gaming headsetI do not miss my college years. Living packed into a tiny house with 5 other dudes. Was it crowded? You better believe it. But the worst part was the noise. 6 different sources of alerts, notifications, music, sound effects, and assorted other electronic noises mashing together into a cacophonous mess. If you are lucky enough to live in the auditory luxury of being the only one using the sound space of your living arrangements, then I envy you. For the rest of us, however, we have to make the best of a crowded situation. When everyone wants to do their own thing, you need to respect boundaries and keep your noise to yourself. You need a computer headset! Here are a few reason why it’s a good idea.

Who is making that racket?

Imagine a room full of PC and devices that are receiving notifications from Facebook and Twitter, and each one of them is letting out a cheery ‘ding!’ with each notification’s arrival. You will find that it takes about 5 minutes before the noise drives you mad. But if you have your headphones on, the beeping, dinging and pinging you hear will be for your ears only. No more checking phantom messages. With your headphones on, the only alerts you’ll notice are the ones you wanted to notice.

Sound Quality

gaming headsetAre you listening to your favourite song through the tiny, tinny speakers on your battered laptop? Stop. Please. Just stop it. You’re better than that, and your ears deserve a better sound experience. It is an unfortunate reality that the built-in speakers of most PCs are adequate at best. It’s a matter of limited size and keeping costs low, but the result is the audio fidelity of a fast food drive-thru speaker. That’s why you need to make a small investment in a decent pair of headphones, like the Dell Performance AE2 headphones. You will finally hear the full audio of the movie playing on your laptop. Trust me, your ears will thank me.

Tactical Advantage

gaming headsetYou may not know this when you first pick up the gaming habit, but most games use sound as a method of conveying information. It’s not just pretty music and cool explosion sounds. Being able to fully hear the designed sound will tell you where your enemies are and what they are about to do. A good gaming headset like the Razer Tiamat 2.2 V2 gaming headset will give you the ability to locate your enemy and react to their malevolent machinations. You wouldn’t wear a blindfold while gaming, so don’t keep your ears out of the loop.

No more involuntary mashups

Bose headsetDo you remember the scene from The Last Jedi where Thor arrives at Luke’s door? I hope not, because that never happened. But if you happen to have two roommates playing those two films concurrently, things can get confusing. I hate hearing unrelated noises when I’m watching a movie. And if I can’t simply send everyone else out of the house when I want to watch a movie, then I’ll do the next best thing. I will slip on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones like the Bose QuietComfort 35 noise-cancelling headphones, and the outside world will fade away.

image from razer.com

Chris Loblaw
Chris is a novelist, avid gamer, tech enthusiast, and proud dad of a 13-year-old video game master.