Should I buy it? 5 members have voted

[Th3-Sn4k3]

I need a new headset because me old one died

I'm planning to buy a Steel Series 5H V2.

So What do you think??

 

And what are the pros and cons?

 

Edit: Whoops small typo in the title

[trakaill]

never tried it..but heard good thing..

Sennheiser HD555 with Zalman mic is a good combo though

[Lucid]

That's a really good headset for $80.

 

I have a $45 Logitech one, but after a while it starts to hurt my ears. My friend has the same headset your thinking about getting, and he says the sound is impressive for a PC headset., and he can wear it for hours on end without it starting to hurt his ears.

 

Here are some reviews if your interested.

 

http://www.steelseries.com/int/products/audio/5hv2/reviews

[Th3-Sn4k3]

Does someone know if it''s durable?

[Shadowex3]

They don't tell you the THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) which throws up an immediate red flag, and in my experience any headphone claiming to either alter the sound or be a "gaming" headphone usually means Very Bad Things.

 

Generally when headphones are built for gaming or designed to alter sound for it what that means is that it's designed like a bose, as in "No Highs, no Lows, it must be a Bose". Big boomy midrange bass may make gunshots and footsteps stick out compared to other sounds, but at the cost of a lot of noise and loss of audio quality as well as being useless for listening to music or really anything else. Your brain is hardwired to interpret sounds, you want a headphone to do as little alteration to the sounds as possible both for clarity and for less ear fatigue. Listening to all that THOOMBOOMBOOM in the mids with the highs and lows clipped off will very quickly wear your ears out, that's why I suggest to everyone using headphones to play with "snd_digital_surround" set to "1" rather than the default of "0" and in 5.1 mode. Especially if they have a CMSS3D compatible soundcard.

 

On top of that for the price of those things you could easily get a nice set of Audio Technica's or Sennheiser HD555's which are absolutely known to be pretty much the most popular gaming headphones among anyone who isn't getting paid to use them. The fact that Steel Series always hides their THD levels while everyone worth anything (Sennheiser, audio technica, etc) brags about how low theirs is should tell you something about the "quality" of Steel's products.

 

 

 

P.s. get an audio-jack headphone and not a USB one. Better quality sound AND it'll work with ANY soundcard you get by default.

[trakaill]

that's why I suggest to everyone using headphones to play with "snd_digital_surround" set to "1" rather than the default of "0" and in 5.1 mode. Especially if they have a CMSS3D compatible soundcard.

.

 

Question?!! What are you supposed to set to 5.1??

[ONeill]

I would stay away from Logitech. I think I'm on my fifth headset.

[Shadowex3]

Question?!! What are you supposed to set to 5.1??

 

Speaker settings in the options menu ingame.

 

It's kinda complicated and for the most part requires an X-fi soundcard. Basically though if windows and CS thing you're using 5.1 surround sound (has to be windows too, Source is wierd like that) you can divorce your X-fi from those two settings by unclicking the "sync with control panel" thing and set the X-fi settings to headphones and CMSS3d and get pretty much perfect headphone audio.

 

But in order for CS to not sound like ass you need to set snd_Digital_surround to 1 and i don't know if it works with any other settings because I haven't tried. It's not a subtle thing, if it does actually work you WILL notice the difference, sound goes from being kinda muddy and dull sounding to a lot crisper and clearer. It's like how things sound kinda faint and blah when you have your headphones not plugged in all the way but enough that they still put out whatever sounds are playing compared to having it plugged in right.

[Red]

DO NOT BUY!!!!

I've broken THREE Pairs of this headset.

 

I finally went with Sennheiser HD555s and a separate cheap Logitech desk mic. Sound is SOOOOOOO much better, and the mic is a lot better too.

 

Yes it's about 40 bucks more total, but it's MUCH more durable and sounds A LOT better. Plus it's cheaper than going through multiple headsets lol.

 

Headset:

http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD555-HD-555-Audiophile-Headphones/dp/B0001FTVDQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1254491212&sr=1-1

 

Here's the mic:

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Desktop-Microphone-Black-Silver/dp/B00009EHJV/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1254491145&sr=1-1

 

It's 20 bucks and it's really good, even with it like 3 feet from me it works great. The steelseries mic is too quiet.

[Th3-Sn4k3]

DO NOT BUY!!!!

I've broken THREE Pairs of this headset.

 

I finally went with Sennheiser HD555s and a separate cheap Logitech desk mic. Sound is SOOOOOOO much better, and the mic is a lot better too.

 

Yes it's about 40 bucks more total, but it's MUCH more durable and sounds A LOT better. Plus it's cheaper than going through multiple headsets lol.

 

Headset:

http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD555-HD-555-Audiophile-Headphones/dp/B0001FTVDQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1254491212&sr=1-1

 

Here's the mic:

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Desktop-Microphone-Black-Silver/dp/B00009EHJV/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1254491145&sr=1-1

 

It's 20 bucks and it's really good, even with it like 3 feet from me it works great. The steelseries mic is too quiet.

 

Are the cables durable? (HD555)

 

My last headset Cheap-O- Logitech mic died cuz the cable failed >

It would only work if I bend the cable end near the headset (160 degrees up).

after a few days it died.......