of them are good. RTINGS doesn't seem to have any reviews for them.

Thin_J wrote:

I still think, as someone who has used a bunch of them at this point, the best wireless "gaming headset" is the HyperX Cloud Flight. Which is funny because other than the built-in mic and a silly LED lit logo (that you can turn off with a button press, and it remembers the setting) it's not very gamer-y.

But that's because it's much more straightforward, more comfortable (YMMV of course), and (IMO!) sounds better than the Arctis 7 and the others that I owned and/or have used.

If you're really after a retractable mic (and a removable one isn't the right fit for you) and/or the other sort of input options you get with that little puck receiver the Arctis 7 comes with, then it won't do what you want.

But if anyone is after one that just... works, the Cloud Flight is excellent. Battery life is great at like ~28 hours, it's a simple little USB dongle that just plugs in like a thumb drive, and there are no other parts. You can install software if you're worried about monitoring the battery status, but otherwise it just doesn't need software at all. Physical volume control is on one earcup, and one of the earcups is basically a big button that you press in near the bottom to mute and unmute.

Mine happily took ~9 months worth of constant packing around in my backpack, bouncing around through 4 airline flights per week and all the coming and going that entails, and kept ticking. It got used for Teams meetings in my hotel room and on the work site, and then at night served me fine for playing Warzone or getting on Discord and playing Street Fighter or whatever with folks on my gaming laptop from the hotel.

It has been an absolute workhorse.

Also works on the PS4 and PS5 just like the Arctis sets, for whatever that's worth.

Well heck. That sounds really good. The "just works" factor is huge for me. I don't want to install any dumb proprietary control software. I don't want to fiddle with a bunch of settings-- Lord knows I do enough of that with voicemeeter and OBS. I just want to plug a thing into a USB, turn on the power, and have it work. And I want hardware volume controls and mute/unmute buttons for the mic.

The mic being retractable / removable isn't actually a big deal for me, it just needs to have the kind on the little flexible dealie that you can make be in front of your face. I've had sets that supposedly have a little microphone built into the ear cup but it doesn't come out on the little dealie to get in front of your face, and I keep getting complaints about picking up room noise or fan noise or some kind of damn noise whenever I use them.

Audio quality isn't a big deal, I'm not an audiophile and from experience anything in this price range is going to sound fine to me. Mic quality needs to be good enough that I don't get complaints from people I'm Discording with, but if I absolutely need high quality, I've got my nice condenser mic that I use for streaming and podcasting.

Battery life isn't a big deal, honestly my current set's battery life is kinda bad (probably due to being a refurb) but I don't care, I just leave it plugged in while I'm using it most of the time. It's just knowing that I CAN unplug and pace the room or go to the bathroom or fix a snack without interrupting my conversation that I want.

Yeah, I love that the Arctis 7 has physical dials for volume and game/chat balance, and a easy-to-hit-but-not-accidentally physical mute button. My only complaint with mine is that the volume control offers very little resistance to turning, so if you bump it while hanging up the headset or something, it'll probably change the volume, and then you have to mess with it again next time you put them on. That could just be my particular unit, though. I have not seen that complaint in reviews.

hbi2k wrote:

Well heck. That sounds really good.

Honestly based on your clarifications it sounds like either/or would work fine for you, and the deciding factor would really be which one you do, or think you will find physically more comfortable.

I will say the Arctis 7, when you first put it on, seems to have an advantage there, but at least for me the ear cups touched my ears a lot and I ended up not being able to wear them for very long. The comfort strap and headband design is pretty great though.

The HyperX's are much more standard on that front. That's either a bonus for you or it isn't. But the earcups are definitely larger.

The Steelseries you'd want to install the software at least once just to be sure the firmware is updated, because if you get one with an old revision I believe they had some odd quirks, but after that you can uninstall the software and just plug things in and still use it. At least that's what I did during my brief stint with my Arctis 7's before I broke them.

hbi2k wrote:

Well heck. That sounds really good. The "just works" factor is huge for me. I don't want to install any dumb proprietary control software. I don't want to fiddle with a bunch of settings-- Lord knows I do enough of that with voicemeeter and OBS. I just want to plug a thing into a USB, turn on the power, and have it work. And I want hardware volume controls and mute/unmute buttons for the mic.

