Best headphones for Xbox One

I am tearing it up on ghosts without headphones at the moment so I cannot wait to try some out.

So Chillz. I went out and checked on some websites for answers to my adapter needs for my current gen headset. While I don't think I found what I need, you might want to check out the TB website to see what they are offering. Currently it looks like there are at least three (3) really good headset out there that might work for you, but you need to check the specifics.

Good luck and if anyone finds information out about adapters, let me know. (yes I have seen the $50 knock offs on Amazon, they are NOT what I am willing to buy).

What do you currently have?

Also, you can buy a regular Xbox one chat headset and cut the connector off and strip back the shielding to expose the wire and should be your standard 4-pole connection for mic/analog speaker use. I'm sure there's already wiring diagrams available for that. At that point you could just solder in a 4-pole receiver and connect any headset you would want or run through your astro mixamp/TB amp if you go that route. I imagine I could do this pretty easily. If there's any traction to this I could try to do one myself and make a video or perhaps sell them? I don't know, let me know how much interest exists.

Good info Brown. I have the Earforce X3.1 I think. I know it's Earforce 3, don't know about the "X" part and guessed at the 1.

That connector you spoke of (selling for around $60 on ebay and amazon) only gets you voice. My question is if I have the audio cords will they work on the Xbone?

Keep us updated on this. When I play the XB1, I am just running audio through my TV.

Alright, kind've a long post so here goes:

Firstly, the adapter I was talking about making is null and void. Microsoft just released theirs. At $25 I can't really recreate that any cheaper with the look and quality so there's that.

Also, dedicated gaming headsets are in a single word, shit. I started out with Turtle Beach X1's after babying them and leaving them in a case the headset snapped and broke on its own one day. This after replacing chat cables twice due to poor build quality. $75 gone.

I moved on from there to Astro A40's 2013. These sounded a lot better and were a much better cable quality. The cool thing about the A40's is the mixamp. The mixamp is worth buying on its own but more on that later. These made it 12 months and 2 weeks, which is important to remember because it literally died right outside the warranty. I tried to go through their support but they were useless. The driver wire that goes into the speaker housing pulled loose due to a poor design that causes strain on the cable. I even offered to pay them to repair them but they said any damaged wire cannot be repaired by them. Which I thought funny because for the most part that's exactly whats going to break. So then I asked how much would it be to just replace the headset. $150. I scoffed at that and I swore I would never buy another Astro product and because I have their mixamp I won't have to.

With the mixamp and that chat adapter no one needs to buy a purpose built gaming headset. They're shitty, overpriced and have a tiny price to performance ratio. From what I see out of the chat adapter you don't even really need the mixamp it appears but the mixamp does have a little amping to it and takes optical from the back of the One which is going to provide better sound than whatever that chat adapter is going to allow. Its as easy as buying a 3-pole splitter to 4-pole male to connect an accessory mic to any headset that you want. Wanna use earbuds? Do that. Want audiophile headphones? Do that. Don't buy a gaming headset.

If you want more details, keep reading. If not the above should be good enough.

The One chat adapter is going to allow game audio out of the controller now as well. A normal headphone jack that you would see on anything you own that you use for music is going to be a 3-pole headphone jack. The poles are basically left, right and ground. A gaming headset is gonna have an out for a 4-pole jack. Fourth pole being for voice.

Here's a pic of them side by side.


This means if you're gonna use a separate headphone and mic you're gonna need an adapter. This would work. Plug your mic in one side and the headphones in the other. They say the One adapter is also going to come with a 2.5mm to a 3.5mm adapter which is good because otherwise you would probably have to buy it separately. The little plug on a 360 controller is 2.5mm and most headphones are 3.5mm so an adapter tells me the same is gonna be true of the One adapter, not that it should be an issue with that cable.

Personally my setup looks like this.

Headphones
Mic
Splitter above
Mixamp above
Turtle beach talkback cable (allows me to mute my mic input)

That's what I use for my 360, on the one the above works but to get the chat capability to work you're gonna need that One adapter. If anyone has a mixamp and wants to know how to hook that up with the One I will have to tinker with it once it comes in. But with that adapter all you should is the splitter I linked above and a pair of headphones and a mic that terminates in a 3.5mm like the one I linked above. That particular mic is cool because it just clips on to your headphone wire so it stays nice and snug by your mouth/ear area.

On the other hand, unless I'm completely off you should just be able to run the mic into the One adapter and just use your mixamp/tb box to get game sound and chat audio into your headphones and have the controller only be mic input. I'm almost 100% on that but just almost. Mine should be here early after it launches and I can confirm. If so you should be able to run a really nice setup like what I've been using for BF4. Note: I don't chat on BF4. Right now I just use the kinect for chat and run optical out to a FiiO E17 as a DAC, which docks into my FiiO E09K. That's a pretty good amp combo if you have a nicer set of headphones you want to use. I personally use AKG K702 65th anniversaries.

I could talk for days about headphones but I will leave you with that unless there's further interest. I do recommend if you decide to go with audiophile headphones you need to decide if you're in a noisy environment and if you're only going to be playing COD or if you also want single-player performance. Those require different qualities and you don't want to buy the wrong thing if you're gonna lay money out for it. Toodles.

Anything you're having issues with specifically?

So I'm on the fence about picking up the Xbone, especially after seeing the Walmart deal. My question is, is there a headset that plays game audio and allows for in-game chat? I read Brown's expert post up above, but I couldn't get a sense of whether or not game audio could be received through this set-up. Maybe I just couldn't follow...
Anyway, is there a headset?

Second this, especially if you already have a headset that gets game audio from S/PDIF output.

From XB1's March System Update notes: majornelson.com/2014/03/04/xbox-one-march-system-update-rolling-out-today/



This will address your game audio needs. For chat you need the adapter (Model Number: 6JV-00001), which seems to be sold out everywhere. After some looking around, I found 

1) you can buy it from Game Stop web site, but they charge $30 for it, $5 higher than everywhere else, what a rip off;
2) you can buy it from Best Buy web site and ship it to a store near you for pickup. I did this last week, the item is now on its way to the local store. I'll update this thread once I really get it;