This is a companion to my more general post about alternatives to headsets, as I wanted to write about both the options available for people and about my own experience and the solution that worked for my particular preferences and caveats. Splitting the two aspects into two posts seemed like a better option than creating a giant wall of text.

Due to everything on the limitations/caveats list below, finding a comfortable communication option for gaming is quite tricky for me. Given that gaming is my main way of socialising, a faulty choice here can be very annoying. This meant that taking the time to dive into researching more options was worthwhile, especially if it resulted in a more comfortable gaming-party experience.

I’m aware that this is irrational, and that it’s very much a first world problem, but trying to find a working alternative to wearing a typical headset was annoying not only because I had to try (and return) a lot of audio products, but because I felt stupid for not being able to just do things in the “proper” way.

Limitations / Caveats

  1. I’m very sensitive to noise; the “immersion” of hearing all of the background noise and detail inside the game that people often desire can instead feel like a sensory overload for me because there are so many sounds going on.

    Filtering out chat audio from the background of game audio is also tricky for me, so I need to have the option to hear only chat audio.

    Sometimes, direct audio from earbuds/ headphones can feel physically painful even at very low volumes, so I need to have the option to send all audio (game and chat) out from the TV.

  2. I get headaches from wearing most headphones for longer than an hour. The only exception to this to this I’ve found is the Bose QC 35ii because of how light they are and how little force they apply. Wearing headphones or a headset can also put uncomfortable pressure on my ears and jaw when my TMJ is playing up.

  3. Lots of earphones and IEMs just don’t fit my ears.

  4. I need to wear either earplugs or my noise-cancelling headphones for a large part of the day when I’m at work, and would prefer not to have to shove more things in/on my ears when I’m at home.

  5. I’m not very good at talking loudly, so I need an actual mic rather than an inline mic to be audible to my friends.

Anti-Caveats (aka factors I don’t need to worry about)

  1. I live with someone who is severely hearing impaired, and my neighbours are hearing impaired too, so being overheard or disturbing others is not something I have to think about.

  2. I have an old flatscreen TV with surprisingly high-quality speakers: both game audio and music sound good and don’t have that scratchy “laptop speaker” sound. This means a complex setup with recievers/ surround-sound speakers isn’t necessary, as hearing party and game audio through my TV is actually my preferred option.

Contenders/options I’ve tried

Earbuds with an inline mic.
These had to be ruled out for reasons 1, 3,4, and 5. There just wasn’t enough control over what I heard, and I wouldn’t be audible to others. Also, if I used earbuds just for party chat, it would then reduce my ability to hear game audio though the TV, leaving the two sources of sound to fight with each other.

Gaming earbuds with a boom mic.
I’ve never actually tried these, but I’ve pre-emptively ruled them out for reasons 1, 3, and 4.

A one-eared “chat only” headset.
One of these – the Turtle Beach Recon Chat – was my main headset for a long time. Usually it worked well, as the headset was very light, and I could also swap which side I wore it on if it became uncomfortable. I could also switch between having chat audio come though the headset or through the TV depending on how well my ears were behaving.

However, when I started experiencing TMJ a few years ago and so tried wearing the headset around my neck to avoid the pressure, I realised it was not an optimal solution. The weight imbalance meant it would slide around and make me inconsistently audible.

This is still my second-place option, and what I would go back to if my first place option stopped being available.

Wearing a two-eared headset around my neck instead of on my head.
I kept a backup two-eared headset for use if visitors were over, which was a Hyper X Cloud Stinger. While this headset did sound great, and had a low enough clamping force that I could wear it without too much discomfort, it did reinforce that even the comfortable two-eared headsets weren’t the best option for me.

Wearing the headset around my neck solved the imbalance issue, compared to trying that with a one-eared headset, but generally wasn’t very comfortable. It also meant I couldn’t be heard very well – friends said that they needed to turn me up to 200% volume in party chat for me to be audible. While it works in a pinch, it inspired this search for a better audio solution as I felt like there had to be a less clumsy method. Ruled out for reasons 2 and 5.

A clip on lapel / lavalier mic.
I’ve tried a few over the years, and they either didn’t work with my Xbox controller or sounded like I was “talking through a Pringles tube”. So these were eventually ruled out for reason 5.

An Antlion Modmic
This was a false start as I tried using it a way outside of its intended use case.

The normal use case for a ModMic is to be attached to a set of headphones that doesn’t have a mic, to turn them into a headset. I saw one for super cheap on eBay (a common theme here) and wondered if there was a way to wear it that didn’t require a headset so it was just a portable mic. The short answer is not really! (The long answer is that if you have a 3D printer, you can download the blueprints for various moulds and accessories.)

A desktop USB mic.
The only one that works with Xbox is the Turtle Beach Stream Mic (thanks for the unnecessary restriction, Microsoft!). I found one on eBay so tried it out, but it didn’t work out for me.

Again, this was mostly ruled out for reason 5. Even after trying many options on the PC software, I couldn’t set the gain high enough to consistently pick me up without causing a constant background fuzz that was uncomfortable for me and anyone in my party.

However, my bad experience was partly due to not having a good place to put the mic to ensure it stayed at the right distance. For a louder person with the space to mount the mic on a boom arm to keep it consistently at the right distance, this could be a good choice.

So, that’s a long list of options that didn’t quite work out. However, a few months ago I found something that was good enough to become the answer to this question.

The winner is the Antlion Kimura mic cable, without any IEMs attached.

Antlion Kimura

This cable comes in three variants: you can buy just the cable, the Solo version which comes with basic IEMs, or the Duo version which comes with upgraded IEMS.

I bought the Solo version as I wasn’t sure if the IEMs would fit me or if I would want to use them. While the IEMs did not fit me, choosing to wear just the mic cable solved most of my problems.

  • As it is much lighter than a headset, it doesn’t cause any pressure issues.
  • I can hear my party and the most important game audio through the TV clearly as nothing is in my ears.
  • My party can hear me at regular-person volume and reportedly at better quality than with my previous headsets or mics.

The only issues with the Kimura for me are:

  • It lacks an on-mic or on-cable mute, so I need to go into the Xbox party menu to mute myself. This felt weird at first but is habitual now.
  • The mic is very sensitive – if a particularly loud car drives past, for example, it is picked up. Combined with muting taking longer, this means that people I’m talking to hear extra noises from my side.
  • As I’m wearing the mic cable without any IEMs attached, I have to bend the flexible arm more tightly than intended to keep it around my ear. While this has worked well, and after a few months there are no indications of any issues, I worry whether using the cable slightly outside of its intended range may make it less durable.

Wearing just the mic cable is the best solution I’ve found so far, and where I have for now stopped searching. So I can consider this question successfully overthought!