Razor Barracuda HP-1 Gaming Headset

[mObileHELL]

I've been thinking for some time that my speakers were all-round-****e (Creative Inspire T6100). Which makes sense considering they were the cheapest part of my system.
My sound card is the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer', which was leading me to assume the bad sound quality was coming from the speakers and not the soundcard.
So a few days ago i decided to invest in some decent headphones, to replace the use of my speakers. I ordered the 'Razor Barracuda HP-1 Headset', with very high expectations. I was expecting better all round audio quality, not only for gaming, but music as well.
As soon as i plugged them in, and played some songs as a test, i was surprised that my £100 headphones sounded just as bad as my speakers.
One explanation i thought of was sound card itself was too close to the GPU, and causing static interference, so i moved it to the PCI slot just above the PSU (Antec 900), and they did indeed sound different, which on its own i thought was a little strange, but still didnt make my headphones sound justifiable.
Then i dis-connected the sound card, and re-connected the 'SupremeFX' sound card my motherboard came with (Asus Striker Extreme), audio quality is still bad, but i wouldnt say it was any worse then the X-Fi, because they both sound bad in my opinion, especially through these headphones.

My question would be do i have a problem somewhere with something? Should my headset sound bad through the X-Fi?

And by the way, the mic input doesnt work with the X-Fi either, but works fine through SupremeFX!

[R3b00t]

hi,

Got the same headphones as you.
On my Xi-Fi they sound acceptable, but not better than your avarage
headphones.
On the Barracuda AC1, however, they sound like the money you paid for them, thanks to the HD-DAI port

[mgv101]

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...d.php?t=168386

Zalman, Labtec, and other "Gaming" or computer headphones:
These tend to be overpriced, sound quite bad, and are gimmicks. Surround headphones are only for gaming, and they are still beat by many of the headphones above. I can't recommend any, and if you need a Microphone, get a separate one to use with the headphones you end up getting.

That is why to always read the stickies first.
I made the mistake of buying the icemat cyberia too. I liked it at the beginning as it sounded better than a lot of headphones that I've had but one day, a joint on it broke. I was planning to fix it but got myself a DT-770 from beyerdynamic for the time being and after listening to those, I never bothered to fix my old headphones as I finally realized how crap they were for the price I've paid for.

Anyway, when you are listening to music, X-Fi sucks (at least when running with the horrible driver in vista) because of that I actually listen to MP3s over my MP3 player now rather than on my PC. X-Fi is good for gaming though, and that is why I am still using it.

[mObileHELL]

If the mic input worked with the X-Fi, i'd still be using it, but for now, my X-Fi is back in the packaging it came in, and i'm using the SupremeFX. Which also sounds terrible, but at least the mic port works.
I'm looking at the Razor AC-1. In all seriousness, does the HD-DAI make that much difference? I mean, do they sound that much better really? Does the AC-1 have Vista Drivers?

Additional Comment:

Just as a side question, does anyone know how to actually activate 5.1 in Vista with SupremeFX? Don't see the option anywhere.

[Zer0Cool]

I remember when I was struggling, trying to decide what sound card to get and what headphones to pair it with. (I am a competitive gamer who plays CS 1.6) So i finally gat the "X-Fi Elite Pro" & "Senhaisers HD555 " and let me tell u man this is a great combinations!!! The HD555’s are GREAT for music, games, movies and they extremely comfortable. Don’t want to get u in a bad mood, but the razor headphones were really made to work with that razor sound card, that they also sell, and even with that combo its still sucks lol compare to my combo that I mentioned in the beginning.

As far as ur problem goes, its hard to say, check if u downloaded the latest drivers for the headphones & for ur sound card.

[mObileHELL]

It's seeming like im actually going to have to buy the AC-1 to go with the HP-1s. Simply because the X-Fi sounds equally as bad as the horrible SupremeFX does.
Shame Razor dont have any Vista drivers yet!
I have all the latest drivers. Creative released theirs this week i think it was.