It really depends on your budget and how much you care about audio quality. I'm personally very happy with the ATH m50s + modmic.

if you dont listen to music i dont see the reason to buy high quality headphones

if you do, buy good headphones

I use ath-m50s and a desktop mic and it works wonders

There are good headphones at any budget. Good gaming headsets not so much.

Adding a modmic to decent headphones saves a ton of money vs buying a Beyerdynamic MMX300 or Sennheiser PC350+

I always used headsets in the past. Used plantronics for many years, and then I got a Razer carcharias. I honestly have to say, the carcharias was decent and I still use it for LANs but last year I picked up the audio technica AD-700s on sale and the sound quality blew me away.

The color scheme was horrible (pink/gold) so I decided to mod them. Matte black paint job, rewired it with a better 3.5mm plug, added a modmic and sleeved the cables together. Best headphones/headset I've ever had hands down. Gaming headsets aren't terrible, but their construction isn't the best usually. They tend to die or break quickly and easily.

Here's my headset.

http://imgur.com/ZQoo9b9

I really am a fan of buying a decent/good pair of headphones and just buying a separate microphone, be it something like the mod-mic, desk mic, or a clip on (e.g. zalman). I use the ATH-AD900x's with a Zalman clip-on and they work just fine.

The upside with a decent pair of headphones compared to a headset is that they are also generally good for other things, like watching movies, listening to music and other such things (as well as games, mind you).

I've always just used headsets tbh. The G930 I've been using for the past year has decent quality without being too expensive.

Who doesn't listen to music though?

I use a pair of Shure SE215 ear buds and a Yeti Desktop Mic. It has been nothing less than an enjoyable experience to say the least.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/534479/mad-lust-envys-headphone-gaming-guide-update-4-17-2014-akg-k612-and-k712-pro-added-edits

I use AKG Q701s with a zalman mic, works fine for me. Depending on the headphones you might need an amp to drive them. I've used the creative aurvana lives before and they seemed solid. If you're on a budget and don't mind closed headphones that would be a decent pick. If you're really really strapped for cash, superlux HD 681's are close replicas of AKG 240's. I don't own the HD681's but I own a pair of AKG 240's and they are decent.

Since this isn't CS and extremely accurate sound-whoring isn't really an issue, a gaming headset wouldn't be the worst choice but, I agree with thrasher. The builds of all the gaming headsets I've ever owned have been mediocre at best. Not to mention the materials they use are almost always cheap plastic. (I'm looking at you logitech g35, with your cheap/tacky fake leather headband cushion ;_;)

By all means, get a decent pair of headphones. In general, the build quality and audio quality sucks on "gaming" headsets. If you haven't heard anything better, then maybe a headset will sound fine or even good to you. But honestly, check out head-fi (forum with reviews), headphone.com (review and frequency response graphs), and goldenears (review frequency response graphs). If you want help deciding, feel free to contact me on steam and I will do my best to assist you.

Also the MMX300s are good. They are just the crappier version of the DT770s with a mic attached that costs more than twice the price of the regular DT770s.

But for the most part, be really careful where you find reviews; I saw that Asus's headphones were given a rather good review. The frequency response was awful:

http://img1.lesnumeriques.com/test/71/7193/vulcan_pro_frequency_response.jpg

*Ideally, you want something that is flat (linear response with a slope of 0)

i've posted in these topics before having only owned headsets. i recently got a pair of akg k240 mk2s and, even though i'm now a fan of a nice pair of headphones with a separate mic, i still think that headsets have their place, and here's why:

some people either don't have music in good enough quality to warrant nice headphones, or they just don't care about hearing it in the clearest quality possible. and that's fine, whatever. you aren't going to ascend them to a higher level of listening by encouraging them to drop 3 digits on a really nice pair of headphones, so i never got why ppl in these threads think it's objectively better to rock headphones + a separate mic. a headset is cheaper (unless you're buying from razer or something) and more convenient than a 100+ dollar pair of headphones with a separate mic.

personally, i had a 30 dollar headset for a while and i used that universally. unfortunately it was started to get uncomfortable to wear since it was heavy and a little loose, so i got a pair of k240s and a zalman clipon mic (the 7 dollar one). 15 dollars for 3 year insurance aside, i still spend nearly 4x what the headset cost and the clipon mic's fidelity is a lot worse than my headset's. if i wanted a better mic then i would have had to spend even more.