Point for the Arctis on this front. They also "just work". I have the "dumb proprietary software" running at startup, solely so I can switch EQ profiles from the drop-down in that window. I'm fussy about that, soI have separate EQ profiles for music vs gaming. Other than that, I never touch that software (aside from initially setting up the EQ profiles, which was trivially easy) - it's just a glorified switch at this point. The headphones "just work".

BadKen's minor complaint about the volume dial being easily jiggled is valid, but honestly, I'm always fiddling with that dial whenever I switch between game/music/youtube/discord anyway, so it's not like it has a sweet spot that it's constantly being moved off of. And the jiggling only really happens when I'm not wearing them, so it's never bothered me.

pandasuit wrote:

I was looking at various "wireless TV headphones" but I don't really know how to judge whether any of them are good. RTINGS doesn't seem to have any reviews for them.

If you're using them for gaming, latency should be the prime variable you'll want to consider. I tried to use my luxurious Sony noise cancelling cans for gaming, and they was SO much latency that they were entirely unusable. Only slightly less important for watching TV - having the audio out of sync sucks.

EDIT - I linked the wrong table - look at the one Legion is linking in the next thread.

Jonman wrote:

This table at RTINGs is something I refer to everytime I'm worried about latency on a pair of cans I'm looking at.

If you care about latency, you don't want Bluetooth. You want this table.

On my TV, I have a pair of old Sennheiser RS 160s which are practically ancient at this point, but have latency that Bluetooth headsets struggle to match. Likewise, for a PC gaming headset, there's zero reason to use Bluetooth when there's headsets that run rings around BT performance with their non-BT dongle-based connectivity.

Only thing I have any interest in BT headphones for is for listening to music from my phone, where latency isn't a concern.

The only reason that Bluetooth might be preferable for TV viewing is that it's already there in a lot cases.

In my case, I infrequently use headphones for TV - but the Apple TV box supports multiple bluetooth connections and there's multiple sets of BT-capable headphones and buds around the house. My once-a-month at most TV-headphone time is fine with a touch of latency.

I went ahead and got a pair of HyperXes overnighted to me, just plugged them in. Setup was as simple as I wanted it to be, just plugged in the dongle, hit the power button, switched my Windows device back to Voicemeeter because Windows idiotically thinks that just because I hooked up something new it clearly means that I want to switch everything over to it right away, and then got into Voicemeeter and switched the output that used to go to my Razers to the HyperX. Would have been even simpler if I weren't using Voicemeeter, but that's a bed I've already made for myself.

The cans are smaller than the Razer and fit snugly but still seem comfortable; I'll report back after a long session to see if that holds. They also seem maybe a little lighter, which is nice.

Despite my saying the opposite earlier, in retrospect I think I actually do like the retractable mic better than the removable, just one less piece to lose. And I can't really swivel the detachable mic up away from my face, which is the other thing that years of muscle memory has me trained to try to do. I don't think it's actually much of a con, just something that I'll have to get used to.

The one other nice thing the Razers did that this doesn't do is that the mic glowed red when it was hardware-muted, which was just visible enough out of the corner of my eye that I was never likely to not realize I was muted. Not really a big deal.

Build quality and design seems better-- in retrospect, the bit of the headband that broke on the Razers was an obvious weak point, a narrow strip of cheap plastic that was detached from the rest of the headband but had no particular reason to be that I can. On these, the headband is all one thick strong piece with just as much flex as it needs and no more, and the adjustable slidey bits are metal, not plastic. Should be sturdier over the long haul.

