Good Gaming Headphones?

[Primitus]

Hello Everyone,

I'm looking for a new pair of gaming headphones and sound card. I have a budget of about $300 for both the headphones and sound card. After several hours of researching I found out that a good pair of studio headphones with a clip-on mic and a decent sound card are far superior in sound quality than headsets labeled as "Gaming Headsets". I play mostly FPS games like CSS, CS:GO, and BF3 where positional audio is key. I also play games like Dota, Starcraft, and Borderlands. but in theses games sound is not as important (I usually just play music in the background while playing these games anyway). So what I'm looking for is a pair of headphones that have great positional audio, but can also be used for music/movies. The headphones that I've heard great reviews about are:

Ath-AD700
Beyerdynamic DT770 PRO
Sennheiser HD558
Sennheiser PC360

Out of these headphones the Sennheiser HD558 seems like the headphones that would best fit me based on other peoples reviews, but I also read that the Sennheiser PC360 have sound quality comparable to the HD558 despite being a headset. Can someone that's had both the PC360 and the HD558 comfirm?

For the Ath-AD700, I've heard that it's the best headphone for positional audio, but out of that it's not that great. The bass is next to none, so when listening to music the headphones sound unpleasing. I almost made my decision on these headphones, but the lack of bass make it only be useful when I'm playing FPS games. Is there a way to get more out of these headphones? The AD700 is ~$100, so is there something I could get with addition with headphones to get more bass out of them?

The Beyerdynamic DT770 PRO are on sale right now on amazon and heard they have pretty good positional audio. Some say the bass is over powering, and others say its just right. Are these good me?


I'm not sure on what sound card I should get so, could someone make a suggestion.

I'm completely open to suggestions, but would like to stay in the range of my $300 budget.



Thanks to everyone ahead of time

 

[migeo]

for the sound card, I would suggest the asus Xonar Essence STX. Tried it and it's awesome! I am actually searching for gaming headphones myself 😛

 

[luxology]

3D sound is pretty much determined by the soundcard, and the audio quality by the headphones. Since headphones are 2.0, you can't get better positional sound by buying better headphones.

Anyway, I know next to nil about soundcards, but as for good quality headphones you might want to check out Noise Cancelling headphones - I got an AKG recently, and I get a lot less distracted whilst gaming.

 

[Primitus]

I ended up buying a pair of Sennheiser 598 with a zalman clip-mic. I got Xonar DG, a cheap $30 sound card just for now. I'm happy with it, and don't have any complains yet.