Looking for headphones with great soundstage and good bass response

A proper conversation. Also quite correct.

I wonder how much that new creative tech will effect gaming headphones. Could be a game changer.
 
Easily anything from the Fostex line and the sound-stage is pretty damn good for being semi-open. Owner of TH-900 and previously owned TH-600, TH-6XX, Denon D2000.
 
I had some modded fostex. I think the mod made them super heavy but man alive. Led Zeppelin sounded NICE.
 
I like my hd6xx (hd650) but they don't have great bass out of the box.
I use my preamp to drive them (hafler dh110) which is also a great headphone amp and with it I can adjust the bass level to my taste.
The hd 6xx respond great to it too unless you go to far.

Maybe you should consider a headphone amp with some sort of tone control.
Look at Schiit magni 3 and loki for a good starting point. Possibly a dac too if you don't mind to spend the extra money, would beat onboard audio (modi 2).
 
xmadror said:
The hd 6xx respond great to it too unless you go to far.
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Going 'too far' on my HD600 was interesting; they go from outputting a slight but noticeable increase in bass to outright poppity failure :D

Unfortunately, they're still not going to 'bump.

Currently going between my Focal x Massdrop Elex and my Sony MDR-Z7 phones, and I'm having a hard time choosing between them for gaming. Honestly will probably just keep these two and sell anything else that I don't use. Bonus tip: you can get the MDR-Z7's from Sony's refurbished eBay distributor for less than half MSRP which is in range of the HD6x0 series, and my only complaint is that being closed they'll get a little warmer.

But the Z7's don't have the narrow soundstage associated with closed cans, and while they don't have a 'reference' sound signature, they are certainly fun and those 70mm drivers bump!
 
spaceman said:
A proper conversation. Also quite correct.

I wonder how much that new creative tech will effect gaming headphones. Could be a game changer.
Click to expand...
"Creative tech" is usually "Marketing bullshit". Take with two grains of salt.
 
B00nie said:
"Creative tech" is usually "Marketing bullshit". Take with two grains of salt.
Click to expand...

I'll say that I'm split on them. On the one hand, I've had their tech work extremely well; on the other, I've had problems, even unresolvable problems, even with current generation hardware.

Stuff that worked great: the Audigy line, and the X-Fi line when it was en vogue.

I skipped the 'Recon3D' stuff, but tried the latest Soundblaster-Z, and had what appeared to be unresolvable software issues (stereo channels kept jumping up and down in volume).

Now that I'm using an external DAC with optical input, I tried that with my legacy X-Fi, but I could not get it to apply the Creative processing to it; the card would just dump OS sound driver stack audio out as PCM directly which is no different than what the Realtek onboard stuff does so I just switched back to that and have been experimenting with software surround solutions for those applications that don't do great HRTF already. Currently using Razer's software which seems to work as an effective inline software EQ and surround to HRTF downmixer while also leaving stereo sources relatively unmolested and I'm fairly happy.

Now, to address your point relative to the OP: supposing this software (and DSP, if that's even necessary) can 'neutralize' a particular set of cans to a particular set of ears and provide 'tasteful' enhancements (targeted EQ), I can see the appeal and might even bite myself.

Might even be interesting to see it paired with Audeze' Mobius head-tracking closed planar headset, whenever those start shipping en masse :D
 
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