so if somebody doesn't care about how their music sounds, and if they find their headset comfortable, then there's basically no reason to spend so much more money on headphones + a mic. my k240s are like wearing pillows and i've already worn them for 6+ hours in one sitting without even noticing they were there which was something i couldn't do with my headset, so it was worth it to me. but if somebody can do that with their headset and they think their music sounds good enough then a headset is acceptable.

e: oh and this was just in my case but i also needed to grab an amp for my k240s as well to get the most out of them so that was another 30 bucks, and that was the cheapest well-reviewed amp i could find. gaming headsets usually have an audio adjuster built in at least (usually on the cord), even if that doesn't work as well as an amp it comes with it and it's not an extra 30-70+ dollars.

I'm using the Superlux HD681 with the Zalman clipmic. Paid like 40$ and got better quality than with my old Siberia V2 which cost twice as much.
I would also go for a Asus Xonar DG/DGX soundcard. It is definitely an upgrade over onboard sound and only costs 20-30$.

First of all, the $15 for "3 year insurance" was a waste for headphones that cheap (if it was for something like Stax SR-007/SR-009s, electrostats, or any other high end dynamic driver, that would make sense. But for k240s...no). I don't see why you would buy k240s without a decent dac/amp combo.

The reason you spent "4x what the headset cost" is because you didn't do your research prior to buying your equipment. As a result, you spent way more money than you should've. If you want to keep it simple, go for something like the m30 ($40), m40 ($50), or m50 ($125). Either way you go, you get good sound quality and you don't have to bother with an amp. Then you can get a decent mic and you're still spending less money than what you spent for the headphones alone. But if you don't do your research, more likely than not, you'll end up wasting your money.

By all means, do NOT go for a soundcard; they're overpriced and their output impedance is too high and as a result you end up truncating the low and high end of your sound output moreso than if you just used onboard sound. Also, a computer tower is one of the worst places to do audio processing, as there is a tremendous amount of electromagnetic interference inside a computer case. This can cause distortion in your audio, with or without a sound card. Don't forget that most soundcard drivers are poorly written (read up on how often users have to modify creative soundcard drivers. However, the Xonar is a better soundcard).

Your best bet is to process audio outside of the computer case through a digital to analog converter (DAC). You'll also need an amp. From my experience, the best bang for the buck would be the Fiio e10 Olympus (don't get the old version; it has issues with 24-bit audio clipping). Also, all of the hardware functionality of a sound card is now done at a hardware level, meaning less delays, less resource usage, and less of a headache in the end.

Below is a video link with further information
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1rXcJuEsy0

5 dollars a year for the comfort of knowing that I won't be out 100 bucks if something happens to my headphones is a waste of money? Alright. Guess I'm a terrible consumer.

Except I did? I didn't initially because even though I saw people on headfi say that k240s are best listened to through amps, I don't generally listen to music with my volume set very high nor do I worry about messing with equalizers, so I wanted to give the k240s a test run without an amp and see what I thought. After a few hours I concluded that I needed an amp so I bought one.

No the reason I spent 4x what the headset cost was because my headset was cheap and I wanted to grab a nice pair of headphones at a triple digit price. Any pair of 100+ dollar headphones would have been comparatively WAY more expensive than my headset because the thing was only 30 dollars, m50s included. That has nothing to do with me doing no research, I just wanted a really good pair of headphones.

Anyway, so "doing my research" just means that I should have bought an ath mx0 model? I knew about all of those options but I did a lot of reading about the k240s and people recommended them as being just as good as m50s, and the semi-open design appealed to me more than the m50's closed, isolated design. I also liked the detachable cable and the fact that the mk2s come with these insanely comfortable velvet pads. My brother has a pair of m30s and I tried them on for a few hours but the pads started to irritate my ears, and to my knowledge, all of the mx0s' pads are made of the same material.

I did my research man. I knew that I probably would have needed an amp, I knew that the m50 was an equally good choice in the 100+ dollar range, and I knew that I could have grabbed m30s or m40s at around the same price as my headset with a nicer sound quality without even breaking 50 bucks. But I landed on the k240s mk2 after spending an hour or two looking at other options, consulting headfi threads, and asking a few friends.

