Audiophile headphones vs gaming headsets, honestly
Here's the dirty little secret of the gaming aisle. Most gaming-branded headsets don't do the gaming part any better than a regular or audiophile pair at the same price, and on the stuff that really counts a good open-back often beats them hands down. Knowing why keeps you from paying more for less.
The marketing leans on four things. RGB lighting looks fun and does precisely nothing for your aim. "7.1 virtual surround" is nearly always software faking a ring of speakers out of a stereo signal, and depending on the game, the setup and your own ears it lands anywhere from handy to worse than plain stereo (more on that further down). "Gaming-tuned" sound usually means pumped-up bass for the explosions and a scooped-out midrange, which buries the little cues you're listening for. And the built-in mics are handy but mostly so-so, picking up a lot of the room along with your voice.
What gaming really asks for is a different list. Imaging comes first, meaning you can tell exactly where a footstep or a shot came from, and that's a stereo problem good open-back drivers solve better than any surround processing. A wide soundstage helps the picture spill outside your head (the HD 560S, the HD 800 S and HIFIMAN's open planars all have a name for it). You want detail at low volume, so a quiet footstep isn't buried under the ambient wash, and comfort for hours on end, which plenty of gaming headsets fumble with heavy frames and pleather that turns sweaty fast. Last on the list is a mic your teammates can hear over your air conditioner.
That's why I think a good open-back with a clip-on boom mic is the best-kept secret in gaming audio. You get a better headphone and usually a better mic than a $200 to $300 headset, often for less money. Mind you, it's two boxes instead of one, and that won't suit everybody.
What actually matters when you pick a pair
Whether you go the open-back route or buy a proper headset, these are the bits that change how a game sounds and feels.
Open-back or closed-back is the first fork in the road. In a room of your own, open-back wins nearly every time, with a wider stage, more believable positioning and cooler ears on a long night. Go closed if you share the room and can't have sound leaking out, or if the TV, the roommate or the dog would otherwise end up in your headphones. My open-back headphone picks dig deeper into that side of things.
Stereo imaging is how precisely you can pin a sound in space, and honestly an hour of play tells you more than any spec sheet. I'd start with Sennheiser's HD 560S or HD 600 or one of Beyerdynamic's studio pairs, which all have years of reviews behind them.
Tuning matters more than people think. You want something near neutral with clean upper mids, roughly 1 to 5 kHz, where footsteps, gunshots and dialogue live. A V-shaped tune with booming bass and sizzly treble scoops that range right out, so a plain studio pair like the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro or the Audio-Technica M50x can outdo a gaming headset that costs more.
Connections are where PC and console part ways. On a PC nearly any wired headphone plugs into the motherboard jack or a little USB DAC, and the PS5 and Xbox controllers both have a 3.5 mm jack, but each console has its own rules for wireless and USB gear. Proper wireless headsets run their own 2.4 GHz dongle, which is quick. Bluetooth is the slowpoke of the bunch, fine for a podcast and a liability in a firefight, and I went through the reasons in my piece on how Bluetooth codecs differ.
For the mic, look for a cardioid or supercardioid pickup that grabs your voice and ignores the rest of the room. Lots of built-in headset mics hear everything. The ModMic USB 2 puts a cardioid capsule on a magnetic clip that sticks to almost any headphone. If you stream seriously, a desk mic like the Shure MV7 or the Elgato Wave 3 is the next step up.
Then there's drive. Motherboards, controllers and cheap dongles don't have a lot of muscle. The HD 560S at 120 ohms is easy enough off a controller jack or a budget USB DAC and the 80-ohm DT 770 Pro is easier still, but a 300-ohm HD 600 really wants an amp. My explainer on impedance and sensitivity has the long version.
The open-back plus ModMic route
If you play on a PC (or a PS5, there's more on consoles below) and don't mind a slightly unusual setup, this is the cheapest way I know to get really good gaming sound. You buy a proper headphone and clip a boom mic onto it, and at today's Amazon prices the sums look something like this.
The Sennheiser HD 560S at about $180 plus a ModMic USB 2 at about $100 comes to roughly $280, and that's my pick for most people. Swap in the closed-back Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro at about $200 and you're near $300 with isolation thrown in. HIFIMAN's open planar Edition XS runs about $209 on its own, so call it $310 with the mic, though at 405 grams it's a heavy one. Go up to the Sennheiser HD 600 at about $280 and you're near $380, and that pair wants an amp.
Here's what you give up. It's two purchases instead of one, there's no gaming badge on the box and you lose headset tricks like virtual surround (which I don't miss). One more catch with any open-back is that a sensitive mic can hear game audio leaking out of the cups when the volume's way up, so keep it sane. In return you get better sound, a mic that holds its own against built-in booms, parts you can upgrade one at a time and a pair you'll happily use for music and movies on the nights you're not gaming.
