[Gaming Audio] Astro MixAmp presets + Best Audio Gear Guide + Headphone Reviews

[AMG]

Alan, what to do with 144Hz, 2.1hdmi monitors.  I ordered this one for myself .... but I have that extractor only at 60Hz, how to be in such a situation ??

Which Monitor Roman_M?

https://evedevices.com/pages/order (144,4k,2.1)

If your HDMI Extractor is version 2.0, it will work at 1440p/(120Hz)144Hz, but no VRR or FreeSync.

- Another way to play with VRR or FreeSync support is: a headset adapter that comes with a better DAC like: Turtle Beach Headset Audio Controller Plus or Astro M80 + Headphone Amp + high impedance Hi-Fi headphones and settle with it.

[Roman_M]

Alan, what to do with 144Hz, 2.1hdmi monitors.  I ordered this one for myself .... but I have that extractor only at 60Hz, how to be in such a situation ??

Which Monitor Roman_M?

https://evedevices.com/pages/order (144,4k,2.1)

If your HDMI Extractor is version 2.0, it will work at 1440p/(120Hz)144Hz, but no VRR or FreeSync.

- Another way to play with VRR or FreeSync support is: a headset adapter that comes with a better DAC like: Turtle Beach Headset Audio Controller Plus or Astro M80 + Headphone Amp + high impedance Hi-Fi headphones and settle with it.

I have insignia, but I don't know what version it is ..

[Roman_M]

[AMG]

That HDMI Audio Extractor it is ver. 2.0, 120Hz capable.

[AMG]

Alan, I would like to ask you about something.  Look, I have a friend who would like headphones that are very similar in all respects (most of all, convenience: for streaming, and convenient streaming - for many hours).  The variant is "Audeze Mobius", but he said that they do not suit him, could you advise anything at about the same price?  Friend streams and plays games (girl).  I would be grateful, she wanted something very much that would resemble like Audeze

Sorry I didn't see it before.

If your friend is streaming for many hours I would took comfort first, audio performance second. Those are very heavy headphones it could be reason why didn't suit them well.

If is a girl, not trying to sound old-fashion but women took looks seriously. Fortunately there are nice looking and well performing headphones.

My top suggestion if she likes this color yellow-ish/black combo, will be the
Drop-Sennheiser PC38X.

Combined with the
Neat Worker Bee

It will be an interesting, icebreaking and eye-catching if she does stream with a camera.
PC38X is very lightweight and comfortable, it sound performance is top-tier for its price more suited for gaming than most HD600 series headphones. And that funny looking mic, is a galaxy better than any headset and more clean and resolving than and blue yeti line. Even though Headset mic is pretty good on PC38X for streaming in my opinion a XLR mic is a must.

Other options.
Status Audio CB-1

Closed back, very lightweight and comfortable, it doesn't clamp at all; is a studio headphone very precise meant for producing music and to be wear for many many MANY hours without a hassle. Those rings accents are pretty nice and I see many streamers who paste cute decals on their sides. They are better tune and tight bass version of the very popular Audio-Technica M50X, for around only $55.

Now if she is asking for the best and no budget... I suggest the gorgeous and amazingly, godly sounding
Focal Clear

Hands down the best dynamic headphone money can buy.

The New SHP9600


Another option out-of-the-box, if she feel comfy to wear in-ear monitors there many on the market with jewerly nice looking exterior like:
Thieaudio Legacy 3




Queen of Audio



All of them fantastic sound performing IEMs.

Hope it helps.

[Roman_M]

Alan, I would like to ask you about something.  Look, I have a friend who would like headphones that are very similar in all respects (most of all, convenience: for streaming, and convenient streaming - for many hours).  The variant is "Audeze Mobius", but he said that they do not suit him, could you advise anything at about the same price?  Friend streams and plays games (girl).  I would be grateful, she wanted something very much that would resemble like Audeze

Sorry I didn't see it before.

If your friend is streaming for many hours I would took comfort first, audio performance second. Those are very heavy headphones it could be reason why didn't suit them well.

If is a girl, not trying to sound old-fashion but women took looks seriously. Fortunately there are nice looking and well performing headphones.

My top suggestion if she likes this color yellow-ish/black combo, will be the
Drop-Sennheiser PC38X.

Combined with the
Neat Worker Bee

It will be an interesting, icebreaking and eye-catching if she does stream with a camera.
PC38X is very lightweight and comfortable, it sound performance is top-tier for its price more suited for gaming than most HD600 series headphones. And that funny looking mic, is a galaxy better than any headset and more clean and resolving than and blue yeti line. Even though Headset mic is pretty good on PC38X for streaming in my opinion a XLR mic is a must.

