If so, which ones? I am looking to game and talk to friends over discord on my Steam Deck. No FPS, more bullet hells, ARPGs, etc. Thank you!!
I have a pair of Sony EXB50’s or something along those lines, wired earbuds. Works great, though some games suffer from audio crackling (possible side effect of resume from sleep). Sound quality is good though regardless, and that’s game dependent in my experience.
Bluetooth earbuds work well too, you can pair your phone to the Steam Deck and pair the earbuds to the Steam Deck and stream music from your phone and play your game. Also haven’t noticed any latency which is pretty amazing, but even if there was a rhythm game worth its salt has a setting to correct that
I generally use Bose Bluetooth wireless headphones. I just got a set of Viture glasses so I’ll see how those speakers sound. On occasion I play without headphones, either built in speakers or no sound.
KZ ZST
AirPods Pro & Max. It’s so nice that you can just connect to them with the QAM now. I haven’t used them with Discord on a Steam Deck though
Sennheiser Momentum 3 bluetooth headphones. They work amazingly well.
Yes, because my OLED’s speakers sound terrible. Especially when compared the LED I had previously.
I use a Bose QC45.
See this if your interested in knowing more: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/1329
Bose QC45 gang
the gaming edition came with a microphone and aux cable, it’s beautiful
I tried using my Bluetooth earbuds with my LCD Deck but there was a very noticeable audio delay which made them basically useless. Nobody else seems to be having this issue so maybe they fixed it with an update. I have an OLED Deck now, I should try it again.
I had the same issue with an OLED deck. Maybe an update fixed it, like you mentioned. I’ll try it again too.
I have a pair of the “Drop + Sennheiser PC38X Gaming Headset” that have a built-in microphone that can be flipped up and down. Unfortunately I almost never use the microphone, but the sound quality is great and I can still hear what’s going on around me.
I don’t care for ear buds very much because I find them uncomfortable.
I use these wired headphones. They are not noise cancelling, they aren’t even the new in ear style, no. They sit in your ear like old school ear buds, but built using modern technology.
They sound great, the bass is a little lacking but that can’t be helped. The benefit is that I can still hear my family around me, so if someone starts talking to me I don’t accidentally ignore them. They work great!
I got a pair of Zero:2 budget earphones. Wires are annoying when you’re used to wireless, but this was a good bet. Sure my AirPods block out plane noise better, but the passive noise cancellation is perfectly adequate on these, even on flights.
For mic audio you just can’t beat a physical wire.
Edit: these are a collaboration between 7Hz, a ChiFi manufacturer with a decent reputation, and Crinacle, an audio influencer(?) who tuned their sound. They’re 20 odd US dollars and sound awesome for the price, they’re my default backup pair of earphones and sometimes I’ll even just use them when I don’t really have to. I did change the cable to a braided one, the original picked up a lot of sound rubbing against my clothes, but hey, at 20$ I expect compromises like that.
Bluetooth headphones work well with the Steam Deck, I specially like how you can pair your phone to the Deck and it will mix the phone’s audio with the game audio (so you can have music or a podcast playing, for instance)
For those asking how to do it, simply enable Bluetooth on the phone and then go to the Steam Deck’s Bluetooth page, find the phone and pair it from there.
Thank you for this. I’m doing this. This is awesome.
And it’s a Linux thing, so you can do it with your desktop too!
Interesting! I didn’t know you can mix the phone and the Steam Deck audio! I’ll have to try that myself too.
Thank you for answering my question. I was wondering if the Bluetooth latency is noticeable but seems fine from what most people are saying.
I was wondering if people that did use headphones did 2.4 wireless vs Bluetooth but it sounds like both should work okay.
I did not know this. Might have to give it a try.
ok so I just tried it. it does work but it is kinda temperamental. and doesn’t work flawlessly.
the signal keeps getting interrupted and janky as bluetooth can kinda be odd when it comes to having more than one device connected to it at one time.
especially audio. so yes it technically works, but its not going to be super usable.
I believe you might want to double check your phone and/or headphones. Or even the Deck itself.
I use it daily and apart from the expected latency, the audio is great with no flaws. No interruptions or jank.
Bluetooth 4.0 is capable of handling around 8 connections simultaneously
i am not able to use bluetooth headphones and a bluetooth controller at the same time with the steam deck.
the sound just constantly stutters. its been that way since I got the deck. so its been years now.
Bluetooth controllers actually do behave weirdly on the Deck, the polling rate is sub optimal. You can modify certain system files to help, but you’d have to reset the setting after every update.
But for audio, it’s mostly fine. I really do not have issues using this phone to Deck setup. You could consider a full system reset if it’s that bad on your end, it’s supposed to work well.
No way, that’s awesome!
I paired both my phone and earbuds to the deck and the phone’s audio was super choppy. It behaved better when in the deck’s options menus but it was still bad. 🤔
exact same experience. it doesn’t work well, unfortunately.
You can what?
Woah what? How??
when you pair your phone to the steamdeck, the deck reports as a speaker to your phone.
Wow!! It works, thank you! On ios I had to connect from the (LCD) steam deck, but it did work after that.
I don’t usually play games with friends, so I just use whatever pair I currently have available. Right now it’s just a cheap enough pair of wired over the ear skull candy headphones. Don’t know how good they’d be for things like audio calls that go on for extended periods of time, but they’ve been pretty good to me so far.
sorry I just paly with the sound on and don’t use a mic. all single play.
I use Sony wh1000-xm5 noise canceling, they are amazing for immersion. Using the built in mic for steam audio and it works well
Thanks for your comment! I was thinking the XM4 for myself vs. The Bose Quietcomforts with like a V Moda Boom mic but was nervous about the latency and whether there were better set ups to be considered.
First time to hear something positive about them. Only heard that they are a step down from xm3 and 4.
At least they fixed the breaking hinges. On my XM3 both are held on by super glue. Apart from that, they’re great, over 5 years old and the battery still lasts 3 days of more than 10 hours a day usage
I had the xm4, the 5 is better. It wasn’t a revolutionary change, but it was definitely an improvement, not worse
I moved from xm3 to xm5, the 5s are better. Also, handling multiple Bluetooth devices is a huge QoL improvement.
I got a cheap pair of bone conduction, open ear headphones. Sound quality isn’t fantastic, but I keep my ears open for my family while also sparing them my game noise.
I do this too. I bought them for work but I use them with steam os (Bazzite) too.
