Were your old headphones the AD700 or the AD700x?
The old purple and gold AD700's were my first real headphone. Loved em.
@AngrySquid270 I have the old Purple 700AD headphones. What makes them so great for footsteps is the entire mid-range is boosted by +5dB on the 700AD.
I recorded some footstep audio in Battlefield using Audacity, then ran it through a frequency spectrum analyzer using foobar2000. The sound frequency for footsteps start at 172Hz and continued to 1,000Hz. I was surprised they covered such a large frequency range and started at such a low frequency.
@RayD_O1 Thanks! I also noticed I can hear footsteps super clear if I set the DAC to 24-bit depth and 48,000Hz for audio playback while playing Battlefield 1. In-game settings set to stereo and large speakers.
I believe Battlefield audio files are 16-bit 48,000Hz, but I find setting the DAC to 24-bit 48,000Hz lets me really hear the footsteps for some reason. I tried 32-bit too but that made footsteps hard to hear. Same with 16-bit.
Decided to return the Sennheiser 560s. It has an extremely focused center channel which is great for pinpoint positional accuracy in gaming. I find it fatiguing for music and movies though. Plus the center channel is slightly elevated upwards towards the front of my forehead which feels weird.
I've been looking at the Hifiman Edition XS and might try it out next.
I found some binaural sound demos using in-ear microphones and thought the Edition XS sounded clear.
https://youtu.be/fz5JhQUfhSk @ 10:30 timestamp
Wish I knew of some other killer headphones out there for under $500. Something that's a good all-rounder for movies, music, and gaming.
