Headset idea

So Sean mentioned to one of you that I have a good idea for setting up your microphone and I figured instead of just PMing someone with it I would just post it for all to see.

As some of you may know, if you plug a USB headset into your PS3 you do not get full sound out of it. The only thing that you can get to come out of your headset is the chat sound... not the game sound. If you are a past Counter-Strike player like I am you know that this is inferior to having full sound coming out of your headset so that you can hear footsteps, gunshots, and general noise and what direction it comes from.

A few companies, like Turtle Beach and Triton, have come up with a way around this by making a more complicated set of headphones with both a USB input and a RCA input. Running the chat sound through USB and the game sound to the headset through the red and white RCA cables. This is the setup I have and it works great. I got a headset from Turtle Beach... the p21 half off one day at Best Buy and have yet been able to replicate this deal. If you have the money ($80 for the cheaper headsets) or want a good looking way of doing this, this is the way I recommend.

However, not all of us have millions of dollars to spend on our gaming habits. I came up with this and Scwightman has it working on his PS3. If you buy a USB soundcard for your PS3 you can then plug in a regular headset that would be plugged into a computer with the regular 3.5mm microphone jack. You can get a USB soundcard from Amazon, Best Buy, or really any store like that. The one Sean has is This one here for $0.99. You need to make sure that you don't need to install drivers from a CD in order to use it because your PS3 can't install drivers. Then use and adapter to get you a red and white RCA connection from a 3.5mm connection for your sound. Make sure you get a female to female one like this one. If your screen or whatever you are plugging your HDMI for your PS3 into has a 3.5mm jack in it already you may not need this and you might be able to just plug right in. AFter this, find a headset that you like that has 2 3.5mm jacks and use that to game with full sound and chat on your PS3. You can get an okay pair of these for around $20 or just use regular headphones and use a microphone on a stand that you got with a desktop sometime. You just set it up in your options like you would a regular headset only tell it you want the chat sound to come out of the RCA output instead.

Now you have 2 ways to get that full functionality with a headset. The first way might be a little sharper looking and is a good choice if you have the money or find them on sale. But the second option is less than half the price and you get the same functionality, this is including if you have to buy a new set of headphones to do it with.

Hope this helps one of you. Let me know if you try this method and it doesn't work, I'll try to give you a hand. Or let me know if you try it and it works, it's always nice to know when people put ideas into practice.

Sorry this was so long.... couldn't come up with a way to get it all out there and shorten it.