Other options.
Status Audio CB-1

Closed back, very lightweight and comfortable, it doesn't clap at all; is a studio headphone very precise meant for producing music and to be ware for many many MANY hours without a hassle. Those rings accents are pretty nice and I see many streamers who paste cute decals on their sides. They are better tune and tight bass version of the very popular Audio-Technica M50X, for around only $55.

Now if she is asking for the best and no budget... I suggest the gorgeous and amazingly, godly sounding
Focal Clear

Hands down the best dynamic headphone money can buy.

The New SHP9600


Another option out-of-the-box, if she feel comfy to wear in-ear monitors there many on the market with jewerly nice looking exterior like:
Thieaudio Legacy 3




Queen of Audio



All of them fantastic sound performing IEMs.

Hope it helps.

Thank you Alan, you will always answer and help people!  You are the best simply 🤝, let me thank you and throw off a couple of bucks, you help people a lot here 👏.  You do not mind ?  Give me your number, I will transfer money to you from the bottom of my heart.  😊

[Roman_M]

That HDMI Audio Extractor it is ver. 2.0, 120Hz capable.

thank you very much, now I'm calm 😊

[K9ozzy]

I'm confused on setting up the Topping D70s for audio and chat on my xbox series x.  The audio source (game audio) is not coming from the controller is it?  I understand that for chat I'll have to integrate my controller into the chain with the Turtle Beach adapter, but surely I would still be sourcing game audio through optical or hdmi or something right.  Wouldn't the controller be a major bottleneck in audio quality?  I'm just staring at the pics of the back of the D70s and I'm confused. Thank you

[AMG]

Thank you Alan, you will always answer and help people!  You are the best simply 🤝, let me thank you and throw off a couple of bucks, you help people a lot here 👏.  You do not mind ?  Give me your number, I will transfer money to you from the bottom of my heart.  😊

Thanks to you Roman_M, Hi-Fi audio can be very daunting and confusing because money doesn't correlate audio quality in most cases, and as gamers we get flooded for gaming market devices that are just not up to par for what you are paying for, also is not about spending a small fortune to get great results, get the best what we have at hand. Being a facilitator of this knowledge and host for this small gaming audio community is a privilege.

I appreciate you, thanks for allow me to support you on your audio journey.

Thanks for you offering, if you want to invite me a coffe here is my tip jar:

- Thank you!.

[AMG]

I'm confused on setting up the Topping D70s for audio and chat on my xbox series x.  The audio source (game audio) is not coming from the controller is it?  I understand that for chat I'll have to integrate my controller into the chain with the Turtle Beach adapter, but surely I would still be sourcing game audio through optical or hdmi or something right.  Wouldn't the controller be a major bottleneck in audio quality?  I'm just staring at the pics of the back of the D70s and I'm confused. Thank you

You can set both game and chat audio output to headphones on XBSX Settings.

Turtle Beach adapter is a substantial better DAC than the one on the controller.

Now, if you are using Hi-Fi power hungry headphones the next item in the chain is a Headphone Amplifier which receives analog signals as input, processed (can improve it) and outputting to the headphones. This is one option to keep VRR and [email protected] support.

The best option, sound performance wise, is by using a Hi-Res DAC (D70S in that case) fed by a digital input.

For XBSX Optical SPDIF is the only option, due the lack of this output, we need a HDMI Audio Extractor to get SPDIF out that goes on the SPDIF In of a  Hi-Res DAC. However, current audio extractors are [email protected] no VRR support so there is that caveat.

Headphone Amps can and should receive Analog Inputs (3.5mm, RCA, XLR, etc) to perform.

DAC should receive digital, clean and raw as possible to perform at its best. That's its job turn: digital (10101) in analog signal (sound waves), hence its digital input options like: SPDIF, HDMI-Audio, AES, USB or IIS-LVDS this one in particular communicates directly at hardware level to the DAC chipset is the best way to connect a DAC, it needs a very special dedicated interface, in form of a PC Card with a cable that looks like HDMI connector but is not.

Some DAC's offers an analog Input mostly are pass-through only. A very few had a dedicated ADC (analog-to-digital converter) that turn that analog signal to binary to be processed for the DAC chipset, so you can use EQ or DSP effects... but a limitation of this technology is you always loose quality, detail and resolution when doing the conversion.

Analogy: our DAC is a concert pianist,
Digital input version is pianist using the sheet music score to play the piece.
Analog version will be: pianist trying to play the piece after by memory after hearing it once. Some notes are going to be wrong or missed.

