So what constitutes a good PC gaming headset?

Comfort

A good computer gaming headset must be able to provide comfort to the user. This is necessary because you will be wearing it for a long period of time and any discomfort cause will definitely injure your ear in the long term. There is only one way to test whether a headset is comfortable or not, and that is to try it out before you make your purchase.

Most of the time, the comfort factor is dependent on the:

• Padding – Is it thick and soft enough to protect your ear?
• Ear cups – Is it big enough to contain your ear?
• Headband – Is it freely adjustable to suit the size of your head?
• Weight – Is it too heavy for your ear to carry?

Put it on for 15 minutes and you will know whether it is suitable for you or not.

Sound Quality

A good PC gaming headset must have the ability to produce great sound quality. While the sound quality can differ among people, there are few things that can easily distinguish a headset with good sound quality from a bad one.

Bass
A gaming headset with a powerful bass will show significant differences in first person shooting game such as Counterstrike. You will be able to hear clearly the bullets flying around you and distinct explosion in the background.

Surround Sound
Surround sound effect is necessary to create the realism in your gameplay. Those PC gaming headsets with 5.1 digital audio encoded will be useful to help you identify the enemy that is sneaking behind you or shooting at you

Noise Cancellation
Some gaming headset uses an external microphone to pick up external noise and invert them to cancel out any unwanted noise. This is extremely useful if you are always playing in a noisy environment, such as an Internet cafe.

Cable Length

The cable length will determine how far away you can stay behind the screen. A typical gaming headset should have a cable length of 2m. Anything shorter than this length will restrict your movement and cause inconvenience to you. If you are playing game console, such as Xbox or PS3, in your living room, you might consider getting a headset with longer cable or an extra extensible cable to connect to your headset.

Wireless Headset

If you always move around and do not wish to be bothered by the cable, you can choose the wireless gaming headset that makes use of Bluetooth or RF technology. A word of caution, wireless headsets might be more prone to noise interference and/or loss of signal during the transmission, which can lead to static, pops or annoying noise.

Microphone

Some of the PC gaming headsets are geared with a microphone to allow interaction during gameplay. This might be a useful feature that you want to include in your gaming headset.

Volume Control

This may seem a trivial feature, but it matter a lot when you are far away from your sound system. For a gaming headset with surround sound feature, it would useful to have an inline volume control to control the individual speaker levels. You can customize the volume setting for each speaker to enhance your gaming experience.

Vibrator

Force feedback gaming headsets make use of vibration to try to recreate the physical sensation of bass frequencies. The headset can vibrate in sympathy with the low frequencies in the audio signal, so that listeners both hear and feel the bass.

These should sum up most of the features found in a good PC gaming headset.

In conclusion…

choosing a good PC gaming headset can be a very personal thing. A headset might
fit comfortably on others, but not on you. You will have to try out the headset before deciding whether it is suitable for you.

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A good sound card is necessary for a computer to play quality music. With a wide range of sound cards in the market, it is really difficult to select one that is suitable for you. The guide here will teach you what to look out for when choosing a sound card.

If you already know how to choose a good sound card, you can also check out TigerDirect! for the best deal online.

Things to look for when choosing a sound card

Before you buy a sound card, first ask yourself what do you do on your computer most of time. If you only use it for word processing, checking email, surfing internet etc? then it might not be worth it for you to get a sound card.

However, if you are an avid gamer or heavy multimedia user, then getting a good sound card is a must.

The following factors will help you differentiate between a normal sound card and a good sound card.

16 bits or 24 bits?

Sound card using 24 bits encoding and decoding will gives a better and clearer sound quality than using 16 bits. For basic user, a 16 bits sound card will be sufficient

Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)

The Signal to Noise Ratio measures the ratio between the noise and the sound signal produced by the sound card.

In general, the higher the SNR, the better is the sound quality.

Sampling Rate

Sampling rate determines the distortion of the digital sound signal from the original analog signal. The higher the sampling rate, the less distorted the sound signal and hence the better sound quality. The highest available sampling rate now is 96kHz and this is equivalent to dvd-audio quality. The following table below shows a guideline of the sound quality you can expect from the different sampling rate.

• 44.1 kHz – Audio CD quality. Also used in VCD, SVCD and MP3
• 48 kHz – Digital sound used for digital TV, DVD, DAT, films and professional audio
• 96 kHz – DVD-Audio, and HD-DVD (High-Definition DVD) audio tracks

Surround Sound

For gamer and heavy multimedia user, a sound card with surround sound will certainly adds to your enjoyment. Currently the sound card can support up to 7.1 channels surround sound. Before you make your purchase, make sure that it is certified by Dolby Digital, DTS, THX or EAX.

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