Does anyone use the helicopter type headphones? or are they just for pros at tournaments?

Answered yourself there

What can I say, consider normal headphones (sennheiser?) + an external mic. Don't have any experience with the gaming headphones, I wonder if the thing about them being 'designed to make most popular game sounds clear' isn't just gimmick, if its not then it's only the remove-able mic and multiple speakers to their advantage, it's up to you to decide if it's worth it.

Well, sennheiser are what I used years ago when i used to play q3 i think, so i might go for some more of those. I dont really want to spend more than 25quid anyway ( unless there is some big advantage in hearing enemy positions etc.)

If you're planning on going to lan, take some good closed senn or equivalent + external mic. If you're staying home all the time, take some good opend senn (hd555 595 etc) or equivalent + external mic.

Ahh, now i see you can get closed or open headphones. I guess the closed headphones might give you hot sweaty ears after a while ? :)
I can see the hd555's on ebay for about 80quid. Maybe ill have to reconsider my budget :(.
senn hd 800 lol, didn't realise you could spend so much on headphones...

I wouldn't go with fully closed ones unless you're either on lans a lot or need to worry about sound leakage (say you have to worry about waking someone up, open head phones can be quite loud to outsiders).

I'm really happy with my akg k240s, semi closed and excellent performance. With a little luck you might be able to find the first version (which is pretty much the same as the mk2 version) for sub 100.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-10285208-47.html

http://www.productwiki.com/sennheiser-he90/

^ what he said. There are no headphone's with a mic I can honestly reccomend. I have Sennhesier HD-280 Pro's and they've worked like a charm for a long time now. You may find better headphones for several hundreds more but at the sub-100$ price-point they're they best in my opinion.

the helicopter headphones are around 700 euro's so i dont think anyone is using them..

i like the siberia or steelseries 5hv2 headphones

I think spartie actually bought a pair, and I remember stermy using them way back.

I was always told hd280's were good. I managed to pick up a sennheiser hd448's from hmv for £60, and they are a great pair of closed headphones. use the zalman clip on mic that doesn't actually clip on to jack shit.
but yeah in general, another vote for a pair of closed sennheisers.

pc350, 280pro sound are shit tbh :)

http://forums.premiumgamer.com/read/What_headphones_do_you_use

:)

been tons of threads about this already. Use the search!