Steggy's Headset Reviews(TB HPX | Astro A40 | Senn PC350)

Hi guys! Wow it's been a while since I've been to this site. Sort of restumbled upon it haha. Hope everyone's been good, still remember a few people like Nocturnal and KTron and such. Anyways, coming back here, I thought I'd share a few write ups I wrote that could possibly help out people who are in the market for gaming/laptop accessories. Hope you guys enjoy it, and be sure to read the end update where I talk about the next round of reviews I have in store!


An In-Depth Headset Round-up Review(Turtle Beach HPX | Astro A40 | Sennhieser PC 350 | Tritton AX720)






The following is my review of 7 headphones and headsets based on my experience with them. For the review, we used the Astro Mixamp with an optical connection to provide Dolby Headphone virtual 5.1 surround sound for the game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. We also did a smaller comparison for music as well, though the main purpose of this review is targeted towards gaming.

*Note: This review is 100% independent by myself and will be published through public sites' forums, eg: MLGPro, Halo3Forum, Head-fi.org, avsforums, and Overclock.net. These sites are not involved with this review in any way besides us posting the reviews in their forums, and these reviews do not reflect the opinion of the sites hosting them. This is just a review from an audiophile who wants to help people make a well informed purchase. Also note that because of the review's independence, there will be absolutely no bias toward any brand or product.*



Grado Sr80($95)

​

Intro-
The sr80’s have a native 3.5mm jack (comes with 1/8” to 1/4th” adapter that branches off into 2 cords, each going into the ear cups. The cups themselves are able to spin independently, so you can rest them flat on your desk. With the 2 cabled V design and these free spinning ear cups, I find a lot of times this twists the cables up a lot making them bunch weird, requiring me to unfurl them before I can listen to them.

The comfort is also pretty minimal. These headphones are super aural, which means they rest on your ears instead of over them like circumaural. The pads on these headphones are pretty stiff, and can become pretty uncomfortable after a long listening session. The headband is made out of leather, it is pretty minimalistic, I don’t really find any discomfort there, it’s really just the ear pads that can cause problems, but there are many DIY modifications s that people have come up with that can remedy this.

These headphones are also open, so this allows sound to leak in and out, so if you are thinking of not disturbing someone else in the room by using headphones, these wouldn’t be the wisest choice. But overall the design is effective but minimalistic, the build quality is good overall, and the comfort is well…eh.


Sound-
Well, these headphones were more or less just brought into the review to listen to some music on them. These were brought in with no intentions of being a real competitor for the gaming roundup. These headphones have no real open sound to them, the soundstage is very small. It does not bode well for a gaming headphone, and throwing in the DD on with these headphones made for a weird listening experience, I wasn't a fan.

We didn’t test these headphones as much as the others for gaming, though we did have some fun bringing out their sound with the Audio-GD compass. To sum up my thoughts on the Grados, I think for music they are a fantastic set of headphones, though the comfort factor can be a turn off to some people, but they really shine when it comes to rock music, which was the reason I bought them in the first place. They have a punchy sound with clarity to boot. Good in the mid to lower registries in my eyes (or ears, you know what I mean), so you’ll have fun rocking to guitar and bass. Most people describe the highs of these headphones as bright, which can go one of 2 ways for a listener.

When the highs are bright, some people find it to the point of shrillness, and it is a turnoff for them. I kind of love that kind of sound. I love it when highs are bright with headphones, and these Grados don’t disappoint. So you can chalk that one up as a pro or a con, I personally consider it a pro, but everyone’s got their own unique sound signature affection.

For gaming, I mean, they would be able to outdo the clarity of stock speakers of your television, but they won’t really provide a competitive edge as far as directional positioning would go. And knowing the gamers of this site and the long gaming sessions they love, you’ll become acquainted to ear massaging.



Turtle Beach HPX($80)

​

Intro-

After hearing the praise over the past few months on the HPX from Pat, I was eager to give them a go right away. When I picked it up, I noticed a few things about the design/build. One is the head adjustment. It is sort of like a spring loaded band that basically conforms when you put them on. No clicking or setting the headphones required. It just conforms to your head. The only problem here is. I have a big head. I didn’t really find this method too comfortable, it just felt like there was constant pressure. I guess it’s something that’s able to get used to, it’s just something I noticed right off the bat.

I also wanted to pay attention to the mic to get a gauge of its build quality. It was surprising to me that it was detachable, because it seemed like it was pretty well secured to the headphone. And the flexibility was very good, yet very durable. If you’ve ever had one of the metal flexible desk lamps, you can basically picture this as a mini version of that, it is very nice.

This headset is an open backed headset, and is circumaural, though I found my ears touching the sides of the pad, something I don’t experience with my 595’s or the pc 350’s. All in all the build is quality, though it’d be nice to have a more comfortable fit on the head/ears.

