Why do headset microphones suck?

[Mortis Angelus]

Just curious if anyone have any theories about this; why do microphones used on headsets sound so bad, even from reputable brands like Sennheiser?

There are lavalier/button/knob microphones out there that have far smaller form factor but sound amazing. Headsets cost quite a lot considering their audio quality, so why can't they make better microphones for them?

 

[Kmpkt]

I would think it probably comes down to balancing headset quality and mic quality at a given price point. Most consumers would prefer the sound output to be good rather than have a killer mic, so I think that is where most manufacturers spend their budgets. In order to do a headset properly, you're probably looking at a very niche market that no one cares to cater to. I personally use a Antilion ModMic 5.0 with a set of Fostex TH-X00 headphones and love both halves of the combo.

 

[Josh | NFC]

This is an excellent question.

I spent an infuriating amount of time and money trying to get a decent setup for PUBG. I went through the top end headsets but couldn't find a good combo of nice mic and nice sound. The Sennheiser Game One/Game Zero I tried you need a really powerful sound card to drive them and they still sounded horrible for anything other than shooter games...and even then they sounded bad. The mics were REALLY good though on them.

The Patriot Viper headsets are SUPER comfortable for me and I can wear them forever and forget they are on. They have a decent sound stage and I like how they sound (for a headset). However the mic is awful.

Then I moved to the Hyper X headsets, and currently I am wearing a Cloud Alpha Pro. It has the best mix of sound quality and mic quality I have found. It's not perfect. I don't think it is a comfortable headset...and I think after about a month it should be broken if it was going to be.

I didn't purchase a Mod Mic 5...but I was really tempted so I could use Grado Prestige cans with a good mic...but after listening to lots of audio samples and testing against what I have used here...I wasn't impressed for the tradeoffs of having two sets of cables and the cost.

If I was going to make ANY recommendation, it is NOT to buy a separate mic even if it has some noise cancellation like a Yeti. They sound fantastic but they don't filter aggressively enough and you will annoy your team mates with the extra noise they pick up. My PUBG squad all have nice desk mics but we had to switch to headsets...and the experience is so much better for all of us...even if we have to use these crappy headsets.

GOOD LUCK

 

[confusis]

Simple reason - 99% of the headset market just want to be heard, they don't care too much about audio fidelity on the mic side. If it's good enough for gaming or a Skype call, it's usually good enough for the majority of consumers, and thus the products are marketed and spec'd as such.

 

[Soul_Est]

Have a look at the Ant Lion ModMic, @Mortis Angelus .

 

[Mortis Angelus]

@Kmpkt @Josh | NFC @confusis @Soul_Est

Guys guys guys... I'm not looking for a new headset. I just wanted to discuss this matter. I know about what different options there are out there, and IF I ever need a headset, I will get the ModMic 5 (or whichever is bet at such a moment of need). I run proper Sennheiser headphones along with a proper desk mic. Left the headset world a long time ago, because.... well they all suck and cost way too much when considering their quality in both audio and mic quality.

Simple reason - 99% of the headset market just want to be heard, they don't care too much about audio fidelity on the mic side. If it's good enough for gaming or a Skype call, it's usually good enough for the majority of consumers, and thus the products are marketed and spec'd as such.

Well, why then are gaming headsets so expensive? And why is freaking RGB considered more important than audio quality of a freaking headset? Don't take me wrong; I like RGB. But that should be the last priority. E.g. I am okay with RGB on the Proteus Core G602, because the mouse itself is already using Logitechs best switches and optical sensor. RGB is then just an add-on.

On a side-note: Walking through one of my local computer stores yesteday, I also realized something really interesting; All gaming headsets are heavy, bulky, plasticy, stiff and over designed compared to some proper, even budget headphones. WHY? The worst I tried was the Asus ROG Strix headset, which was like a huge piece of plastic and that was rigid AF. Safe to say, I soon left that children's play room and went to the normal headphones....

People are so strange.....

I actually posted the same question up on LinusTechTips, and it is incredible how the majority of the responses there are just people defending the poor quality and saying their headset mics are good. The only thing I can keep asking is then; "have you ever heard a proper mic?". I guess I have raised my expectations too much by working in video production...

 

[Choidebu]

They just follow the market really. Simple demand and supply. Maybe now that streaming and vlogging, pubg are a thing THEN they'll start look into making it better. It was always just an extra. Good mic you can usually find in those video conferencing gears, when skype was a thing. But then it's all about noise cancelling and not audio repro quality. And of course, they skimped on the speaker side. Manufacturers will skimp on anything they can skimp on. Not until the customers vote with their wallet.

Same thing with labelling anything 'gaming'. It seemed to work - so they continue. People are gullible.

 

[Mortis Angelus]

Good mic you can usually find in those video conferencing gears, when skype was a thing

True. My girlfriend has a 10 eur headset, that was only made for skype calls. It looks ugly AF, is very uncomfortable, but it gives very crisp audio in the vocal registry, and the mic quality is like she is standing right next to me. For 10 EUR!

Then again... the Legendary Logitech MX518 gaming mouse cost only costed 28 eur brand new, which was premium at the time. Now similar tier mouse cost 90 eur....

 

[Choidebu]

I wonder if it's just hardware - just the physical mic. Nothing to do with onboard controller and adc somewhere in the product. I wonder if one can transplant that better mic then to another of better speakers....

 

[zovc]

Well, why then are gaming headsets so expensive? And why is freaking RGB considered more important than audio quality of a freaking headset? Don't take me wrong; I like RGB. But that should be the last priority. E.g. I am okay with RGB on the Proteus Core G602, because the mouse itself is already using Logitechs best switches and optical sensor. RGB is then just an add-on.

