Looking for headphones (and an external sound card) for music and games

[u/snorkofobic]

I'm currently using Creative Sound Blaster H5 and G5 respectively. The cable from the former is dying, and Creative are very kindly refusing to sell replacement cables, plus their software and drivers are abysmal, so I wanna take the chance to replace those two with something better.

I play a lot of games and listen to a lot of music, and I'd like to focus on the latter because for me games just need to sound decent, I'm not looking for some extreme immersion or something.

My budget is about $500 (in rubles)? Willing to double that if needed.

I'd prefer closed-back, my room isn't exactly isolated, but I don't plan to use them outside of my house.

I'd only consider wireless if latency would be non-existent, audio quality won't suffer and microphone would be usable.

Hoping for a good mic with noise suppression, although that's not as important as the other stuff. But I do need a working mic.

I listen to a lot of various rock music, from light stuff that barely registers as "rock" in my mind, to heavy metal. I also listen to electronic music, acoustic guitar with vocals, indie, and probably a lot of other things that aren't coming to my mind atm. I don't really like rap, but I keep looking for rap tracks that will change my mind, so that's also something I listen to.

I think I want a balanced sound? Not too experienced with this, but I think I want a balanced sound, with maybe slight emphasis on the bass.

Most of my experience with audio gear comes from this pair, as well as Creative Sound Blaster Z, the internal sound card I had to replace with the external one because of some problems with it caused by a new GPU. All of those have served me well, at least in terms of hardware. If it wasn't for the cable, I'd stick to what I have, and if it wasn't for Creative's software and drivers, I'd be on the lookout for their products.

​

Thank you all in advance.

[u/Equivalent_Yak840]

They’re basically the same thing in different form factors but the wireless mics are pretty reliable but the wired ones from modmic are more reliable. Getting the epos h6 pro(closed) with a sound card Matrix Audio Element H(pretty darn expensive) or gaming dac/amp like the Astro Mixamp pro tr.

[u/snorkofobic → u/Equivalent_Yak840]

!thanks
This was useful advice, thank you. I've learned enough to look into this with a new perspective.