£45/US$75/CA$80 Headphones and Microphone to replace headset

[jarthur36]

To be brief, I am searching for a pair of headphones and some kind of microphone for £45(approx conversions are in the title).
Desired Specification:
Headphones:

• Comfortable for long use
• Immersive experience
• Crisp sound
• Sturdy construction
• inconspicuous enough to be able to wear in public without being judged.

Microphone:

• Clear
• Not an inconvenience(Out of the way, not going to tangle me up if i want to move)
• No background noise

Usage:

• Skype
• Spotify(Music)
• Gaming

Background Essay(Probably not worth your time)
To get a hang of my past experience and what I might be looking for, here's a little bit of background for you(warning, bit of an essay)...
I have a PC at each of my parents' house.
After my last headset broke, I splashed out £70 on a Razer Kraken Pro headset which despite it's advertising as "The most comfortable headset ever", gave me bad ear fatigue after a couple hours of use, and although sound quality was better than anything i had head before(It was my first pair of headphones that didn't come free with an MP3 player), the mic quality was awefull picking up tonnes of background noise and buzz even from the supposedly high quality onboard sound card on my MSI Z87-G45. I think it is clear here that you play a premium for a large company to stick a mediocre mic onto the side of average headphones and stamp their logo on it.

At this house i have a £20 microsoft headset designed for skype (well MSN i guess but who even uses that). Although the onboard on this cheap asus motherboard isn't anything special, we've seen it doesn't make a whole world of difference. It's broken and beyond use.

I don't game hardcore, even if I somehow manage a 4 or 5 hour session on call of duty or something similar, I don't expect to be able to hear people footsteps. Saying that, I love to be immersed into games like Thief or Skyrim. I am almost always on skype talking with friends but that is the extent of my mic use, it doesn't have to be amazing quality and i don't care if it's attached to the headphones, on my desk or even clipped onto me (preferably not the last one) but aslong as my friends can hear me without making it any kind of inconvenience to be in a call with me when they are playing their own games. I also listen to music over spotify quite alot of the time.

If this turns out good then I will probably trade out the headsets so i can use the new setup on the better pc.

 

[Wraith]

I feel your pain. I too can't play games with out total sound immersion I'm currently playing Thief with my CM Storm Pulse R headset and other than the occational need to adjust my glasses as the cushions press the arms into my head (painful) it's just brilliant although these are slightly out of your £45 price range you could always take a look at their Ceres series headsets.

 

[jarthur36]

I feel your pain. I too can't play games with out total sound immersion I'm currently playing Thief with my CM Storm Pulse R headset and other than the occational need to adjust my glasses as the cushions press the arms into my head (painful) it's just brilliant although these are slightly out of your £45 price range you could always take a look at their Ceres series headsets.

Thanks, looks good but tbh I'm looking more to try to move away from prepackaged "Gaming Headsets". I've heard good things about the Pulse-R though.

 

[Feronix]

To be fair, you're not really going to get a proper combination of desktop mic + headphones for that money so sticking with headsets is really not that bad an idea IMO as even then you'll still be looking for a 'budget' one.

Other headsets that I could recommend would be the Steelseries Siberia V2:
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/audio/steelseries_siberia_v2/1

Or the Bitfenix Flo:
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/audio/bitfenix_flo_headset_review/1

The Flos also have a detachable mic so you can just use them as regular headphones in public and I personally think they look quite good.


If you really do want want to go for a mic + headphones combination I'd suggest having a look at the Logitech products. Their audio equipment is usually decent for the price and doesn't cost that much. You could easily pick up some £30 headphones and get a generic desktop mic for around 15 quid but quality-wise it won't be that much better than a decent headset.

 

[jarthur36]

To be fair, you're not really going to get a proper combination of desktop mic + headphones for that money so sticking with headsets is really not that bad an idea IMO as even then you'll still be looking for a 'budget' one.

Other headsets that I could recommend would be the Steelseries Siberia V2:
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/audio/steelseries_siberia_v2/1

Or the Bitfenix Flo:
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/audio/bitfenix_flo_headset_review/1

The Flos also have a detachable mic so you can just use them as regular headphones in public and I personally think they look quite good.


If you really do want want to go for a mic + headphones combination I'd suggest having a look at the Logitech products. Their audio equipment is usually decent for the price and doesn't cost that much. You could easily pick up some £30 headphones and get a generic desktop mic for around 15 quid but quality-wise it won't be that much better than a decent headset.

Thanks for your honest opinion. What if i said just scrap the mic. I actually have had really really good experience with the cheapest clip on mic i have over owned. Just headphones for £45, is that more achievable?

 

[notcool]

How about the Asus Cerbus for £46 - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-cerbus-gaming-headset Very similar design to the Siberia v2s with the headband, ear cups look nice and big too. Otherwise maybe look for some Sennheisers for sub £45.

 

[Feronix]

Sennheiser do make some good headphones, and most tech shops sell them so you can just go and have a listen. Sound is a personal thing after all.

Sony has some nice sets with decent sound too. Another brand worth checking out would be Philips, who make a lot of headphones for a lot of different price ranges.

If you want an accurate representation of the sound you have a look at budget 'studio' monitors. They are made to sound flat so that you can hear most tracks that are going on in a song (assuming the audio is coming from a proper source) although some people might say they miss bass.

The Audio Technica ATH-M30x or ATH-M40Fs are what I would recommend but they might be just a bit too expensive for you. In that case you can have a look at the ATH-M20x. These headphones do come with pretty long, non-detachable cables.

I'd advice against 'Designer' headphones. Most of costs of those comes from an expensive design, rather than good sound quality and most are on-ear which I personally find very uncomfortable.