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Sennheiser Exits Gaming Headphone Business
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this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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Gaming
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I'm amazed it took this long, honestly. These are like gaming chairs: overpriced configurations with a combination of features that result in lower quality/durability when put together. I switched to a separate desktop mic years ago (paired with a fantastic set of Sennheiser headphones, coincidentally) and haven't looked back.
I highly recommend a dedicated mic. The low-end options are very affordable and you'll still sound way better on Discord (or Zoom calls!) than you will on a gaming headset mic or a webcam mic.
There's plenty of ease of use with headphones though, I got a pair of sennheiser gaming headphones and flipping up to mute is convenient.
yeah tbh I don't think the comparison to gaming chairs is 100% there. Everyone can benefit from a better office chair, but most people can't perceive the audio difference between a gaming headset vs dedicated audiophile headphones + dedicated mic. While it may be true that it sounds better, it's just not worth the extra hassle for most people. I have a wireless Arctis headset and the ease of use is unreal.
Yeah. For a while I thought about upgrading to a desk mic and semi open headphones, but after looking at my desk, yeah, having a mic in front of me would be hella uncomfortable. Not to mention, I'd probably knock it over accidentally and fuck it up within a month.
Have you looked at boom arms? They reach up and over and won't get in the way of your hands/arms.
Hm, I hadn't thought of that possibility, honestly. I'll look into it, thanks!
I had a dedicated standing mic that had to be put almost behind my screen because of space. Due to this everyone always was able to hear my keyboard and mouse sounds. Got a gaming headset from Teufel Zola and people already mentioned i sound way better than before
I disagree, unless it's the modmic, there are enough people who either don't have the space nor want to spend the money to properly place the mic (ie as near their face as possible). I'd rather they use some mediocre headset mic then place something that'd be otherwise decent like a Samson Go on a tiny tripod on the table next to their gaming keyboard, 20-30 cm away from their mouth.
My snowball would like a word. If you could hear it. Over it picking up everything else in the room.
If I had a dollar for every time people recommended Blue mics while any dynamic mic would've been a better option, I'd be a rich man.
The problem with blue products, isn't the quality but rather it's the price, you can get so much more for the same amount of money as a snowball or yeti.
As for it being too sensitive, try turning it down andoving closer to it, or just using a noise gate, or even noise reduction (like rnnoise based or RTX voice). There are plenty of options for tuning a microphone for better quality. And you don't have to go for the manufacturers software.
Personally I have a Audio interface with an XLR AT2020, and my noise gate and compressor plugin chain running on Carla works fine for what I have on my Linux setup, but you don't even have to go that far. All you need is something like voicemod, voicemeeter, EasyEffects or noisetorch or other standalone setups.
I'm just using pulse effects for gates and compressors.
I was more talking about it's not a directional mic and sound from behind it is no different to the mic as sound in front of it really. So it just picks everything up.
Ahh, a noise reduction setup like rnnoise (noisetorch) might actually help you with that - you can use it to replace the noisegate, as it has voice activation detection which works like a noisegate
It's not a big deal really. I do like the mic because I paid next to nothing for it. (Yay, cheap marketplace shit.) Besides, I rarely use it.
That and I've had to switch over to flatpak pulse effects which refuses to see the mic and allow me to add effects. (The flatpak version of pulse effects didn't even fix the problem I had anyways.)
If you are willing to switch to Pipewire, try EasyEffects, it might work better as it's based off of pulse effects, but for Pipewire, it's actually developed by the original Devs of pulse effects - in fact the original pulse effects repo is now the easy effects repo, the old pulse effects hasn't actually been updated for an entire year now, so you might notice it working less and less well.
To me, Pipewire is the best option for audio on Linux at the moment, it combines the power and low latency of JACK with the ease of use, and multiple device capability of PulseAudio, it really is a great project and is pretty much rock solid at this point in time. It might also fix your issues with pulseeffects/EasyEffects not recognising your microphone.
Honestly, I still don't use flatpaks for specific things - namely OBS, as I have a Blackmagic capture card, and the flatpak version of OBS won't support it due to how the BMD driver is required to be installed. Sure it's good for a lot of things, but sometimes the other options are better for your purposes. I still use the AUR Tytan652 version.
There's a case for low latency wireless headphones, and it's pretty gaming specific. But yeah, they don't need the branding or any of that.
I'd still like to move to a dedicated condenser on a boom, but at least for the time being, the PC37X I bought off of Drop like 6 years ago still sounds great to both my ears & the other members in VC. Granted, the unit is starting to fall apart now (volume-dial adhesive failed, raise-to-mute works about 50% of the time, etc), so I need to replace it anyway...