I must also say I am amazed someone would listen music or game audio so loud that even neighbors can hear it from the headset. Well, ok, my mother probably had her headset that loud when watching TV etc., but she was almost deaf to begin with (she was quite good at e.g. reading people's lips when talking with them).

I sometimes use a headset when gaming (at night), but I try to keep the volume so low that I only barely hear it myself. Yes, it is to protect my hearing.

actually those are proven to damage your hearing even if listening to audio-books at a reasonable level, always have been, I never understood why they caught on, but then I remembered people are stupid

light sleepers should be wearing ear-muffs, btw, it's not other ppl's fault they can't sleep better or their responsibility to help you sleep better

you choose to live in a place around other people and what they do in their lives, you're going to hear other people and their lives, be okay with it or move, imo

People are stupid because you don't understand why they have different audio needs than you do?

Speaking for myself, big cans don't travel particularly well. That's one reason why I use headphones at home - when I want to - and earbuds when I'm on the road.

no because they'd rather be fashionable than care about their hearing or don't even have the awareness what certain things do to their health that are pretty common sense

whose audio needs are "use a device that makes me go deaf" anyway ???

headphones don't travel well? what do you mean? I've been on the move with headphones for 17 years and have gone through 3 pair total

That's a cheap brand. If you want a gaming headset with a built in mic then pick up something from a brand like Plantronics, Razer, Logitech, Sennheiser, ATH, Corsair, HyperX, etc. The HyperX Cloud might be the one you're looking for.

If you want something with good audio but no microphone (you can buy one separately) then pick up an ATH-M40x. You won't be able to play it at 100% without blowing out your eardrums, it isolates sounds so you won't hear anything, and it has a really long wire since it's designed for studio use. It might run you around 70 euro on a sale.

You need closed headphones for good noise-isolation. Audio-Technica ATH-M40x are very good (don't get ATH-M50x), and the HyperX Cloud are decent too. If you want to do yourself a bit of research, then check this Zeos guy reviews and youtube videos.

What about hanging out in a music studio? You should be able to crank the volume up and not worry about what anybody else thinks outside of the studio. Might not even bother to use headphones.

Or try craigslist and move somewhere else?
https://vienna.craigslist.at/d/büro-handel/search/off

I found the right solution in the end. I was informed via googling that all the various manufacturers who do pc gaming headsets, and most of the rest even, often lie about the amount of sound isolation/sound attenuation they really offer. Apparently, they can legally make claims of sound attenuation up tp 32dB, say, even though this would only apply to a very narrow range within the audible sound spectrum. My solution was to check what drummers buy as they would need sound isolation the most. I found this product, DirectSound's Extreme Isolation 29 Plus, that can, apparently, block up to 29dB on ALL of the audible sound range, and sometimes even up to 36.5dB. I also checked a youtube video where the guy had the volume on max with the headphones pressed together, and the emitted sound was very faint. OK, it cost 150 euros, but it's worth it in order not to annoy the neighbours. Last year, I had people laughing on the street when I had various songs playing with very violent language, and I did not even have the audio on more than medium setting, and I would like to avoid that in future. It still puzzles me why so few people are interested in sound-isolating pc headphones. Do most PC gamers enjoy annoying all around them as they play?

I honestly doubt that many PC gamers have the issue that people can hear what they're listening to from 10 meters when they're wearing even regular headphones. I'm completely baffled as to how yours can be hears if you're not cranking the sound up to pretty much max - and at 10 meters I'm still baffled as to how people outside your room/apartment can even hear them if they are at max volume.

So it's likely just not an issue for most people.

If I leave my semi-open headphones at a volume level that I'm not comfortable to listen for too long, then they are barely hearable from more than 5 meters. When using the headphones, I keep the overall volume in Windows lower than 20%, most of the time between 10% - 15%.

Please don't be offended, but I'm inclined to believe you are suffering from hearing loss, hence the need for higher volume levels. If I were you, I would go to a medic for hearing problems (otologist?).

Same here.

Two possibilities come to mind:
• hearing is already damaged and lower volumes are too low;
• rice-paper walls, like in anime.

Just for fun, I decided to crank the volume on my Bauhn noise cancelling headphones while not wearing them to see the maximum distance I can hear them from.

I can hear them clearly across my room, at the testing value of 1 Meter which as been used for example. That is as they say, well too loud.

I would not want to listen to that at all.

Instead, I typically lower the volume by a factor of approximately -14 to -20 decibels depending on the track with headphones on. For things that have especially good mastering, I don't even need that much volume. (Blackout City from Bit Trip Runner is a bit loud, for example so that goes down to -30.)

The thing is, you're asking for something of an impossibility. Firstly, "extremely effective" is entirely subjective. Everyone's ears are different. For example, I have rather sensitive ears and I try well to take care of my hearing.
Next, there's the highly durable part. See you have to imagine concentric circles with the features you want, and you have to choose one or two while sacrificing the closeness of another feature or two. You're not going to get durable headphones without getting rid of other features. Headset microphones by nature are typically cheap little things that aren't even worth their weight in pyrite.

Noise isolation is a very broad umbrella term. Do you want passive, active, are you wanting to keep noise out, or in, and so on.

As for "PC Gaming", most of that is worthless marketing hogwash used to bump up the price for idiot consumers who don't realize that Gaming Beats by Dre are a complete farce.