Audio quality seems fine, about what I'd expect from this form factor and price point, which is all that I need. Mic quality is decent, a little trebly and tinny, but not annoyingly so (and I have my trusty old Samson C01U condenser when quality is paramount). Most importantly, it's crystal clear, and picks up ZERO detectable room noise, damn near a flat line in Audacity when I'm not talking. That means I can set the voice detection threshold in Discord much lower, which is nice.

*Legion* wrote:

Only thing I have any interest in BT headphones for is for listening to music from my phone, where latency isn't a concern.

Exactly.

I was looking at the Sennheiser RS sets. That is basically what I want and from a brand that knows how to make good headphones. The RS 120 are on Amazon for not too much but I don't know if they are any good. The higher models get pricey. Avantree seems to be the main competitor in this space but I don't see reviews from anyone I trust.

I've been using Turtle Beach XP500s and X41s for a while. They are RF with low latency but the interference makes them unusable these days. The frequent clicking drives me nuts. I switched back to my old X4s which are infrared and while I don't get any noticeable interference I'm not a huge fan of how they sound and there are some tones that don't come across clearly at all and sound very distorted. These are the ones I'm looking to replace.

It looks like the Arctis 7s have an analog line in on their dongle. Has anyone here used that? What's the sound quality and latency like? Does it mix the USB PC input and the line in together? Does the mixed audio go out the line out so I could drive wired headphones off that and hear both inputs?

pandasuit wrote:

I was looking at the Sennheiser RS sets. That is basically what I want and from a brand that knows how to make good headphones. The RS 120 are on Amazon for not too much but I don't know if they are any good.

Apparently not as good as the older RS models, according to Wirecutter. Their testers complained about hiss and high end distortion.

Instead, they like the Power Acoustik HP-902RFT, which is their replacement recommendation now that the RS 160 and 165 are discontinued. Sad that Sennheiser's replacement models in that price range don't live up to their old champs. I call the 160s "The Marriage Savers".

pandasuit wrote:

It looks like the Arctis 7s have an analog line in on their dongle. Has anyone here used that? What's the sound quality and latency like? Does it mix the USB PC input and the line in together? Does the mixed audio go out the line out so I could drive wired headphones off that and hear both inputs?

I don't think the 7p or 7s has that. The dongle is just a wireless transmitter with a PC/console compatibility switch.

The Arctis Pro USB box has an analog line out, and the Arctis Pro GameDAC has line in, line out, optical in and optical out.

BadKen wrote:
pandasuit wrote:

It looks like the Arctis 7s have an analog line in on their dongle. Has anyone here used that? What's the sound quality and latency like? Does it mix the USB PC input and the line in together? Does the mixed audio go out the line out so I could drive wired headphones off that and hear both inputs?

I don't think the 7p or 7s has that. The dongle is just a wireless transmitter with a PC/console compatibility switch.

The Arctis Pro USB box has an analog line out, and the Arctis Pro GameDAC has line in, line out, optical in and optical out.

Nah, pandasuit's right, I'm looking at my Arctis 7 puck right now, and there's the socket.

I'd test it, but I don't have a line-level thing to drive it in my office - I'm assuming the 3.5mm headphone output from a phone isn't going to jive. EDIT - found the manual, and it'll take a phone 3.5mm output, so I'll rummage up a cable and report back.

That said, I'd be *very* surprised if there's much latency - the puck manages to transmit audio from USB wirelessly with no detectable latency, and if anything, the line-in input should be lower latency than USB?

Oops, I was looking at the 7p and 7s, not the 7.

Nice confusing product names there, SteelSeries.

BadKen wrote:

Oops, I was looking at the 7p and 7s, not the 7.

Nice confusing product names there, SteelSeries.

No product images/descriptions on official SteelSeries or seller websites show these details on the puck either so I only found out it was a thing when I was digging around through in depth reviews. Most reviews don’t mention it but one had a picture and RTINGS mentioned it in their details on the puck.

I understand my use case is a bit weird and not what PC headset manufacturers are targeting but you’d think they’d want to highlight their features and not hide them from description text and product pictures.