Best headset for directional sound 2019

This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you click and buy, I may receive a small commission (at zero cost to you). Please see my full disclosure policy for details.

Get the best headset for directional sound 2019.

How to get the best positional audio, for first-person shooter games while using headphones.

I’ll be focusing on PC gaming and touch a little bit, of what you can do to give a better sound output on consoles.

Positional ability

Positional ability is to position enemies in the environment just by hearing them.

Now in the early days of gaming when I wasn’t using headphones, I had a surround sound system and by that, I mean very very accurate positional audio. But those days are over, it’s just too complicated dragging around 5 speakers if you are going to a Lan or visiting a friend, not to talk about the noise if you live with somebody.

That’s where headphones come in, they are much more common and popular for gaming, that’s just because they’re smaller and easier to set up and in general more practical.

Cheap USB headset

Now if you’re looking for something very simple for audio accuracy, you can actually get away with some very inexpensive setups, you can definitely save a buck if you go for USB gaming headphones.

I used the Logitech G430 for a while, they have pretty decent audio accuracy for their price, not needing a sound card or any sort of extra hardware, easy to set up with built-in drivers and all that stuff.

There are a few other options out there for USB headphones, but I really feel like you can go much further and have many more options with analog headphones, and get even better positional audio accuracy.

Sadly a lot of the gaming headphones out there that are marketed towards gamers, have horrible positional accuracy, they are all about the looks and the branding, they are incredibly loud and you won’t actually realize, that you’re getting a very bad headphone if you’re trying to be more competitive.

Alright so let’s get into the setup that I am running right now, which I think is absolutely killer, and trust me I have spent a decade finding the best solutions, I have gamed competitively 14 years now, and that’s why I’m confident that I can help you guys out.

Soundcard for
directional sound

The first step to this was getting a good sound card, I think any of the Creative SB sound cards are good choices, there are many other brands out there that will work well.

I ended up going with the Creative Sound Blaster AE-7 which was a bit overkill for my budget, a more affordable option would be the Sound Blaster Z.

Now you gotta get some headphones that can really take advantage of this, so when I first tried this sound card, I was using my Astro a40, just because I really liked how they felt, they were very very comfortable.

I plugged them in to try them out with surround sound, it wasn’t bad but I wasn’t particularly impressed, in fact I thought that the cheaper G430 that I was using earlier, sounded just as good if not better for positional audio.

I did a little digging around, and I found some headphones that everybody was raving about ”it being absolutely best hands-down” having the best soundstage and the best positional audio for gaming.

The best headset for directional sound 2019

It was the Audio-Technica ath-adg1x, so I purchased these headphones, and as soon as I plugged them into the sound card, it was like a night and day difference, it felt like I was cheating.

I could really notice when people were trying to sneak up behind me, and when shots were fired in the distance, I could pretty much pinpoint exactly where they were on the map.

The downside of these headphones is that they’re pretty expensive, but for the sound upgrade, it was absolutely worth it, I am in love with them.

The only thing I’m not in love with is the headband, they use a funny new type which only uses two pressure points, to keep them steady, but as long as you don’t use them for running, they will work fine.

Thet just made a Wireless upgraded model of these if you wanna drop the cable: Audio-Technica ATH-G1WL Premium

Best alternative for directional sound

Other great options out there is the Sennheiser G4me one and G4me zero, the positional audio is absolutely phenomenal on those too and probably the most comfortable headphones out there.

I have these myself and have gamed for over 12 hours in one sitting, without feeling them at no point. They are actually used in a lot of competitions around the world, also they are a little cheaper.

Headset for directional sound on PlayStation.

People gaming on consoles want to use HI-end headphones to and get the experience of great positional audio, you can use things like the Astro mixamp which will provide you a great Dolby surround sound signal to the headphones.

It’s a little amplifier that you plug into your PlayStation or Xbox, that works as an external sound card, and this is probably one of the best for the price on the market.