Also, m50s + mic would not be less than what I spent on the k240 mk2s alone (125 + 7 vs 105). In fact, if I got the mk1s (which are virtually identical to the mk2s, minus an extra coiled cable and an extra set of velvet pads) then the m50s + mic would have cost nearly 60 dollars more than the k240 mk1s (being about 73) before factoring in an amp price (and it's not like the amp is 100% required, I just chose to buy one). The k240s are just the cheaper pair of headphones.

Not saying the m50s aren't a fantastic pair of headphones because they're easily the most recommended in that price range, but your statement that m50s cost less than either of the k240 models is just plain wrong. The only thing that makes that statement correct is comparing the m50s with the k240 mk2s, factoring in a fiio e6 or above, in which case the k240 mk2s break even with the e6 (which is what I happened to purchase).

This thread makes me think someone from the comp tf2 community should reach out to the Antlion modmic guys and see if they'd wanna sponsor a tf2 event; it seemed to work well with Zowie

#15
Do not link that video ever again if you don't want to get stoned to death by angry audiophiles. Half of it is right, but the other half is bullshit.
It gets worse in the second video, a blind listening test mp3 vs flac, via youtube so both is encoded with aac anyway.

Of course; I'd never post something like this on Head-Fi, but this is teamfortress.tv. I can agree with you that it's not absolutely right; I found errors in it myself. Point is, the name of the video was, "Gaming Audio Myths: Avoid The BS & Save Your Audio Life". As the title implies, it's targeted towards gamers (most, not all of which do not have a very good understanding of audio) and is fairly easy to understand without much prior knowledge.

Also, no, they did not encode both the flac and the mp3 over with AAC. They played it through his headphones and then through video editing software, they just inserted the song they were playing as a track. By your logic, if I took my .aiff files and recorded a video of them and uploaded it to youtube, that would make all of my .aiff files on my hard drive aac files.

Comfort and necessity are two completely different things. That warranty costed more than the mic.

And no, it doesn't mean buying an mx0 model. I just gave some names of some budget headphones that were moderately good that I have listened to. Nobody is going to sit here and rattle off a list of every good/moderately good headphone for you. Clearly, you're drawing straws here.

That's your fault for picking something that sounds worse and costs more and needs an amp.

Yes. I would figure that you would understand that the k240s were $100 (give or take a few dollars), and that excluding the m50s, it would be less money because 125+7 is indeed 132 (132>105). You're really drawing straws here.

To put it bluntly, you're arguing just for the sake of arguing. If you would like to disagree with me, just say so.

iz good deal

http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-518-Headphones-Black/dp/B0042A68R8/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1400076798&sr=8-15&keywords=sennheiser

If you take care of them, they will last you pretty long.

Good quality for the 79$.

No clue what your budget is. But honestly those "gaming headsets" = waste of money. You get poor quality on both ends, microphone and headset. So why not save yourself the hassle and buy an awesome headset and great mic.

I have the Zalman mic($7-10 on amazon). Which (IMO) sounds even better than the Snowball iCE USB Microphone. Pair it with that headset x3 recommended or some Audio-Technica headset. And you won't regret it.

I didn't come into this thread to argue. I never asked you to dissect my purchases, and I also never asked you to outright tell me that I bought a bad pair of headphones. I shared my experiences with upgrading from a gaming headset to a headphones + mic setup and you, for literally no reason, decided to tear my post apart and infer that I'm a terrible consumer.

Please keep to yourself. I didn't ask for any advice in this thread, the OP did. Give your 2 cents and move on.

If you're constrained by price, look for a really low-end pair of audiophile-type headphones and a cheap mic. I have a pair of Sennheiser HD 419's that I got for $25 on Amazon and a clip on mic, I can't see why you need more unless you do some serious sound work. Audiophile-tier stuff is really great, don't get me wrong, but the prices get outrageous pretty fast.

#19
He said "listen with your eyes closed". He actually expected the viewers to listen for a difference.
Also nice job on thinking that I'm retarded.

I am getting ath-m50s, but undecided if i want a desk mic or mod mic or zalman

Apparently i have had a different experience than others but when I had the zalman mic people in mumble told me I sounded like shit so I got a mod mic and no more complaints.

I'd recommend mod mic if you wan't a "headset" experience; I like not having a mic take up space on my desk and it has great sound quality. Maybe not as good as a high quality desk mic but more than good enough for mumble.

I have the 3.0 but I think the 4.0 is out now so you should probably get that.

headphones + modmic

don't get a desk mic, doubly so if you have or ever plan on getting a mechanical keyboard