Headphone recommendations for STX SoundCard

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nto

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Greetings!

So I would need a little bit of advice on purchasing headphones. As the title suggests, I have the Xonar Essence STX sound card on my system, however I do not own sufficient headphones to go with it. The price point could vary from 60 Euros to about 150 Euros.

Not much of an audio guy so best bet asking dedicated people about their experiences :)

Thank you all for your replies in advance!
 
That's an extremely ambiguous question, we're going to need more information. Closed or open, on-ear or over-ear, musical tastes?
 
maybe something like a sennheiser HD280 Pro..
its difficult to say because product availibility and pricing differs on region. for example i went to european sites and Sony MDR-V6's are way Fing expensive...about 3 times the US price factoring exchange rate.
 
Your ears will thank you for saving for some Beyerdynamic DT 770 or DT990 Premiums (600Ohm version)
 
guitarslingerchris said:
That's an extremely ambiguous question, we're going to need more information. Closed or open, on-ear or over-ear, musical tastes?
Click to expand...

Sorry about the lack of information there. So I think that I would propably prefer over ear desing because of the long use sessions. Musical taste.... Well I do listen to mainstream music quite a lot, but the headphones would mainly be for gaming and movies.
 
I'm in the same boat looking for something to be driven with my Essence STX.
I'm currently looking at a pair of hardly used Beyerdynamic DT770 80ohm headphones locally for $130 Canadian.

Not quite sure what to do, these will be mostly used at night so I'm tempted to just order the JVC HA-RX700 or Panasonic RP-HTF600-S off of Amazon.com and use one of those for now. That would also give me a bit of an excuse to order a few small things from there such as a longer digital coaxial to connect to my receiver. :p

To the OP, what kind of music do you mostly listen to? How much gaming will you be doing with them?
Do you watch a lot of movies and TV shows? Are these going to be used quite often or only when you don't want to disturb other people working or sleeping?
 
ballistic said:
To the OP, what kind of music do you mostly listen to? How much gaming will you be doing with them?
Do you watch a lot of movies and TV shows? Are these going to be used quite often or only when you don't want to disturb other people working or sleeping?
Click to expand...

Well I will mainly be using a 2.1 speaker setup and the headphones are there only for the occasion of night time use etc. So I wont want to be investing a ton of credit because of the modesty of usage. Still I do play a lot of games and occasionally watch a movie or two. And I do appreciate a good quality sound produced by headphones tough.
 
Kind of spamming on my own thread right now, but nevertheless I will address this. Would you people think that Sony MDR-XD300 headphones would be good enough for the sound card I will be using since I do already own a pair of those.

Granted they are a few years old but at least I think that the sound quality is decent.
 
nto said:
Sorry about the lack of information there. So I think that I would propably prefer over ear desing because of the long use sessions. Musical taste.... Well I do listen to mainstream music quite a lot, but the headphones would mainly be for gaming and movies.
Click to expand...

Gaming and movies that's easy Beyerdynamic DT880 250Ohm version hands down for the money (don't bother with the 600ohm version .. you would really need need a tube amp and a good one to really reap the benefits).

Bhphotovideo is selling them for $224.

You should really buy one pair of headphones for music and one for games/movies honestly. Musical requirements are so different from gaming/movie requirements. With music you want detail , pronounced but not overly boomy bass , you want excellent mids and nice detailed highs. With games you want fantastic mids over everything else and you want excellent sound stage so you can hear the proper directions of where your enemies are coming from (very important for FPS games).

The best gaming headphones I can recommend would be the AKG 701's , they are just great all around for that purpose. With Dolby Headphone enabled you'll be able to properly determine the right direction of incoming fire and it seriously will improve your situational awareness overall.

For music there isn't really a "best" I can recommend , many are great for an array of different genre's some are terrible at many but incredible at one. This is where it can get tricky and really be based on personal taste. If you can demo some high end headphones than I would seriously do that before you drop money on them , since they are likely "burned in" you'll get the true sound signature from them.

For me personally I love the Sennheiser HD650's for music overall , its got strong tight bass that doesn't boom , its got gobs of detail and its ability to surprise you with how it can be both relaxed , laid back and also fast and intense when called for it make it arguably one of the best cans on the market. But driving them can be a big pain in the ass , they LOVE power and many audiophiles will recommend you get a decent tube amp (Schiit makes a great one that called Valhalla) and the best DAC you can afford. This combination will result in sonic bliss and unless you've got $1500 to spare for the Sennheiser HD800's then it'll be just about as good as it gets. But with your STX the HD650's will still sing quite happily along.

However let me state that if you don't have lots of 96/24 HD music files than spending anything more than $250 on headphones will simply make your CD quality FLAC's just sound more flawed. If however you want to build a collection of 96/24 music or SACD's or DVD-Audio than its worth spending a lot extra.

You should do some research on headphones in general and don't fall for the nonsense of cabling , balanced inputs and so on. Tube amps do make a difference but they make the sound much warmer which some love and some don't , however some people act like unless it has a tube amp than its total trash which is bullshit. Your STX will amp nearly anything just fine and its DAC is great as well. Just use common sense , if someone is asking for $300 for headphone cabling because it has silver in it .. yea you get the idea.

So to sum up (based solely on my personal opinion I want to add) :

Best overall for gaming/movies : DT 880 Pro 250ohm version
Best for gaming : AKG 701's
Best for music overall : Sennheiser HD650 (if your willing to spend that much).
 
I honestly find the Sennheiser HD598 very good for gaming and I've been enjoying them for music quite a bit.
 
Godmachine made excellent points about how to select headphones. I would also add comfort as a requirement and/or big plus when selecting headphones for long gaming, movies-watching or music listening sessions. As such, the Beyerdynamic and the Sennheiser phones really excel in those areas. I'm sure that there are others, but I don't have any experience with other brands other than Grado who ARE NOT known for their comfort.
In any case, i'm putting my vote/recommendation on any of the listed Beyerdynamic phones. I recently (two weeks ago) purchased a pair of Beyerdyanmic DT 990 Premium (250 ohm) and they are so awesome for gaming (been playing lots of Skyrim with 'em) and for music (at least the variety of music that I like: classic rock, jazz, heavy metal, industrial, female vocals).
I paid about $250 from Amazon.
 
I have a pair of Grado SR80i and Denon AH-D2000, different characters but I like them both.

The Denon cans is extremely comfortable, great bass and easy to listen to for long periods. Since they closed they keep the noise out which can be quite nice if you have a noisy pc.
 
I have this same sound card and it's been excellent so far!

For music I have my trusty Audio-Technica M50's (straight cable). Typically around $150 at most retailers, but you can get them for even under $120 in sales etc. Honestly for the price, I haven't found anything comparable. They have great detail, a pleasantly punchy bass and are very well-made and comfortable. On the flip side, they're not so good for gaming as there's next to no soundstage.

I'd been trying to get by with my M50's with a clip-on mic for gaming, but I just can't get used to it. That in mind, I went out and got the Sennheiser PC 360 gaming headset yesterday. I wouldn't spend the full $299 or whatever they retail at - I got mine on sale for $175 which seems about right for the sound quality.

I've only owned the PC360's a day so it's too early to comment, but I wasn't blown away. They're open-backed, so of course the soundstage (hence positional audio) was way ahead of the M50s. Dolby Headphone just sent everything horribly boomy, but I think that's my sound card settings, I haven't had time to learn what all the tweaks do yet.

I think the general consensus on the PC360s is that you can absolutely find better headphones for the same money, but if you want an integrated mic (without modding) it's the best of the current bunch.
 
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