Antlion, the outfit behind the ModMic, is a small Portland, Oregon company that's been making clip-on boom mics since around 2011. The USB 2 is the one I'd get. It has a cardioid capsule, an in-line mute and a USB-C adapter in the box, and it works on PC, Mac and PS5. The ModMic Wireless (about $137 on Amazon) cuts the cord, but Antlion lists about 34 ms of delay on it, and neither one works on an Xbox, which will be a deal-breaker for some of you.
My six gaming picks
Sennheiser HD 560S
A real open-back for less than most fancy headsets, with a clip-on mic doing the talking
The HD 560S is an open-back with a fairly neutral tune and angled 38 mm drivers, and that combo paints a wider, more natural picture of where the footsteps and shots are coming from than most closed gaming headsets can. At 120 ohms it runs fine off a controller jack or a cheap USB DAC, and 240 grams is easy to live with at 2 a.m. Clip an Antlion ModMic USB 2 on the side and your squad will hear you better than they would through most headset booms. Amazon has it for about $180 right now, and it's dipped to $140 or $150 a few times this year, so a sale is worth waiting for. Now the downsides. Open-back means zero isolation and sound leaks out both ways, and the whole kit runs about $280, more than a Cloud III or a Nova 7 Gen 2.
Audeze Maxwell 2
Big planar sound and a top-notch mic, as long as your neck's up to it
RTINGS calls the Maxwell 2 the best gaming headset it's tested and makes it the top pick for both PS5 and Xbox. It measured about 10 ms of delay wired, called the 2.4 GHz dongle's latency impressively low, raved about how the mic handles background noise and got roughly 77 hours out of the battery. SoundGuys gave it a 7.7, didn't notice any lag over the dongle or Bluetooth and scored the sound from those 90 mm planar drivers highly. The $329 version covers PC and PlayStation, and the $349 Xbox one also works on a PS5. So what's the catch? Weight, mostly. SoundGuys lists it at 567 grams, the pleather pads run warm on a long night and it barely blocks outside noise. There's no ANC unless you pay $429 or more for the separate Maxwell 2 ANC, and SoundGuys found the mic a bit quiet and muffled, so the big testers don't fully agree there.
Photo: SteelSeries press image
SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 Wireless Gen 2
The comfy all-rounder that hears your game and your phone at once
SteelSeries kept the Nova line's comfort and added a trick I really like, the 2.4 GHz dongle and Bluetooth running at the same time, so a phone call can come through while the game keeps going. PCWorld gave it an Editors' Choice, weighed it at about 325 grams, got close to a week of 6-to-8-hour days per charge (it's rated at 54 hours on the dongle) and said the 2.4 GHz link had virtually no latency. It's about $185 on Amazon against a $200 list, which is well over $100 less than the Maxwell 2. The mic is the weak link. PCWorld called it nasal, and you have to pull it out to use it and can't take it off. Bluetooth is SBC-only and laggy, the dongle's chunky enough to block the port next door, and Xbox owners need the separate 7X Gen 2.
Still can't pick one?
Tell the matcher what you play on and what you'd like to spend, and it'll trim the list down for you.
Try the matcher →Razer BlackShark V3 Pro
Built for shooters, with the noise cancelling most rivals skip
Razer rates its HyperSpeed Gen-2 dongle as fast as 10 ms, SoundGuys calls the latency best in class, and RTINGS says it's outstandingly low wired and low over the dongle. It's also got hybrid ANC that knocked out 77% of outside noise on average in SoundGuys' measurements, which comes in handy with a roaring PC fan or a busy house. RTINGS likes how the mic handles noise and lists almost 70 hours of battery. Amazon has it at $250, but Razer's own store had the PC version at $210 on October 29, so shop around. The reviewers split on that mic, though. SoundGuys found it muffled out of the box until you EQ it in Razer's Synapse app and heard treble peaks between 3 and 6 kHz that make the esses spit. Battery also drops to about 48 hours on PlayStation or Xbox.
HyperX Cloud III (wired)
The cheap and cheerful wired headset that plugs into everything
The wired Cloud III is still the cheap pick to beat, and HyperX (owned by HP these days) didn't cut many corners on it. You get 53 mm angled drivers, a detachable 10 mm mic and 3.5 mm, USB-C and USB-A connections, so it works on PC, PS5, Xbox and Switch with no wireless lag at all. Tom's Hardware calls it its favorite budget headset, RTINGS rates the mic very good, and the Reddit chatter RedditRecs keeps tabs on runs about 82% positive. Amazon has the black-and-red version at about $58 right now. The price jumps around a lot by color, so don't pay anything near the $100 list. There's no Bluetooth or ANC, and as a closed headset its imaging is narrower than an open-back wearing a ModMic.
Photo: MMuzammils, CC BY-SA 3.0
Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro (80 ohm)
The studio workhorse, with a ModMic for when you share the room
I'll admit to a soft spot here. The DT 770 Pro is part of my own working kit, and RTINGS calls it an industry standard you'll find in recording studios all over the world. It's built to last, with replaceable velour pads and a metal yoke, and at 80 ohms it's easy to drive. The closed cups keep game audio out of a clip-on mic and keep the room out of your ears, so for streamers and shared rooms I'd take it over the open HD 560S. B&H, Vintage King and Amazon all list it at about $200, and third-party sellers have had it closer to $155. Add a ModMic USB 2 and you're near $300 all in. The downsides are a fixed coiled cable that's long for a couch setup, treble that leans bright and closed cups that get warm over a long session.
