Best products from r/streaming

You're in luck- now is THE time to be a budget minded shopper, especially in the world of headphones/headsets. Not knowing you're budget, and in order to not overwhelm you, lets stick to a few basics that are all getting rave reviews.

HyperX Cloud - There are a few varations on this one, but barring the wireless versions you shouldn't pay over $100 for a set of these. HyperX themselves have a great breakdown of the different models, although really going with any of them is a solid choice.

HyperX Cloud Comparison/Shopping Tool

HyperX is a tried and true gaming company with a focus on eSports gear, so their stuff is all performance, no frills/dumb features approach. Turn on any Twitch channel/tournament you're bound to spot a set or two of these.


Logitech G Pro (Wired) Headset
Another tried and true gaming company. Cannot go wrong with much from Logitech. They have tons of stuff for plenty of budgets, but as I'm trying to stick with stuff under $100, their G Pro Headset is subtle, but packed with performance that is sure to pop on that webcam ;)

Logitech G Pro Headset Do note this is from an Amazon seller that is FUFILLED by Amazon. I've never run into an issue buying stuff that way but I know some people take issue with it- you can find this thing pretty much anywhere


These last two are newer to the scene, a response to the mentioned battle for best budget headset that seems to be going on these days.

Razer Kraken X Wired Stereo Headset
As with the above companies, Razer is pretty much synonymous with gaming gear. In the past they have had a... polarizing opinion with gamers. They (can be) known for selling overpriced gear loaded up with stuff people tend not to care about like RGB and that very "gamer" feel, and are often blamed for jacking up the pricepoint on items like mice, mouse mats, etc. With the recent shift, Razer has heard the cries of the community and released a a SUB $60 headset that (I'm told, I haven't personally used it) really punches above its weight class. No frilly RGB, and quality metal parts where it counts. Understated matte black where used to be glowing strips of rainbows.

Link to Razer Kraken X @ Best Buy


fnatic Gear React Headset
The newest of the bunch, and by far a personal favorite of mine. I've long been a fan of fnatic's whole line, so I MAY be a bit biased, but the reviews speak for themselves. You might notice this looks pretty familar to the HyperX Cloud and that isn't by accident, although in my oppinion this beats out the sound slightly of the HyperX. fnatic is originally an esports company with teams all over the spectrum of PC gaming, so their stuff is designed to be used DIRECTLY by their players. I've been a fan of their mice, mats, and other headsets for a long time now, and loving using this headset for my consoles. This one comes in at ~$60 and to me, is the best value for the money on the market right now. They also have a $100+ headset I'm a pretty big fan of in case you REALLY wanted to make a statement.

Link to the fnatic US store/can also be purchased direct from Best Buy



In case it STILL seems like a lot (I tend to ramble...) here are a couple videos of reviews for the stuff above. I cannot recommend the Youtube/gaming review community. There are some hard workers out there really pushing content out that really REALLY helps you make the best inform decision you can. Bad Seed Tech, Randomfrankp, Hardware Canucks, and my personal favorite, Brandon Taylor do some EXCELLENT work making videos- just search "gaming headset reviews" and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Razer Kraken X
Bad Seed Tech
Random Frankp


Hardware Canuck's Logitech vs HyperX video
Logitech VS HyperX

For a mic, I recommend a blue snowball, its easy to setup, sounds good and has a stand.

To be honest, I really dont think that a webcam at this early stage would be such a good idea but a good one would be a Logitech C922x

As headphones go, a pair of corsair void pros would be great and have awesome sound quality. The wireless ones are great, plug them in overnight and then play all day and you are good to go! But for simplicity, I recomend the wired version as then you dont have to remember to plug them in

The general consensus is yes, building it yourself would be much cheaper. However, since it you’ve mentioned that you’re not too confident with building yourself, a prebuilt is probably your best option.

The issue really at that point becomes is the money worth the convenience and is it worth giving up some performance?

Without scaring you with a bunch of numbers and big technical terms/phrases, what I can tell you is that in order to keep the price that low, you have to give up quite a bit of performance. As the old adage goes “you get what you pay for.”

And I’m sincerely not trying to make you feel bad for not knowing how to build a PC or not wanting to spend a massive amount of money. It’s perfectly okay and I’m sure everyone here has been there at one point. I know I have. All I aim to do is make sure you are making a 100% informed decision. Too many times I’ve seen someone buy a system and instantly regret it once they realize it’s not what they were looking for or didn’t perform as expected.

With that said, Ryzen is good at multithreaded performance (doing many things at once) and is one of its major advantages over Intel along with the price being significantly lower. However, the Ryzen 3 series is not that great for gaming and streaming, especially if you’re looking to stream WoW, a CPU heavy game. It falls short due to it only having 4 cores while Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 have 6 and 8 cores, respectively. More cores means better multitasking.

Just as well, RAM is an important part. You can get by with 8GB RAM just fine, but it doesn’t leave much head room. like I said before, I don’t want to scare you with all these terms and phrases, so just think of Ram as your brains short-term memory. It’s easy and fast to access. So if you have more Ram, you have more short term memory and don’t have to wait to “remember” other data that isn’t stored in Ram which makes for a smoother gaming/streaming experience.