On a side-note: Walking through one of my local computer stores yesteday, I also realized something really interesting; All gaming headsets are heavy, bulky, plasticy, stiff and over designed compared to some proper, even budget headphones. WHY? The worst I tried was the Asus ROG Strix headset, which was like a huge piece of plastic and that was rigid AF. Safe to say, I soon left that children's play room and went to the normal headphones....

I think a big part of this phenomenon is that your typical end-user is purchasing a headset for themselves.

Why are they so expensive? Not trying to cop out, but production and engineering costs a lot and when you're cranking out a new design at least once a year, your overhead is going to be high. Besides that, selling at a higher price point implies a certain amount of premium and quality, whether it's present or not.

RGB and the bulky plasticy designs you're mentioning goes back to these points as well, they create the end-user experience the marketing team is aiming for. Consumers are eating up RGB designs and "gamer" products (like racing chairs) right now, (how much of that has to do with that being primarily what's available?) so marketing teams drive engineers to produce things with that aesthetic.

So, my assumption as to why headset mics typically stink? Because they're not directly a part of the typical end-user's experience. They all sound pretty uniformly crappy, so it's not like your teammates will really notice the difference, and it's not something the typical end-user will ever hear themselves.

I really like not being tethered to cables, so I've been enjoying my fairly old SteelSeries Wireless H. For the longest time I was using my Logitech Webcam's microphone because I remember hearing it is a "pretty good" mic--until I accidentally switched to the H's microphone for a little while and my friends said it sounded much better. When the time came to upgrade (I was thinking a wireless headset with USB-C charging), I was going to try out a setup with a stationary desk mic like @Josh | NFC was saying his friends tried, but apparently that might not be the way to go!

 

[Mortis Angelus]

I was going to try out a setup with a stationary desk mic like @Josh | NFC was saying his friends tried, but apparently that might not be the way to go!

I really recommend this setup, because you essentially stay tether-free as you are in no contact with the mic itself. I have wireless Sennheiser headphones and a desktop mic. It is a wonderful way to go But make sure to have it on an arm, or every single vibration caused by moving the mouse or typing will be heard.

But back to the topic: Sure, engineering costs, but enginreering cost a lot also before, but still some things were cheaper (e.g. my MX518 example above). I think it much of the price is just increase of profit margin, because they know the customers will pay for it. As you said: people are jumping on trends, and are ready to pay for it without thinking about what they are paying for.

I myself was sooo close to buying a racing chair, until I had the brains to first go out and try them out and realize that they are the worst back-killers ever brought to the market with 0 ergonomy.

But like the gaming industry, where the common excuse for DLC is that it cost so much to develop games, what is ignored in those discussions is the fact that these days, there are so many already made libraries, so devs do not have to develop everything from scratch. There was also a video that discussed this, and came to the conclusion it is no more expensive, and in some cases cheaper, to develop a game than before. And then furthermore, the customer base is far greater than before.

And that last thing is a point I want to expand on for the engineering-argument; Even if it costs more in engineering, they also have a lot more gamers that will buy nowdays. And the annual engineering improvements are usually not that much. It is the brands that release models every 5 years or so that are actually doing engineering stuff.

Anyway, I still believe that in the end it is like you said; it is all about trends, companies catering for those trends, and end-users falling in line for those trends without thinking enough about it.

 

[jØrd]

At the end of the day vendors will charge what they think the market is willing to bear. if they think enough people will be willing to spend $10 more for a gimmick feature like RGB that only costs them $1 to implement then your paying $10 more. There also seems to be a degree of feature creep in the 'enthusiast' market, as soon as one company bolts on a new thing everyone else follows suit just in case that becomes the next hot thing and so that no one else can claim it as their unique selling point and corner that little bit of the market.

 

[Phuncz]

If I was going to make ANY recommendation, it is NOT to buy a separate mic even if it has some noise cancellation like a Yeti. They sound fantastic but they don't filter aggressively enough and you will annoy your team mates with the extra noise they pick up. My PUBG squad all have nice desk mics but we had to switch to headsets...and the experience is so much better for all of us...even if we have to use these crappy headsets.

This is my setup:

It's a Samson Meteor on a cheap suspension mechanism on a mic boom arm. I've set Discord's voice activation sensitivity to not trigger on my mechanical keyboard and I have the mic very close to my face. I also have disabled auto-gain. I haven't heard anyone complain about my setup. But using mics like the Yeti or Meteor on a desk is not going to be a good solution alone. It needs to be decoupled from the desk, like @Mortis Angelus mentioned.


Just like you @Mortis Angelus I wasn't happy with most headset's mics and especially because I already own two very decent Sennheiser headphones (the 'open' HD 555 and 'closed' HD 215). So I went with the above instead. But I've recently looked at a headset because at LAN parties, the above is useless with people randomly shouting. The ones that passed my first screening were the Sennheiser GAME One, the One is open, the Zero is closed but I prefer open for comfort. From the tests I've heard it has a decent mic.

 

[Soul_Est]

It's really about what the market is willing to pay for. You can build a headset that does much better but most are not willing to do so or invest in the research, shipping, etc. Go to the store, pick up what's there, go home and play.

 

[SFF2008]

I've found the Beyerdynamic MMX 300 to be the best when it comes to sound quality, mic quality, and comfort. I went through a number of headsets that all failed to impress me until a co-worker recommended me the MMX 300's. I borrowed them for a couple of days and ordered one soon after. They recently released a 2nd Gen, but I think the only notable change is the cable is detachable now.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/beyerdynamic/MMX_300/

http://www.thegamescouts.com/2015/02/beyerdynamic-mmx300-review.html

 

[Mortis Angelus]

@Phuncz I did not say that. I think you misquoted me instead of @Josh | NFC

But I agree with your other points