[ostuni]

Bad:
It may not help you win gun fights much. The sound in Call of Duty is “broken” where sometimes you don’t hear other player’s footsteps.

Also, cables suck. You cannot run off to go pee without risking tripping ripping cables.

Good:
The sound is soooo natural like as if you are there. The birds chirping and insects buzzing in Warzone Caldera will confuse you as it sounds natural…cannot tell if its outside the headphone or not. There is less software artificial manipulation with these open backs.

The lightweight comfort, and less clamping force allows playing for 18 hours straight.

Is it worth it? I still have my Steelseries Arctis Pro as backup and honestly, I wouldn’t mind using them with less sound quality for Warzone. But when I switch to music listening, especially with “lossless” fidelity, like Apple Music Dolby Spatial or Tidal Masters, or Amazon Ultimate HD, the HD800s is amazing.

 

[m-i-c-k-e-y]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

Also, cables suck. You cannot run off to go pee without risking tripping ripping cables.

That's just a $30 answer to you problem...

 

[phiemon]

Please do NOT buy the FiiO K9 Pro, I had it and returned it because I found the competition much, much better: RME ADI-2 Pro. I don't know how the delay was with the FiiO, anyway the RME is known and proven to have the lowest latency of all DACs. I use it for gaming too. Hugo 2 and TT2 had an high, noticeable latency. The price should be the same - or is the RME a very little more expensive. Also, the RME has an EQ, the FiiO does not.

 

[ostuni]

Please do NOT buy the FiiO K9 Pro, I had it and returned it because I found the competition much, much better: RME ADI-2 Pro. I don't know how the delay was with the FiiO, anyway the RME is known and proven to have the lowest latency of all DACs. I use it for gaming too. Hugo 2 and TT2 had an high, noticeable latency. The price should be the same - or is the RME a very little more expensive. Also, the RME has an EQ, the FiiO does not.

I like the concepts of RME eq and remote control. However I use Dolby Atmos spatial EQ on my PC or Razer THX spatial surround EQ, which are better for gaming.

Fiio offers these features that RME lacks.
-Bluetooth 5.0 which I need for apple TV. And it has a built in EQ in BT mode.
-USB C port for my MacBook.
-MQA converter which I like to have for Tidal Masters.

 

[cantcacheme]

Please do NOT buy the FiiO K9 Pro, I had it and returned it because I found the competition much, much better: RME ADI-2 Pro. I don't know how the delay was with the FiiO, anyway the RME is known and proven to have the lowest latency of all DACs. I use it for gaming too. Hugo 2 and TT2 had an high, noticeable latency. The price should be the same - or is the RME a very little more expensive. Also, the RME has an EQ, the FiiO does not.

Can't speak to the RME stuff but K9 pro is probably the most complete package you can get at the price, as mentioned it have very nice quality of life features but more importantly the sound is very smooth yet still has that THX details and cleanliness. Also it's built very well and fits in almost any space, for an AIO it's budget endgame for most people.

 

[Livingformusic]

Bad:
It may not help you win gun fights much. The sound in Call of Duty is “broken” where sometimes you don’t hear other player’s footsteps.

Also, cables suck. You cannot run off to go pee without risking tripping ripping cables.

Good:
The sound is soooo natural like as if you are there. The birds chirping and insects buzzing in Warzone Caldera will confuse you as it sounds natural…cannot tell if its outside the headphone or not. There is less software artificial manipulation with these open backs.

The lightweight comfort, and less clamping force allows playing for 18 hours straight.

Is it worth it? I still have my Steelseries Arctis Pro as backup and honestly, I wouldn’t mind using them with less sound quality for Warzone. But when I switch to music listening, especially with “lossless” fidelity, like Apple Music Dolby Spatial or Tidal Masters, or Amazon Ultimate HD, the HD800s is amazing.

Hi ostuni,


The HD800S is exceptionally good in detail retrieval, separation and placement of instruments, objects and sounds with a slight sharp edged focus and control.

For comfort, I also agree that its lightweight & fairly ergonomic fit is comfortable enough without feeling any pressure or clamp force, which allows for listening to music for longer hours at a time.

And, for pairing with amp and dac, I haven’t tried the FiiO K9 Pro dac & amp with the HD800S, but I know it noticeably scales a bit more with a good dedicated desktop headphone amplifier and desktop headphone dac, and it sounds more spacious & dynamic with more low end, headroom and stage.

Currently, I have the HD800S paired with the Violectric V280 (Final Edition) and a Topping desktop dac. With pre-gain switches turned up a notch higher from its default switch setting, the HD800S sounds and performs exceptionally well with most styles and genres of music, especially classical and jazz, and also does very well with movies & shows (streaming online).

I have yet to try HD800S with games, as I haven’t played pc games nor console games for some time (at least five years or so). I’m sure it’s a solid all-around performer in what it’s made it to do in terms of audio for gaming, and I look forward to trying my HD800S (and desktop amp & dac setup) with some pc games someday in the near future.

=)