New Headset and Soundcard

So things around here have been pretty quiet but thought I would toss out my new toys I picked up.

So I ordered a new pair of headphones....AKG Q701's and they are awesome!!!

I also ordered a new soundcard ASUS XONAR STX and OMFG!!!!!!! I jumped in to BF3 and Planetside 2 after I got everything installed and configured and it was like going from tin can and string to a perfectly tuned environment.

I could actually hear the precise direction of footsteps and gunfire. Before I could tell the general direction of sounds to my left or right, but behind was really just left or right....now I can tell almost exactly where a sound originated from.

I spent more money on my setup than I should have but I can't explain what a night and day difference it makes!

Sweet. After my Creative Labs card refused to work with Windows 7, I went to the default sound card on my mb. I did buy a creative labs fatality headset a year or so ago and I hate it. It's heavy and I can't hear anything going on outside of my headphones which is a bad thing with wife/kids/dogs/cat in residence. I have to have one side off so that I can make sure I hear goings on around the house during my gaming sessions.

Awesome...

I laugh - I literally have duct tape as a cable strain relief where the wire enters the HS body on a 2+ year old microsoft (office quality) headset and had to fuse the mic in to position with super glue to keep it in the talk zone its so worn out.

Which fits perfectly with my on motherboard audio chip set.

oh yah.... I do the right ear out side the ear cup also like Sarge to listen to the same.
We're leet

Sarge wrote:Sweet. After my Creative Labs card refused to work with Windows 7, I went to the default sound card on my mb. I did buy a creative labs fatality headset a year or so ago and I hate it. It's heavy and I can't hear anything going on outside of my headphones which is a bad thing with wife/kids/dogs/cat in residence. I have to have one side off so that I can make sure I hear goings on around the house during my gaming sessions.

Yeah, my Q701's are open air headphones so I still hear things outside of them. They aren't good for a LAN party setup, but for at home they are perfect so my wife doesn't scare the S@#$ out of me when she sneaks up behind me.

I was running onboard soundcard with Steelseries 5Hv2's and it got the job done very well, but I couldn't believe how much a difference the new setup made. I figured it would be a good step up but not as much as it actually did. Again, I paid an arm and a leg for them, but I figure they will hold up for a long time and follow me through a couple of gaming rig builds.

I bought a fatality pro sound card a few years back, with a nice headset (I am partial towards sennheiser, so I suspect that is what they are but I can't remember). I feel as though I get really good sound, I know when I jumped to this from a SB live, I felt a similar idfference as you describe. I do like music through this setup and I am a reformed audiophile.