WHAT DOES IMPEDANCE HAVE TO DO WITH YOUR GAMING ENJOYMENT?
GAMING HEADSETS AND GAMING HEADPHONES
The new consoles are on the way, and the topic of immersive sound is becoming more important than ever before for both gaming studios and the gaming community. Sound design will therefore define the gaming experience to an ever-greater extent, no matter what the platform. In the final event, however, a game with superb sound is only as good as what you can actually hear in your ear. This is why we will now take a look at the most important factors to take into account when choosing your perfect gaming headphones.
Impedance values: What do they mean and why are they important?
Impedance is a term frequently heard in connection with audio equipment. And a question we are often asked is: “Which impedance is best for my gaming headset?” Although this is a completely legitimate question, it’s impossible to answer in a single sentence.
Impedance itself is a particularly fascinating topic. We would like to refer you to a blog article where we have already discussed it in some detail. In this article, however, we are more concerned with practical questions rather than theoretical principles. To be exact, with your gaming behaviour and the perfect gaming headphones for you.
Impedance is specified on ohms, and, without using technical jargon, the value is a concise way of expressing how much power your output device needs to get the optimum sound out of your headphones.
This is the general rule: If the number of ohms is small, the device requires little in the way of power, and a smartphone, for example, would provide an adequate amount. If the ohm number if high, the headphones require a suitably powerful device (a good music system for example) or an amplifier (a sound card in the PC, for example), and the sound from a smartphone which doesn’t have an additional amplifier would be pretty weak.
And how does this knowledge help you find the right gaming headphones? There are additional factors involved – some directly connected to the impedance and some only indirectly.
As we said before, it’s a fascinating area.
Tell me what you’re playing
Returning to the impedance value, you may now be asking: “But when do I need which particular number of ohms? When is low good, and when is high better?” Or you may be wondering if the ohm number or impedance value also tells you something about the quality of your headphones. We will shortly be answering these questions.
Has a non-gamer ever asked you to recommend a game? And, before replying, did you counter with your own question about the inquirer’s general preferences? The question about the perfect gaming headset is a similar issue.
These factors play an important role in your choice of headset:
- How you play: Are you a casual gamer, a hardcore gamer or an e-athlete?
- Where you play: Do you play on mobile devices, on a PC or on a console?
- Do you play alone or together with someone else?
- What you play: shooters, MMOs, adventures, skill-based games, etc.?
Knowing all this is important. If you predominantly play arcade or puzzle games on your smartphone, a smartphone headphone completely adequate for your purposes. A higher impedance (more ohms) would require an amplifier to produce a good sound. So, in this case, stylish headphones with high impedance would be more of a disadvantage than a benefit.
A different scenario: If you’re heavily into a cool MMO shooter, you also need your headphones for spatial orientation during gameplay. Is the enemy creeping up on your left or right side? Is an enemy helicopter approaching from the rear? If you are unable to derive spatially relevant information from these sounds, they’re not particularly helpful. A clear, rich sound is important in other genres too – which brings us to immersive gaming. Here, you want to totally immerse yourself in an exciting story, a sporting event or a completely different world.
It’s also important who you play with. If you live and play alone, you may want to ensure you still hear any ambient noises (such as the pizza delivery boy finally arriving with your lunch). That would mean opting for open-back headphones. However, if you play together with your partner in the same room, closed-back headphones would enable you to clearly understand each other and your fellow gamers during audio chats.
All this shows that other factors apart from impedance are also important when choosing your perfect gaming headphones, including acoustic design, gaming behaviour and length of play time.
What not to do! Aching head and hot ears
And while we’re on the subject of play time. Anyone who has ever spent a couple of hours in front of the PC or console wearing less than ideal gaming headphones will be aware of the problems: headphone hair, pressure pain, hot ears. And people who wear glasses are only too familiar with the way a headset can make the frames dig into your head.
In addition to ensuring a good and secure fit, you should also take your playing style and comfort needs into account. Open-backed and semi-open gaming headphones provide better ventilation than closed-back models due to their design. They are also somewhat more flexible when worn with glasses. These are useful tips for choosing the right model.
The weight of the gaming headphones or gaming headset also plays an important role in choosing the best possible product. Innovative and lightweight materials, a great, spacious sound – all this means your headphones have a higher impedance, i.e. crave more power. For example, if you’re playing on a PC with a sound chip that’s not powerful enough, you could add a new (internal or external) sound card to enhance the sound. In the case of a console, you need to make sure the headphones are compatible with the console you’re using (check the headphone packaging or data sheet).
Pay attention to these points and your gaming enjoyment can begin!
Alternative set-up: Microphone + headphones
Are you able to enjoy gaming at home to the fullest extent possible? Do you perhaps also record a podcast or stream? Or is a headset simply not your thing?
Then maybe a combination of a high-quality desktop microphone and good gaming headphones would be a better option for you. Soundwise, today’s high-quality headsets can be the equals of good headphones, and a desk-top microphone can deliver studio-quality recordings, giving your voice a clear, natural sound with no time lags and no annoying ambient noise. For cases like this, the Team TYGR bundle has the perfect combination of the open-backed TYGR 300 R gaming headphones and the superb FOX condenser microphone.
Important for creators: Most people don’t mind the occasional pixelated image in a YouTube video, but we are much more sensitive when it comes to audio: distorted, hollow or hissy voices are regarded as extremely unpleasant and annoying. Good-quality voice recording are essential for your recordings, particularly when it comes to positive feedback about your Let’s Play videos, game reviews for YouTube, streams and podcasts.
So, let’s summarise. A set-up with desk-top microphone + headphones is less suitable
- if you play games where no audio chats are necessary
- if the audio quality of a headset is adequate for your gaming experience
- if you play alone, but don’t live alone – as a demonstration of considerate behaviour.
Desk-top microphone + headphones are a better choice
- if you play alone, but are a creator or musician
- if the way your voice sounds is important for recordings of your games or exchanges with fellow gamers
- if you simply don’t like headsets
- if you’re a technophile.
Conclusion
As we have seen, impedance is important, but other factors are also involved. And there’s no such things as the perfect headphones for all gamers. Personal tastes and preferences play a major role, as does the choice of games. Some gamers will be happy using closed-back gaming headphones, others will swear by a powerful duo of headphones and desk-top microphone.
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