I made the mistake of believing some dumb guide online that recommended the Razer BlackShark v2 Pro for Linux. Literally the volume control is broken out of the box lol.
I just want a wireless headset. For listening to audio. And a mic. Don’t care for fancy features. Apparently too much to ask for a linux user.
What are y’all using and how is it working for you?
Are you just looking for headphones, or do you need a mic on it, too? Because you get get away with a pair of sony mdr-7506’s and a modmic for that. I generally think a boom arm and a real mic is better than 2-in-1 headsets in a lot of cases, but I also recognize the utility that committing to a microphone attached brings to the table. Those headphones are 80-90 bucks msrp, but everything’s been going up in price so ymmv. And if you attach a modmic to them, your options, value, and repairability open way up. Those headphones are great all rounders and punch way above their weight, don’t require an amp to get 90% of the oomph from them, but still have options later down the line if you so choose. And they’re closed back.
IF you want open back, buy a pair of massdrop 6xx for 200$. Those have even higher value:price ratio. But those generally do require an amp to open up. Not a great amp, but an extra 200$ to step into a schiit stack would be minimum imo. I’ve bought too many little dac+amp combos and I just don’t like them; the initial value is by far higher, but there’s no upgrade path, they’re usually shitty and don’t have the wattage to drive authoritatively, and are aimed at basically kids and are questionably robust at best. Keep in mind, this option is both more expensive and doesn’t net you a mic - but, it is a proper path if you want great quality stuff that you won’t buy and soon after consider regretting. The sony mdr 7506 is great, but it is a cheap pair of headphones.
Friendly neighbor headphones that you might want to take a look at are the audio technica m40x. I don’t like beyerdynamic because they have pretty high distortion. Counter strike players like them because they’re bright as shit to hear footsteps, but I got that you like listening to music more and play rpgs; Deadlock is still too much of a wildcard at this point.
Also, Stray was really good but relatively short with basically no replayability.
Thanks for the detailed answer ! I think close back would be better to block the surrounding noise. I’ll take a look at your suggestions, and I understand the need of an extra amp, but that might be over budget. Thanks again for your answer, it helps me choose
I own several pairs of much nicer headphones and have used many different headphones and amps for all kinds of different purposes and genres and sources of music and audio and stuff. I daily drive those sony’s (with software eq) directly out from my interface headphone monitor out, and it’s more than fine. I really like the audeze tech and what they output, but for whatever reason, these relatively cheaper 7506’s just… They hit that midground for me where I have zero guilt using them and leaving them out and all that, and also like the sound signature. Nothing about them is perfect and nothing about them is deeply flawed. Honestly, the closest things I can come up with to be serious flaws are that their earcups aren’t very big or deep, and that they have about an inch of (tiny) very exposed wires on either side that run from the band to the actual earcup, but somehow they never seem to fail.
I use SoundID Reference (software eq program in Windows) to eq them, but you can easily use an oratory1990 eq preset https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory1990/ on whatever eq might be available on Linux. EQ isn’t perfect and doesn’t really solve problems, but it can make appreciable and remarkable differences.
Actually, and this question is to anybody who might know: is there a good Equalizer APO equivalent (with a good gui) on Linux?