Sound-

So popping on some team death match with Call of Duty 4, I could finally experience the benefits of the Astro Mixamp, and what I’ve been hearing about the HPX. When I popped on the HPX’s, I at first thought the TV we were using became un-muted and I was hearing sounds from the TV’s speakers. Everything seemed so open with the HPX and the Astro Mixamp. When in the game, I was presented with a pretty full sound. I didn’t find anything really too overpowering or too light. The lows, the mids, the highs, they were all present and accounted for. If you were to compare the HPX's to the 595's or 650's, the HPX's do have slightly more bass, though i don't think it's to the point of drowning the other sounds out.

I had no problem with directional positioning. Usually I’m still stuck in Halo 2 mode where I can run around do what I want and still kick butt and take names. So when I’m in a game where you can easily be picked off, there are no shields and what not, it appears that I run around like a chicken with its head cut off. But when I took the time and paid attention to my ears, I could hear the grenades and gunfire and position them to where I could pick up some good combo kills.

For gaming, I was happy with the package you get for 80 some odd dollars. The clarity and the range of sound make for a great headset for less than 100 dollars. This was pretty surprising given the normal nature of Turtle Beach products(This is the only headset I would recommend from Turtle Beach to date) and multi driver headsets in general. This headset has 4 drivers in each ear cup, but it depends on the type of dongle you use that determines which speakers actually function. With the Astro Mixamp, the HPX uses 2 40mm drivers in each ear cup, these 4 drivers in total employing the Dolby Headphone virtual surround from the Astro Mixamp. So it seems like a weird internal setup, but it seems to work, so I’m not complaining.

For music, I’m a bit torn. While it does have the full sound compared to the PC 350 and Astro A40, and it does have the detachable mic, the problem with this headset is that it is stubbornly driven. The devices that it will work with seem completely random. Some TV’s can work fine with it, some you’ll need to really crank up the volume. The Astro Mixamp can drive them properly, but Pat’s Audio –GD compass can’t. It’s hard to tell what hardware this headset would work with and what it wouldn’t work with, so I am personally torn when deciding the victor in the headset music department. If you can get the proper drive, like hooking an mp3 player to the Astro Mixamp (which is funny because the Astro Mixamp doesn’t really do much to drive headphones more than other straight up devices, so it’s just very, very odd.) then the HPX will outperform the other headsets.



Astro A40 ($200)

​

Intro-


You’ve all seen the advertisements on MLG and have seen players and kiosks displaying them at MLG events; the Astro A40 audio system. I have wanted to give this headset a go for a while. My inbox (as well as Pat’s) is full of questions regarding this headset. These are truly a premium priced headset when compared to the more affordable headsets players have been used to like the Turtle Beach X1’s and headsets of that nature.

Picking up the Astros, I noticed a few things about them. The design was pretty cool looking, though I wasn’t a fan of the white and black, the all black one seems like a more serious headset(kind of like when you see a high end camera in color ways like this like the pentax K-x, which strays away from the all black professional looking high end cameras).

 

Anyways, putting these on, again, I noticed these were not as friendly to big headed people, and the ear pads seemed small like the HPX’s. They kind of follow the grado design where you can lie this headset on a desk by rotating ear pads, but they only rotate one way. And the expanding headband seems very poorly thought of to me. There is an exposed wire that stretches and coils when you adjust the headband, like a pig's tail. I’ve also been told by Tommyboy, a member of the MLG forums who is no stranger to dissecting headphones and headsets, that the wiring on the insides of the Astros is very “ghetto”.


However, putting even the internals aside, if you’ve ever had a screwed up cable from constant twisting or unplugging/plugging, you’d agree with me that the design Astro has gone for here is not the smartest, and either that, or the internals, could be the cause of all the problems Astro owners have had with this product. It is good that Astro has good customer service; however, I wonder why the inherent problem that is causing the malfunctions with the headsets just isn’t fixed instead of just continuing to repair the ones that are reported.



*Update 1/1/10: After reading a review from Tom's Hardware on Astro Gaming's website, it is noted that the wiring inside the Astro's have improved. While not seeing this firsthand myself, I thought I should mention it. I do not know if this has helped the amount of RMA's/problems experienced by Astro owners, it is a fairly recent change, I believe it will be that way for all 2010 A40s/Mixamps*


Another thing to note about the Astros is that they are not really that closed. I compared the sound of the headset with the Astro tags on and off. There actually wasn’t much of a difference at all, and the noise cancellation was…well there really wasn’t any. To the naked ear it doesn’t really make a difference if you leave the tags on or keep them off. Finally, we’re on to the mic. The mic seems to be poorly connected to the headphone. It plugs in fine and everything, but when you rotate it, it seems to go to easy. It makes me worried that it could constantly fall if I owned them for a long time. The way it also is flexible seems like it won’t last very long. It’s like 1 thin rod of metal in the rubber mic stem. I remember when I was a little kid I had some bendy toys with that same flexible metal rod, and they didn’t last long before that metal snapped. It's good that Astro sells replacement microphones in case yours breaks or you lose it, but I'm just not sure how long the mics last with the headset, and how long the mic jack of the headset would last.


