Gaming audio...new headset

[JollyRoger]

I just received a  package from japan containing Audio Technica ATH-AD500X headphones.  They are a mid range (not quite audiophile) headphone, and they sound pretty delicious.

I was getting real tired of typical gaming headsets and this is going to be my solution.  The sound quality of the speakers was, well mediocre at best.  I wanted more, and after doing some comparison shopping and listening to several different headphone these made it to the top five.  I picked these for the price.  I was really liking the Sennheiser HD 600 and the Audio Technica Audiophile ATH-AD2000X but these were WAY out of my price range at over $400. So these are a great compromise. The only downside with the is they make poor quality recordings more noticeable and the open back desigh allows everyone else to hear what I'm hearing.

Now I know what you are thinking, "But Jolly, what about a microphone so you can talk to Snauz or myself whist gaming?"  Good question, and I have the answer.  I also ordered a Antlion Mod Mic 4.0 which has a sticky back magnet the attaches to the side of the headphones and the the Mod Mic attached to that. It has a great microphone in it with a pop filter.  It is designed to stay to the side of you mouth and is fantastic. 

If you are looking to upgrade your head set I highly recommend going this route.

[JollyRoger]

Update:

I plugged the headphones in to the on-board sound on the Zotac Zbox (Sorry Z) and it just didn't get all that loud, also I could hear distortion at full volume. This is no good distortion kills speakers.  Sooo, I plugged them in to the monitor and used the HDMI audio pass through and things are no right in the world.  I can listen at full volume with undetectable distortion with my ears, and it gets really loud.  Good crisp highs, clean mids, and surprisingly real good lows.  normal listening levels require volumes to be super low. and it's still loud.  Al in all I'm really happy.

[ZWarrior]

If the audio output from the ZBox (my lawyers are looking into this ) is distorted and not loud but it is fine through the HDMI output then there might be an issue with the audio connector of the ZBox.

Just saying.

[JollyRoger]

I don't think the jack is bad. I had some externally powered speakers hooked up and they got loud they had a little distortion at full volume I expect that though.  I think the on board sound wasn't putting out enough signal.

[ZWarrior]

Even worse of the audio processor isn't good since it is built into the mobo.

[JollyRoger]

Yeah... But atleast it sounds good now.  I may build a small DAC for it later.