As far as GPU (graphics card) goes, the one is your post is just fine. The 1060 is the basic frame that the newer 1660 is based on. The only real difference between the two is the 1660 has ray-tracing capabilities while the 1060 does not.

I found this system for about $600. Slightly better specs, but no keyboard or mouse. Also, not the most aesthetically pleasing case, but it can be changed in the future if desired. It should handle everything just fine.

So first things first, to use a DSLR camera as a webcam you'll need a 3rd party device like the Elgato Camlink . This will let you stream through the camera on the OBS system.

Now for the mics, I would think the best way to set this up is using a computer that has multiple USB inputs so you could use each one directly to the OBS system. OBS should recognize each one and you can edit the amount of volume each one is hearing so one person isn't talking louder than the other. Now where you may run into an issue is if you don't have the appropriate number of USB ports and then you may want to look into tech that would gather all audio into one device and then send to the PC (a mixer of some sort).

During the live stream you should be able to set up a audio recording software (sorry, don't have recommendations for this) that runs in the background so you could still post your podcast after recording.

I've thought about doing this for my wife as well as she runs a podcast with 2 of her friends. If you find a good solution, make sure to post it so I can see and a picture of the setup! Enjoy!

Are you planning on streaming PC Games or Console games? if console your going to need a capture device: amazon

This camera has comes highly recommended for your budget: amazon

I used to do PIP streams a long time ago but really it should be pretty simple to set up in OBS.

• install/plug in webcam (should be simple)
  
• Open OBS and the Global Sources Menu
  
• Add a new GS which will be the webcam. (This way you don't need to configure it after creating new scenes, just add the GS to the scene)
  
• If using a capture device follow above directions so that its also simple to set up between scenes if you plan on changing things around.
  
• Try and do a small dry run so you know how everything works.
  
  When I ran couch streams I had a mic on a boom connected to a mixer I kept near my feet so I could change the mic volume on the fly. I don't know exactly what kind of set up you'll have, but I def recommend setting it up a few days early and testing it if you haven't already.
  
  I'm sure I'm forgetting things so just let me know and I'll do my best to respond quickly.
  
  

Mic wise, I’ve been using the Blue Yeti and I’m really liking it so far! But regarding clamping it to the desk, you might want to look at mic stands/arms. I’m currently using this one by Rode and I find it really useful!

Here is what I use, all great stuff.

Neewer Green Screen Backdrop,... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07K1SX1KR?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Neewer Photo Studio 176 LED Ultra... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XDFGDCX?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Sinvitron® 11 inch Magic... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B011769YUM?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

And to add some warm / white light as needed I have one of these clamped to my monitor to my left.
KEXIN Clip on Reading Lamp LED Desk Lamp - 5W Eye-Caring Table Light 3 Mode Dimmable Brightness Study Lamp Flexible Neck Clamp Night Light for Bedroom Student Boy Girl Black https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07S86R3FL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VaeHDb2PYGJS7

If you’re looking for a reasonably priced lighting setup, here is what I use:

Photography Photo Portrait Studio 600W Day Light Umbrella Continuous Lighting Kit by LimoStudio, LMS103 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FHZ2SI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XMmVBb2BH6EX3

I like the flexibility with having more than one light and the umbrellas really soften the light, giving a much higher quality of light. And if you ever desire to use a green screen, these can throw a lot of light on that to smooth out any shadows. It’s a solid setup for the price.

Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920, Widescreen Video Calling and Recording, 1080p Camera, Desktop or Laptop Webcam https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006JH8T3S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_O1hVBbMES7MKX

This is the one I use and most streamers I see using. It's simple and easy to set up. I don't have natural light either as most of it comes from in front of my camera's lens and bleeds into shot. I recommend having a couple of those paper lamps from Ikea and soft light lamps. They add great lighting if you use a dark room.

i use this mic with the arm mount and it works great but it has to be close. i would not generally recommend a mic that works from 2-3 feet away because background noise, but blue yetis are common and pick up sound from that distance pretty well. usually that's a bad thing because keyboards and mice make a lot of noise, which is a reason i like this one i have - i stream with speakers and it doesn't pick up a sound unless i'm deliberately looping it.

I forgot they make more products know lol

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014MQIVPS?ref=emc_p_m_5_i

The Helo sounds a bit pricy for me for sure, lol.

The USB point worries me. Here's what Device Manager has to say since I struggled with physically discerning them on my laptop.

I won't be doing any facecam stuff so not concerned about that (nor would I try to stream by pointing a camera at the TV :P)

>All the other Capture devices can be found in between $10-$40 bucks on Amazon. (Retro Consoles)

Very good to know, any specific recommendations there?

> You get no lag with the Elgato card during pass-through viewing, but if you do experience some lag, just split your HDMI Output that leads to your Elgato, and send the split to your TV.

Yeah, I don't tend to notice lag it seems. Still I just wanted to try and be sure about that. Would I be looking for something like this?

Do I really need something like this?

Would a card like this suffice? https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GT-710-2GD3-LP/dp/B01DOFD0G8/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

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Logitech HD 920 is my favorite and it's 50% off on Amazon

There's also that new razer one that has an LED ring key light built in Razer Kiyo AMAZON

Neet 1x2 HDMI Splitter

That’s the one I have. I imagine there’s better, newer, cheaper ones as I bought that 6 years ago for the same price.