 

[K9ozzy]

Thanks Alan but I'm just trying to figure out how to use the Topping D70s, Drop AAA THX 789, and have chat.  I've always had the astro mixamp in my chain along with my 789 Amp and Sennheiser HD800s, but now I'm dropping the astro mixamp and I have decided to go with the Topping D70s.  I bought the Turtle Beach Audio Controller Adapter Plus cause without the mixamp I was under the impression I would have to use chat through my controller (that'll be connected to my Apex).  I need to know where the chat cables work into the dac or Amp and how.  I'd be running SPDIF from my extractor to D70S.  I get lost after that

[Roman_M]

Thank you Alan, you will always answer and help people!  You are the best simply 🤝, let me thank you and throw off a couple of bucks, you help people a lot here 👏.  You do not mind ?  Give me your number, I will transfer money to you from the bottom of my heart.  😊

Thanks to you Roman_M, Hi-Fi audio can be very daunting and confusing because money doesn't correlate audio quality in most cases, and as gamers we get flooded for gaming market devices that are just not up to par for what you are paying for, also is not about spending a small fortune to get great results, get the best what we have at hand. Being a facilitator of this knowledge and host for this small gaming audio community is a privilege.

I appreciate you, thanks for allow me to support you on your audio journey.

Thanks for you offering, if you want to invite me a coffe here is my tip jar:

- Thank you!.

check 😊

[AMG]

Thank you Alan, you will always answer and help people!  You are the best simply 🤝, let me thank you and throw off a couple of bucks, you help people a lot here 👏.  You do not mind ?  Give me your number, I will transfer money to you from the bottom of my heart.  😊

Thanks to you Roman_M, Hi-Fi audio can be very daunting and confusing because money doesn't correlate audio quality in most cases, and as gamers we get flooded for gaming market devices that are just not up to par for what you are paying for, also is not about spending a small fortune to get great results, get the best what we have at hand. Being a facilitator of this knowledge and host for this small gaming audio community is a privilege.

I appreciate you, thanks for allow me to support you on your audio journey.

Thanks for you offering, if you want to invite me a coffe here is my tip jar:

- Thank you!.

check 😊

Thank you! much appreciated 

[AMG]

A current question is:
How can I replicate a MixAmp's Chat Audio Mix Game Audio?.

Requirements:
Y headphone mic splitter.
2 x 3.5mm male-to-male extensions.
Gaming Monitor with a headphone output.
Little Bear MC5 Mixer ($30 USD)


Headphone Amp (from $22 USD)


XBox Series S/X: Make sure you set headset Chat Mix to Chat only.

1. Connect a 3.5mm extension on your monitor headphone output and the other end to the MC5 input 1.
2. Connect Y headphone mic splitter on your console controller, next a 3.5mm extension on the green headphone out to the MC5 input 2. Mic to pink input.
3. At the LB MC5 output connect a Headphone Amp Analog input
4. Connect Headphones on your Headphone Amp output.

Results
Now you can use the knob levels to mix and balance Game Audio - that comes from your Monitor Headphone out

with

Chat Audio, that comes from your controller.

A headphone amp is required because MC5 only mixes signal to an analog output, at pretty low volume. I suggest that headphone amp because is cheap and does the job, but you can use a more powerful and better headphone amp, for better audio quality.

There you go, now you can silent your noisy teammates when the game is too sweaty or
silent game audio to just chat with your friends and chill on the game or
You can connect your phone or tab to another MC5 input (3) and hear music or your favorite podcast while playing and chatting with your friends.
- That spare 4th input can be use to connect your PC and hear notifications while streaming.

Pretty much, you build yourself a MixAmp knob mixer on steroids for only $52 USD vs MixAmp - $250 usd 

[Roman_M]

A current question is:
How can I replicate a MixAmp's Chat Audio Mix Game Audio?.

Requirements:
Y headphone mic splitter.
2 x 3.5mm male-to-male extensions.
Gaming Monitor with a headphone output.
Little Bear MC5 Mixer ($30 USD)


Headphone Amp (from $22 USD)


XBox Series S/X: Make sure you set headset Chat Mix to Chat only.

1. Connect a 3.5mm extension on your monitor headphone output and the other end to the MC5 input 1.
2. Connect Y headphone mic splitter on your console controller, next a 3.5mm extension on the green headphone out to the MC5 input 2. Mic to pink input.
3. At the LB MC5 output connect a Headphone Amp Analog input
4. Connect Headphones on your Headphone Amp output.

Results
Now you can use the knob levels to mix and balance Game Audio - that comes from your Monitor Headphone out

with

Chat Audio, that comes from your controller.

A headphone amp is required because MC5 only mixes signal to an analog output, at pretty low volume. I suggest that headphone amp because is cheap and does the job, but you can use a more powerful and better headphone amp, for better audio quality.

There you go, now you can silent your noisy teammates when the game is too sweaty or
silent game audio to just chat with your friends and chill on the game or
You can connect your phone or tab to another MC5 input (3) and hear music or your favorite podcast while playing and chatting with your friends.
- That spare 4th input can be use to connect your PC and hear notifications while streaming.

Pretty much, you build yourself a MixAmp knob mixer on steroids for only $52 USD vs MixAmp - $250 usd 

Alan, can I add this to my assembly?