Hi,

I have a current problem. I have bought various pc gaming headsets over time and most of them have been quite useless as regards preventing others from hearing the sounds emanating from my PC headxset while gaming. The least worst so far was a SADES heasdset which is big and bulky and reduces the sound a bit. - the main attraction is that I foolishly often let my pc headsets drop to the ground when getting up, and the SADES headset is, so far, the only one to have lasted years of this treatment, rather than a few months. I previously checked online reviews and went for a sennheisser game zero headset but that was a disappointment, and is now bust after 1 drop too many, anyway.

Anyway, I don't want to annoy the neighbours, especially since I sometimes play heavy metal music(manowar etc.) as a background to some of my PC games), so can anyone recommend a genuinely noise-isolatinfg pc headset which no one can hear at medium setting if more than 10 metres away, for example? Thanks!

A few things. You won't like this.
Stop damaging your hearing. Playing sounds that loud at a regular basis will end with you in a hearing aid before you're 40. Seriously. If it's so loud they can hear it at 30 ft, you're doing it wrong.

And treat your equipment with more respect. Don't treat your things like shit and get surprised when they break or malfunction. Sorry, it's just not reasonable to expect someone to make audio equipment (which is pretty fragile by design) rugged enough to endure being dropped from 1-2 meters off the ground.

Beyond that, yeah. I'm being preachy because so many people don't realize that their way of life is the problem, not the elements that don't fit into it.

Thanks for stating something that you think will help but people probably won't like. That's not so common, these days..

I used to have all sounds on max but have gone to a lot of trouble in recent years to reduce the sound in order to take care of my ears. I don't have a loudspeaker, and have fx sound and have even tweaked the vlc player.

My problem is that I live in a flat which has very thin walls. The bedroom next to my computer-room , for example, has such thin walls, that anyone sleeping there can hear lovemaking in the flat next door. In the summer, I am forced to keep my windows open(cannot afford the freezing air-conditioning available in LA airport), and any PC sounds can , judging from outside comments, be easily heard from the street below(I am on the 1st Floor(=2nd floor american)). The point is that sometimes the background music to some pf my PC games seems to carry very well across some distance, so I would prefer to have PC gaming headsets which are excellent at cutting out all sound instead of me turning up the sound . I am also a Manowar fan and their music is meant to be played loud!

Well I love my HFI-780's. They block out sounds pretty well, have great sound but long burn-in time which is worth having patience for. I'm not sure if they would survive lots of falls though.

I got the impression that the best noise-isolating headphones all have big ear-muffs , all covering the ears, not just being "on-ear". The trouble is, online, most searches for noise-isolation force me into websites for noise-cancelling headsets. I have no real interest in cancelling out all external noises, and I dislike the tech involved as well. But most people seem only to care about not hearing any external sound, and hardly anybody online seems to care about annoying the neighbours...

What I was planning to do was have 1 pair of pc headsets for when I am expecting parcels or phone-calls, and have 1 pc gaming headset which prevents anyone hearing anything from c.10m away, which I would use to avoid neighbours etc. complaining during more intensive gaming sessions. I must admit I should anyway reduce the music volume settings for most of my PC games, as they are usually not much good anyway.

Again, I'm not trying to be a jerk. I really just trying to save someone's ears. :) Good luck in your endeavors to find a headset.

Err, I was not being sarcastic. Quite the opposite. It's a unfortunately common human characteristic to not tell the truth for fear of giving offence. I am looking for ways to reduce volume. Hmm, my loudness equation audio option is missing , I will see if I can reinstall it on my windows 10 pc.

That said, I am currently flush with cash and would like to find out if there is a pc headset which is genuinely noise-isolating if the volume is at medium settings. Currently, all my pc headsets leak sound and the neighbours do sometimes complain so I'd like to do try out all the options.

Anyone recommend the razer blackshark headset, perhaps? What about Klipsch headsets?

I think you should make your wall soundproof, and use whatever headsets you have after that. :-/

I would have to install double-glazing in order to prevent the sound from emanating from my flat down to the street. That is apparently quite expensive, let alone adding more thickness to the walls.Hmm, perhaps I should be looking at the sort of closed headphones that are also used in a recording studio environment, instead?

Just so I get this right: You play games and listen to music using headphones, but there's still enough noise that your neighbors or people on the street can hear it? That seems... weird? Generally if you're using headphones/earphones no one should be able to hear it, unless they're in the same room as you, and even then it should be fairly subtle. What's up with that?

Does not make sense. I just did a test. I had a youtube video of manowar's song " let the gods decide", set at 100% youtube-audio volume, but had the overall PC volume set first at 50% , then at 29%. I do not have any pc loudspeakers, just standard realtek soundcards, if that means anything. I was able to hear the words of the song clearly at either setting from the other room at the far end(10+ metres away). A light sleeper could not sleep even with the 29% volume-setting. And the wall I was next to is facing the neighbour's bedroom , and is rather thin, enough to hear sounds therefrom. Also, there is only 10-20m distance betwen the PC and the street below, given the open windows in the summer.

I find also, that closing my hands over the SADEs headset does not diminish the sound lekaage much, either. The idea was to simulate what sound leakage would occur if I had the headphones on my head at the time.

Just did another test with yout audio set at c.50% and the overall pc volume still set at 29%. I could still hear the music, if not the words, and a light sleeper like me would not find it that easy to get to sleep with the msuic on at that level. And yet, my relatives tell me that my hearing is probably damaged due to listenting to really loud music....

Hmm, I can see that pc gaming headphones are not worth looking into. I will check out studio closed headphones which are compatible with desktop PCs, in future.

At a train ride, I felt a strong urge to tell a fellow traveller to turn his damn headphones down. For whatever reason, the sound of heavy metal always spreads like wildflre! So to me, the OP sounds quite reasonable.

Doesn't sound like you have a problem with the headphones at all. They make sound, and you can hear it. Certainly you can go with less than 29%, I don't know why that number would be a minimum.

Maybe you want to feel the music rather than just hear it? The description of your apartment makes it seem like your walls will collapse if you tried. Sound is an expression of energy, you know.

From what I understand from these past years living with someone else who uses hearing aids, hearing damage isn't about simply not hearing. It's a matter of what type of sounds can and can't be heard. There are many characteristics of sound. More importantly, not all types of hearing loss can be treated with hearing aids. Very few from what I understand. What little that can get treated does not sound the same as before. Speaking louder to my roommate quite often doesn't help at all, it's the various qualities of the sound that matter.

Personally, I lost my hearing for about three days when I tried to turn off a smoke alarm for a false alarm (no smoke at all). It is plugged in, but it also has backup batteries and the back is screwed shut. The short time it took me to get a ladder, take it down, get a screwdriver and remove the batteries was too long. The rest of the day I couldn't hear anyone speak and the freeway traffic was oddly silent. As much as I wanted to appreciate not hearing the daytime traffic, I couldn't feel comfortable with the thought that everything could be that way for the remainder of my life just because of a smoke alarm. I think I recovered mostly after three days, but I'll never be sure how much I recovered. On the other hand, my roommate can barely determine the difference between the smoke alarm and the phone (with closed captioning), so I need to be able to hear.

The description you've given of your circumstances (the apartment and the headsets) seems to me like a perfect opportunity to practice savoring the sound rather than its force (or whatever it is that you've been going after). You make it obvious that a different location would be required for anything else.

Ok, I should have mentioned that the ones I use also don't leak much sound if any. When others have used them near me I've never been able to hear what they are listening to.