JVC HA-RX700 Headphones -
- [I]I wasn't sure what to expect, but if you read my considering new headset thread, I found a few threads that praised these cheap $33 shiped (at the time of this writing) pair of headphones as competing with much more expensive cans. There was a lot of good info, some mods, and they were half the price of the HPA2's so I figured I'd give them a go. Needless to say, I was blown away. Everything sounded better, they were comfortable, they went much louder, they had much lower bass that you felt, the mids and hi's were much more pronounced and identifiable...I noticed stuff in music I'd never heard before, sounds in games were clear and crisp. I had read that I could emulate 5.1 sound to my headphones using the CMMS-3D of my X-Fi. Naturally I had to compare this to my "true" 5.1 headset as the JVC's had 1 speaker per cup...and there were many headsets that were using 5.1/7.1 emulation I was very skeptical. Here's how you do it, go into Windows Control panel, Sound, speakers, set to 5.1. Then go into X-Fi control panel, game mode, headphone or 2.1 output, cmms-3d on. Set the game to either windows default or 5.1, and voila, now CMMS-3d will emulate 5.1 channels to your headphone...I gave it a shot in CoD4 and I was extremely suprised. The soundstage was huge in comparison to the HPA2's, sounds had distance to them, their placement was easily matching the HPA2's if not easier to locate, I was amazed. So far, I can't believe I spent so much on gaming headsets when a decent pair of headphones would do the trick.
So how did I use a mic you ask? Because this pair of headphones is my gaming headset you see...all I did was get about 8ft of 3.5mm cable, routed it along my headphone cable round the desk, and zip-tied the end to the top support of the LH earcup, then I ordered a non-lock style boom mic for a Turtle Beach HPA2 (in replacement parts), plugged it in and had the crisp recording and adjustability of the HPA2 without much hassle at all, many also use a Zalman clip on cable mic too...but i did prefer the HPA2 mic, even though I failed to mention it above, it records clearly and cuts out a decent amount of background noise...though it will pickup some voices if they're a couple feet from ya, but aside from that, communication is great through that style of mic, and I wanted to keep it that way. Overall, this is the BEST gaming headset I've ever owned, it meets or beats the HPA2's in every aspect, from bass/mids/hi's to gaming, movies, you name it. I would definately recommend this to anyone that doesn't want to spend an arm and a leg on a gaming headset, even with the extra cable and mic I was under $50. But one word of caution, they don't sound too good from onboard unless it has a decent EQ...it'll need a healthy V shaped EQ at that. I am now currently running an Auzen X-Fi Forte that has an integrated heapdhone amp, which was a nice improvement over my X-Fi Xtreme Music, but even the old creative X-Fi trumped the onboard of my P5Q Deluxe AD2000 and GB P35-DS3L ALC885 onboard, no contest and it was VERY noticable. So having an add-in sound card is the way to go, and adding amplification be it a home reciever, headphone amp, amp/dac or sound card is greatly helpful and makes these headphones really shine.