A40 TR Gaming Headset (Gen 4)

Yes, I had that problem too. I've had an A40 TR since 2017 (which still works perfectly) and I bought a second, latest-generation one. I found the new one inferior to the old one. I left it in the box and I'm keeping it to replace the first one in case the old one dies. But I felt a bit silly because I didn't like the sound of the new one, and like you, I forgot about the break-in period. I used it for about a week and now they both sound the same. Apparently, speaker break-in isn't just an urban legend.

Astro a40’s with a custom EQ for me

I bought an A50 Gen 5 to replace my ten-year-old A40. No problems with comfort. I could wear it for hours without any issues. It doesn't squeeze my head unnecessarily, and my ears are well supported. As for sound quality on BF6, I can hear footsteps wonderfully well (because of the update?), but more importantly, I can distinguish all sounds, no matter where they're coming from. A rather remarkable feature that I didn't have on my A40 is that if there's an explosion to my right, I'll really feel that it's coming from that direction. So, if this one lasts me ten years like the A40, I'll be very satisfied.

No, it was a closed-back headset. I'd had it for 12 years and used it with the MixAmp Pro on PS4, but it's not compatible with PS5. That probably explains the difference I noticed. However, I followed the advice of a guy who plays BF6 and is a sound engineer. He told me to avoid making too many audio adjustments at the same time. To leave the default settings and test them one by one to better hear the difference. For now, I've left everything at default; I've only activated the "Wartape" setting. Honestly, the difference is striking to me between the A40, which was plugged into the controller, and the A50 via Bluetooth. But I also got the A50 when the game update improved the sound of enemy footsteps. But where I really felt the difference was with the 3D sound. I only need to turn 360 degrees in the game to notice it. Let me explain: if the fights are in front of me, I can clearly hear all the gunfire and explosions coming from the front. If I turn 90 or 180 degrees, I immediately hear the difference in the headset. And frankly, in terms of comfort, I can wear it for 4-5 hours straight without any problem.

Maybe not BIFL but you could very reasonably expect to get 10 years out of a set of Astro A40s. $20/year sounds good to me

Astros. I have a40s that are over 10 years old, used daily for zoom & games.

The only wired ones I tried was the Astro A40 I dont own the mixamp but they still sounded pretty good just connected to controller.

Yup, u/HippoBlueberry21 - this is the correct answer. I’ve been fortunate to be able to buy and use Astro A40s, multiple Steelseries, Logitech G Pro, etc. I’ve done a stack of Schiit with AKG K7XX and an Antlion Modmic. Hands down, the Audeze are the best sounding and most well thought out headphones I’ve used. They use the same drivers as their very, VERY expensive headphones ($1500+)and their audio quality is 80% of the way there. They work flawlessly across Bluetooth, wired, and their own proprietary lossless/low latency transmitter, switching between PC and Mac at my desk via a KVM. 11/10. New ones just dropped and seem to address minor quibbles.

Good ole' A40's TR on my PS5.

I've switched to Astro years ago and never looked back. Amazing audio, comfort and durability. Have both the a40 tr (10+ years old) and the A50.

The thing a lot of people overlook is some gaming headsets have a lot of investment into sounding good for competitive gaming. So whilst they may not sound great for music and movies (though some are still fine), they often do directional audio very well and are tuned to enhance footsteps and enemy position, so in someways a gaming headsets can be as good or even better than high end studio headphones when it comes to purely gaming. I remember my old Astro a40tr being superb for enemy direction and competitive gps games. For music and movies they were pretty shit, but for gaming they were very good.