Epos Winds Down Former Sennheiser Gaming Headphone Business
www.anandtech.com

Technically the successor owner of the gaming brand.

Epos has announced that it will be exiting the gaming headphone business and will instead focus on enterprise communications products. The company’s gaming products…

  • @[email protected]
    75•1 year ago

    I never understand why we need gaming headphones when normal headphones already do the job well.

    • Cylusthevirus
      38•1 year ago

      It’s mostly marketing and a built in mic. Ever since I got a mic on an arm and good headphones though, that’s all I want to use.

      • doom_and_gloom
        9•1 year ago

        Everything for gamers is mostly marketing…

        The biggest value headsets provide is that the customer doesn’t need to learn anything about audio products - a mediocre but complete product will sell better than cheaper and superior setup that has to be spec’d out by the customer. When you leave it to the customer they will often buy a $500+ studio condenser mic and complain that it sounds like crap because it catches room noise. You sell them a $2 hypercardioid pattern dynamic mic for $50, and they call you a hero.

      • OctoFloofy
        2•1 year ago

        I personally just got a gaming headset for the first time. Before i had a cheap stand mic which due to space i had to place almost behind my screen. It picked up every little sound in the room. Keyboard typing sounds and mouse clicking were hearable a lot. Now with a mic actually on my headphones that issue doesnt exist anymore and people already mentioned that i sound way better. As for mics on an arm, do they need a lot of space?

        • Cylusthevirus
          3•1 year ago

          They just clamp on the edge of your desk and you move them out of the way.

          • OctoFloofy
            1•1 year ago

            ah ok thanks! maybe will consider that for the future, now i got a headset already which is fine.

    • @Tibert
      12•1 year ago

      Because “gaming” headphones often aren’t “just” headphones. They are headsets with a built-in boom mic

      And a boom-mic is often way better than a crap wire mic or bluetooth headphone non boom mic.

      There are still the trash ones, but there are also very good ones.

      And a built-in mic is extremely useful on multiple situations : console gaming, tight space gaming (no place for a mic), or when there is only a single port on a device (tho a splitter, or hub could be used for a jack port or usb). There is also the convenience of just having a mic.

      The issue now with all these headsets being “gaming”, is because of the marketing.

      Some headphones brands have put mics on theirs, to make them headsets :

      Beyerdynamic with the mx300 : the tight clamp makes it a bit of a no go for me. The mic is as just between ok and great. The voice is full, but there is a lot of noise in there from the reviews I saw.

      Audio technica : they have multiple of them. Latest one the ath-m50xsts. It looks like a circum aural headset, but is not. It’s a on ear headset with ear isolation like a circum aural. Which is pretty bad for me. Tho the mic is the best I’ve ever heard on a headset.

      They are both wired only.

      And other brands not marketing as “gaming” headsets are either extremely expensive with strange mics, or have most of their production budget into audio and they pair the headphone with a trash mic to make it a headset.

      In gaming headset brands, there are multiple ones providing software, mic, and wireless features enhancing the experience of the user. For example low latency high bandwidth wireless (proprietary, wifi-like 2.4ghz) connexions only exist in gaming branded headphones/sets. (high bandwidth = higher than bluetooth for the same latency).

      • Shurimal
        6•1 year ago

        I’d take a proper lavalier mic with proper studio headphones over an unwieldy and crappy gaming headset with boom mic any day.

        Or better yet, a proper THX reference level capable surround sound system and tactile transducers over any headphones.

          • @[email protected]
            2•1 year ago

            But that combination costs around 230 Swiss Franks versus 75 Swiss Franks for a Hyperx Cloud Alpha.

        • @Tibert
          5•1 year ago

          Sure with the budget, space, and maybe even enough noise isolation or when you can get open headphones…

          But how much would a good enough studio headphone cost? Because from what I understand from studio headphones it’s perfectly calibrated headphones?

          Now image your someone without the proper budget to get 1k$ headphones, and no space for open sound. what would you buy?

          Maybe beyerdynamic? But for me the clamp force is too high.

          Akg? They are cheap, but damn it was impossible for me to wear the akg371 as they were too shallow and had no protection for the driver plastic, and the way they were build made sure I had holes for the sound to get out…

          Sadly audio is very subjective, on comfort, space, and sound.

          • Shurimal
            3•1 year ago

            Good studio headphones are around 200€ and you can get decent ones for 100…150€. And generally they are closed back, not open headphones.

    • shadowbert
      10•1 year ago

      RGB!!

      More seriously, “gaming headphones” are almost always actually “gaming headsets”, ie they have a mic. Good music headphones without a mic don’t fulfil the requirements of quite a lot of gamers, and normal headsets are usually calibrated for voice and not immersiveness in games.