Which one fits how you play?
Still stuck between two? Find the line that sounds the most like you.
What virtual surround really does
Headset boxes love to shout about 7.1 virtual surround. The truth is a good deal muddier than the box lets on, and once you know what's under the hood you can quit paying extra for it.
Virtual surround runs your game audio through an HRTF, short for head-related transfer function, which is basically a model of how sound bends around a head and a pair of ears on its way in. When it's done well, a grenade can seem to land right behind your chair. When it's done badly it smears things and adds odd artifacts that make the game harder to read.
The trouble is those models are built around an average head, and nobody's got an average head. The closer the model is to your own ears the better it works, and the further off it is the worse it gets, which is why some players swear by it and others can't stand it. For competitive play I'd switch it off and see how plain stereo through a good open-back treats you before deciding.
Some headsets brag about "true 7.1" done in hardware. Mostly that's the same HRTF trick running on a chip in place of software. Real surround needs real speakers around the room, and you can't cram those into a pair of ear cups, whatever the box says.
A few games do their own 3D audio and do it well. Counter-Strike 2 runs Valve's Steam Audio processing all the time with no switch to turn it off, and it's meant for headphones, so a clean stereo pair is exactly what it wants. On a PS5, Sony's Tempest 3D Audio works with ordinary wired headphones plugged into the DualSense controller. Either way I'd turn off any surround mode on the headset itself, so you're not stacking one effect on top of another.
For most games most of the time, good stereo through a wide open-back gets the job done better, and that's the whole case for the HD 560S-and-ModMic setup at the top of my list. It doesn't hang on whether some algorithm happens to match your ears.
Gaming headphone questions people ask
Do I really need a gaming headset to play games?
No. Gaming is a huge market and the label sells, but your ears don't need anything a good general pair can't give them. For competitive play an open-back often beats a headset at the same price, and the headset's real edge is convenience, one box with the mic already attached.
Is 7.1 virtual surround worth paying for?
For most people, no. It runs on head models built for an average listener, and the further your ears are from average the worse it sounds. A few games do 3D audio really well on their own, but I'd never pay a cent extra for a 7.1 sticker.
Do I need a DAC or amp for gaming headphones?
For anything on this page, no. The HD 560S at 120 ohms, the 80-ohm DT 770 Pro and every headset here run fine off a motherboard, a controller or a cheap USB DAC. It's the high-impedance stuff, like the 300-ohm Sennheiser HD 600 and HD 650 or the 250-ohm version of the DT 770 Pro, that wants a proper amp, and for gaming I'd stick with pairs that don't need one.
What works on a PS5 or an Xbox?
Both controllers have a 3.5 mm jack, so any wired headphone will carry game sound. Wireless is pickier, and you need a headset made for that console, like the $349 Xbox version of the Maxwell 2 (which works on a PlayStation too) or SteelSeries' Arctis Nova 7X Gen 2. Voice chat is where Xbox gets awkward for the ModMic route, because neither the ModMic USB 2 nor the ModMic Wireless works on it. On a PS5 the USB 2 plugs right in.
Is wireless worth the extra money for gaming?
Depends where you sit. At a PC desk where the cable doesn't bug you, wired gets you better sound for less. On the couch, in a shared space or anywhere a cable gets underfoot, a wireless headset earns its keep. Just make sure it runs on a 2.4 GHz dongle, which is a different animal from Bluetooth and doesn't have Bluetooth's lag.
Which mic is best for streaming versus voice chat?
For chatting with your team, a decent boom like the ModMic USB 2 or a good headset mic is plenty. Streaming is another story, and a USB desk mic like the Shure MV7, the Elgato Wave 3 or the HyperX QuadCast S will sound a whole lot better. If you're heading that way, my picks for podcasters and streamers cover the headphone side of that setup.
How much should I spend on gaming headphones?
For most players I'd say $200 to $300 all in, mic included, is where the returns start to flatten out. The HD 560S and ModMic at around $280 is hard to beat by throwing more money at it. Past about $400 you're paying for polish that music lovers will notice a lot more than gamers will, and the Cloud III at about $58 makes a perfectly sensible floor.
My bottom line
On a PC or a PS5 I'd pair the Sennheiser HD 560S with an Antlion ModMic USB 2 for about $280 all in, and if you share the room, swap the Sennheiser for the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro. If you'd sooner buy one box, the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 Gen 2 is the sensible wireless buy at about $185, and the Audeze Maxwell 2 is the best one going at $329 if your neck can handle 567 grams. For about $58 the HyperX Cloud III has the budget end covered.
Whatever you get, don't pay extra for the gaming badge. RGB won't win you a single round, and the footsteps you're straining to hear sit right in that 1 to 5 kHz stretch a bass-heavy gaming tune loves to bury.