Looking to upgrade from my Sony MDR-7506 headphones. What's a good, incremental step up...

Looking to upgrade from my Sony MDR-7506 headphones. What's a good, incremental step up? And what about home-use or portable DACs?

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DACs are one of the least important part of your system. Motherboard DACs are good enough

stax

I had MDR V6s for many years. I had the same urge to upgrade, I knew there had to be something better out there. I tried DT-770s, a couple of Audio-Technicas and the NAD HP 50s, and I bought an amp and a couple of DACs. At the end I went back to the Sonys because nothing could match them for comfort and convenience. The incremental improvement in sound quality is barely noticeable. When you have to live with headphones for hours at a time, practicality and comfort trump everything else.

For the record I never could hear a difference between onboard audio and standalone DACs either. I think any perceived difference is volume difference, not sound quality these days.

Speaking of comfort, have you tried the velour earpads? Are they worth it?

Honestly? Sony MDRs of several varieties are more than enough for playing >videogames

If you wanna step up and are shitting money, i'd go for some top-of-the-line sennheisers.

I'm quite happy with my MDR100 cuz they're solid and functional

DACs are entirely dependent on both the bitrate of the audio and the impedance of your headphones. Most music nowadays caps out at about 24-bits, and they generally have a clearer soundstage than otherwise. With the rise of streamable audio, however, most artists will just cap out at 320kbps. There's supposedly a new streamable audio format that should offer more clarity, but I'm not sure where or if it's been adopted yet. I'm not sure that extent video games are tuned, though (as much as they try to acclimate all users).

If you can find them the denon d5000/d7000 are the best semiclosed you can do, the mrspeakers ether closed are the top you could realistically do without blowing over 2/3 grand.

Otherwise the stax sr-007a is a more refined version of the denon but just better.

But in ranking the mdr-v6/7506 aren't really bested by any other dynamic headphone. The sub-bass, the tonality, the accuracy and the fact that they are closed are all things you lose with sennheiser, beyerdynamic, audeze, philips, etc.

The only other series of headphones that I haven't heard are the stuff from fostex but they made the drivers for the denons so you might have luck there. Otherwise it's really just stax for the fact that they outclass every dynamic and garbage shit heaps imitators like hifiman and their ilk. Planars are a joke.

There is no upgrade.

only if you buy a board with isolated sound chipset and not a shit ton of skittles lights

DACs are incredibly important. Get a topping D10 or Grace Sdac. Then run that to the amp of your choice. I have the THX amp from massdrop. Amazing.

Velours are a nice upgrade and they are comfortable but if the pleather isn't gone on them yet keep using them as is.

And before I forget if you hear people on /g/ that used to shill the at-m50 they say that the v6 are garbage but in reality they're both pretty much from the same cloth. Both are excellent at what they do but neither one does anything better than the other.

Got a set of Shure SRH440s and they're pretty nice. Sit tightly on the head which took some getting used to over my old worn out Sonys

Just don't buy anything schitt and you'll be fine. They make subpar shit and you'll be wondering if you could have done better with your choice in life.

Really any usb dac will do just fine, even the 10 dollar shit if you need something not from your motherboard, otherwise . If you go with a DAC then might as well go for an amp: the atom amp, the o2 (diy or prebuilt), fiio E10K should do you just fine.

I know gaming headsets are a huge no-go on Yea Forums, but given how Hyperx Cloud 2's are typically recommended for those on a budget, are the Arctis Pros any good?

Not him but I have the brainwavz pleather pads on my V6s and like them a lot. I thought about the velour ones instead but was worried they'd be hot in the summer and would get gross pretty quickly.

they don't get too hot but they do get gross

What's a good USB tabletop microphone, Yea Forums? Or should I just get an inline mic?

this. these headphones are used in most sound production due to their neutral spectrum. if you want to hear a sound the way the artist intended, there's really no substitute

they are monitors, you don't use monitors for pure neutrality and no professional does production with live monitors in mind. if you wanted the "intended sound" then you should be buying whatever $10 shit you can find at a local store and whatever came with your phone because that's what they were assuming you were going to listen with

I don't like them, too tinny sounding and harder to find the right volume than a comfortable temperature of water in the shower. but mine still work so I keep them around as a back-up pair. I'm an AKG fanboy.

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>You don't buy monitors for pure neutrality

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you don't and you clearly don't know what a monitor is used for or do you really think a bassist wouldn't want a monitor that puts higher emphasis on the low end so they can monitor (haha get it now?) what they're playing better?

i have these but the cups hurt my ears