CMBN with headphones

[Bradley]

I play exclusively on a laptop where the sound is quite adequate, ignorance somewhat bliss I'm guessing. Anyone here use headphones and how much does it enhance CMBN? Do you use your phones most of the time?

Discovered Turtle Beach line and was considering it. Guess I'm trying to avoid dropping a 100+ on something that will be gathering dust 2 weeks time.

[womble]

I use 'phones all the time; kinda necessary when sharing 'puter space with the better half. Can't say how it's better than speakers though, as I've nothing to compare it with.

[YankeeDog]

I use headphones all the time to avoid disturbing the missus while I play; the computer is close to the bedroom and our work schedules are fairly different so I'm often playing after she has gone to bed. I'd guess the experience will depend largely on the quality of headphones you buy. My headphones are decent, but not a high-end "audiophile" model. The audio experience I get with them is as good or better than through a decent pair of desktop speakers, and I'd wager good headphones will give you a fair improvement over built-in laptop speakers.

But headphones certainly can't compare to when I am playing with the audio coming through a true speaker system with a large subwoofer -- this is the only way to get those deep bass explosion sounds which you feel more than hear. You'll never get this kind of audio experience through headphones, no matter how much you spend.

Another thought: In addition to sound quality, comfort of fit matters a lot with headphones. I had a different set prior to the ones I own now, that I think actually had slightly better sound quality. But they were uncomfortable to wear for more than about 20 minutes, so I ditched them.

[Doug Williams]

Yes. Like YankeeDog, I use headphones whenever the wife is home.

One of my pet peeves is cheap headphones, so I bought a set of audio-technica ATH-M50s. I love them.

http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headphones/0edf909675b1be4d/index.html

[agusto]

i sometimes use my speelink medusa 5.1 headset that i still have from good old counterstrike times. sounds great, when you turn the volume up it really feels like the grenades would be detonating right next to you in your room.

[sburke]

Always play with my Bose headsets. Hard to consider playing w/o now. Not just because of sharing space but the overall sound experience is so much better.

[Vanir Ausf B]

You can "sound whore" the positions of unseen enemy units pretty easily with headphones. Cheesy, but that's the way the game works.

[Michael Emrys]

I use headphones all the time so that I don't bring down my neighbors' wrath. I have a pair of Sony MDR-V600 that are at least 20 years old, so no longer top of the line, but still more than adequate and comfortable to wear. What YD says about comfort I would endorse five times over. One of the things I love about the Sonys is that the pads fit around the ear and rest against my skull instead of my ears. This is really important. I also have a set of Grado 'phones that have marginally better sound, but I can't stand to wear them more than a half hour at a time because they make my ears hurt.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

You can "sound whore" the positions of unseen enemy units pretty easily with headphones. Cheesy, but that's the way the game works.

This doesn't seem to work quite as well in v2 as it did in v1. I used to use that trick to try to work out the approximate location of mortars and stuff, but now that doesn't seem to work as well, at least on my set up.

Michael

[Ales Dvorak]

Dr. Righty, it's time for Sennheiser 650. Nice space depth.....

Love

Alice

[sburke]

You can "sound whore" the positions of unseen enemy units pretty easily with headphones. Cheesy, but that's the way the game works.

There are a lot of ways to "cheat" the game. It is a question of the individual though not the game as to whether that matters.

Case in point, in a hot seat game with Broadsword I accidentally closed the game without saving. During the turn I had lost an StuG. I informed Broadsword and promised to keep re running till I got the same result again or I'd give the dang thing a short arc and send it out backwards if I had to.

[Broadsword56]

Sportmanship Award of the Year 2012 for that one!

[sburke]

Sportmanship Award of the Year 2012 for that one!

Not cheating isn't behavior that should earn a reward. It should be normally expected behavior. But thanks.

[Vanir Ausf B]

This doesn't seem to work quite as well in v2 as it did in v1. I used to use that trick to try to work out the approximate location of mortars and stuff, but now that doesn't seem to work as well, at least on my set up.

Michael

Interesting. Good news if true.

[Vanir Ausf B]

There are a lot of ways to "cheat" the game. It is a question of the individual though not the game as to whether that matters.

In the case of sound whoring it was hard to avoid. The sound of enemy units firing is LOUD.

Case in point, in a hot seat game with Broadsword I accidentally closed the game without saving. During the turn I had lost an StuG. I informed Broadsword and promised to keep re running till I got the same result again or I'd give the dang thing a short arc and send it out backwards if I had to.

Wow. Not having played PBEM yet I was not aware that you could re-do turns until you get a favorable result. That's a pretty significant hole.

[sburke]

In the case of sound whoring it was hard to avoid. The sound of enemy units firing is LOUD.

Wow. Not having played PBEM yet I was not aware that you could re-do turns until you get a favorable result. That's a pretty significant hole.

Heh heh, no it's a hot seat, not pbem. We weren't willing to wait for the wire bug to be fixed before continuing La Luzerne. No bug there. And yes mortars are loud, and so is the sound of vehicles going through fences on the opposite side of 1 km map plus you can see exactly where they were. Whether you search out that info and how you use it is up to you. I am sure there are some circumstances where the noise of a mortar launch might actually be noticed and location guessed, but routine use well that becomes a personal choice as to how you play the game.

[Michael Emrys]

Dr. Righty, it's time for Sennheiser 650. Nice space depth.....

For $399.99 (at Amazon) they should be!

:eek:

Michael

[Doug Williams]

One of the things I love about the Sonys is that the pads fit around the ear and rest against my skull instead of my ears. This is really important.

I agree 100%. Around the ear, and comfortable pads are as important as audio quality to me. Of course, just about any set of headphones that actually covers the ear and is comfortable to wear is going to have good audio quality. Buying a quality set of headphones is a purchase I will never regret. No buyer's remorse her.

[Doug Williams]

Wow. Not having played PBEM yet I was not aware that you could re-do turns until you get a favorable result. That's a pretty significant hole.

No, you cannot do that in PBEM games. The results are calculated on one PC, then, without viewing them, you send the turn to your opponent, who gets to view them before you do.

[womble]

No, you cannot do that in PBEM games. The results are calculated on one PC, then, without viewing them, you send the turn to your opponent, who gets to view them before you do.

The only hole that does remain is that if your opponent doesn't like the result, they can claim the turn got busticated, and ask for a resend, and if that's (shock) busticated too, they could ask for their opponent to re-run the turn and hope to get lucky. It's not something that's going to happen very often, nor be trivial to get away with.

[Doug Williams]

I've never had that happen, but then I always use Dropbox and H2HHelper, and I pretty much only play guys in my club (WeBoB). :-)

[womble]

I've never had that happen, but then I always use Dropbox and H2HHelper, and I pretty much only play guys in my club (WeBoB). :-)

Yeah, it's more a theoretical hole than one that anyone would ever have the cheese to swing, I reckon.