CCRS's Gaming with Audiophile Gear

If you feel that about Witcher 3 try AC Black Flag. Those musics are something else.

 

Years ago when I played competitive gaming and just started getting out of gaming gear. I found that the Grado sr80 were great for gaming. I keep a pair of Allessandro MS1 (essentially Grado sr125) around for that reason. The ZMF Blackwood (in blackwood) are also insane for gaming. Thought the ZMF Autuer in teak were pretty good too because of their neutral signature.

@ChaChaRealSmooth Did you learn nothing from the ZMF thread? What wood are your ZMFs lol. My Ironwood ZMF Verite Closed are perfect for gaming because they have no reverb.

 

Ha! That brings me back to my competitive CoD 1 and 2 days!
I borrowed (pretty much stole) my dad’s Sennheiser headphones (not sure what model they were, but something cheap by audiophile’s standard) and on a whim bought a creative Audigy 2 sound card with the latest EAX standard at the time. What a revelation that was!
It was a game changer, literally! Like an audio cheat. I could pick out enemies location so precisely, everyone thought I had cheats on! Even my teammates were confused/doubtful, until they either bought it themselves, or got to hear my setup at LAN parties.

I stopped playing competitively 13 years ago and literally just got back to gaming with headphones a month ago (got the Sennheiser Game One, which is “great” for PC and console gaming - low impedance, good tonal balance and all). I’m surprised at how little things changed/Improved in al those years!
I guess games have their own stereo engines now, that sound okay without DSP based audio cards? Never tried the newer creative or Sennheiser 7.1 + HRTF gaming sound cards, though.

I played with the HD 660 S out of the iFi Pro iDSD for the first time yesterday and “realized” that there’s still so much more!

I got the Game One mostly for its built-in mic.
What are you guys using with your hifi headphones? Mod mic?

 

@Clemmaster I using a Blue snowball ice mic. Sound output is just as important and input

edit: I dont know if what I said made sense

 

Not all games are equal when it comes to sound design and one that sticks out as having exceptional sound design is The Hunt: Showdown. I highly recommend it.

is there any other games recommend that have great sound design?

 

I'm a pretty hard core Monster Hunter fan who dabbles into jRPGs from time to time, I enjoy my same reference set up for music when I'm gaming.

I have and continue to be impressed at how well the Mosnter Hunter Series does with audio, even the in game "surround" option works remarkably well.

For the variety of jRPGs I enjoy, again a system built for music does wonderfully! It's more than quite pleasurable, I can't comment tho on competitive FPS type gaming

 

Spdif out works great with my BlasterX AE-5.

You have to tell it to pipe the analog into the Spdif, and set your game to play into the analog, for processing to occur.

Into YggA2 -> T4 -> VC.

Having said that, if my main system wasn't right next to my pc anyway I'd probably run the analog out into an asgard, and plug a verum into that.

 

Modmic wireless. I still had a 4 but I wanted one less cable around.

 

Comfort is important when gaming, so I use the most comfortable headphones I have lying around.

My main gaming setup is RME ADI2-Pro feeding HD800s w/ SDR mod, and a modmic wireless. I also run Sonarworks to keep the HD800's EQd.

 

I used to game a lot with an AD700, then many years later with an AD2000. Comfort was best on the 700, the 2000 had super good imaging but the driver kinda hurt my ears; better pads made its great imaging/positioning worse..
Too bad both are out of production nowadays..

 

I have sold off my Mobius and decided to go the DAC/AMP/USB microphone route. I like the VSS on that, but I would prefer to use my Elears and Modi3/THX789 for gaming as it is all ready connected to my PC. Tried gaming with just stereo. Loved the dynamics, but depth and panning was missing. Many here seems to like the BlasterX G6, mostly because of its VSS, but not sure if that would be a worthwile investment. @Hands, you still use the G6, did you try it with an external dac?

 

My AE-5s TOSLINK works just fine into Yggdrasil for gaming, but if your amp has a free analog input I'd just use that.

 

I've been getting into tactical shooters recently and found the t50rps to be a great pick up for that. Their soundstage is definitely small but their imaging seems really great and I don't mind having a planar around to go with my hd650s