Sound-

Going from the HPX’s to the A40’s, the difference was pretty noticeable off the bat. The a40’s are kind of hollow sounding. I found myself turning up the volume to get anywhere near the same impact as I did with the HPX’s. It still performs ok for directional positioning, but the clarity just isn’t fully there. To put it in perspective, for the spectrum of headphones, the headsets we’ve tested place between HD515’s and HD555’s, for clarity anyways. While the HPX and PC350 lean towards the 555 end, the Astros lean towards the 515’s.

All of these headphones and headsets will offer you an advantage over your TV’s speakers, but we just want to bring the thought of price per quality to you guys. Now, with the A40’s with the quality they produce, II’d see them being more worthwhile is if they were a lower price. When they do not perform as well as 100 dollar headphones and have their build problems, a 200 dollar price tag seems out of the question. I could see this headset being worth it for 100 dollars alone, and 200 with the amp. It would then be the decision between the boost in sound quality with the 555, or the convenience of the microphone for the a40 for the same price. Then the incentive to buy the set would be greater because it would have brought the price of the a40’s down to 70 dollars, the same price as 515’s, where these have the same sound quality as the 515’s, with the mic, and not to mention the Dolby headphone technology provided with the mixamp.

Music is pretty much the same story as gaming; kind of hollow. It has light bass and ok clarity. You won’t feel any oomph compared to the HPX or the headphones tested in this review, and you won't experience as crisp and clear a sound.

So in short, these headphones perform...ok, and when released, they were going in the right direction for headsets where companies like Turtle Beach and Sennheiser improved upon, but the price per quality just isn’t there for me with the other choices of headsets we have out there.

However, I will say that I really like the Astro Mixamp though. I haven’t heard any problems regarding that, and the idea of virtual surround so you have the benefit of clarity from audiophile headphones paired with the directional positioning from the Dolby Headphone technology, it seems like a winner. If you are really into gaming, this is a handy little gadget to put on the Christmas list; I’m considering picking one up as well.


Sennheiser PC-350($130)

​

Intro-

This was also an eagerly anticipated headset to try out. The question of Sennheiser vs. Astro has been going on for a while among gaming forums, and now we have our answer. The idea of a headset with the same drivers as HD595’s sounded like a dream come true.

On the forums of Head-Fi, I have had experience interacting with a man named Eric who goes by the name of TheDeliveryMan. He is a representative from Sennheiser who has been answering community questions regarding Sennheiser products, and has been really hands on with helping where needed on Head-Fi. I knew if anyone from Sennheiser would be interested in a roundup like this, he would. So he generously sent us a review unit to test out.

When taking the headset out of its packaging, I’ve noticed that it retains the sennheiser build quality. Though in some instances, it sort of fools you into thinking it’s a bit weaker than it actually is. The headset is actually collapsible, though it still seems sort of bulky when folded up so I didn’t really see the point of that feature. But at the folding points, it makes you think the headset is a bit weaker than it actually is. After testing its durability, I can assure you this headset is quality. This headset is completely closed. This by far provides the most noise cancelling of any headset we tested.

However, one thing I’ve kind of noticed is that a closed headset has one problem in my eyes. So when you have closed headphones, you listen to the music. With a headset, its purpose is communication, so you are talking a lot with this on. When you talk with a completely closed headset on, you still hear yourself, but it’s sort of pressurized. I’ve described it as like I’m underwater while Pat describes it as being on an airplane. You get the picture. I’ve actually been able to get past this little gripe after a while; it’s just something I noticed off the bat.

As far as the mic, it’s pretty solidly built; it’s neither the flexible desk lamp nor the child’s toy metal rod. It seems to hold up strong, but isn’t as flexible as the HPX, and it doesn’t detach. And finally, good news! Sennheisers cater to bigheads like me. The headset is easily the most comfortable out of all of them. The headband doesn’t clamp and it is completely circumaural.

Sound –

After hearing that the drivers of the 350’s and the 595’s were one in the same, I closely compared the 2. It is amazing how the casing can change the sound so much. With the closed back, the sound stage is slightly narrower than the 595’s. For music, it has just a slight tinny sound to it in music. Finally, the bass is very light. Those are the 3 things I’ve found when comparing the headset to the headphone.

For gaming, the 350's basically beats the A40's in each category. It is better than the a40 for clarity thanks to the 595's drivers, but it’s only slightly better in the hollow sound and light bass department. As for directional positioning, it matches the HPX's and A40's.

In music you might be able to hear a slight tinny sound due to the closed back of the headset. I haven't noticed it in gaming however. Then the music of course has the light bass too, but obviously Sennheiser has designed these for just gaming since the microphone doesn’t detach.

This headphone would be good for those who don’t want to be distracted at all at an event since it blocks out noise so well. Also, people have different tastes for sound. For example, Madrok has posted the quote from a guy from AVS, who feels that bass present headphones are a lot of the times too much. None of the headphones I have reviewed in this thread would be in that category for me, but for some, they could possibly want littler bass to pay attention to gunshots and footsteps. I think the HPX’s and headphones are a good balance, with the headphones having a little more balance than the HPX's, but like I said, sometimes sound is just darn right subjective.

To wrap up, one thing I would be interested in seeing are potential modifications on this headset. The hardware and everything is obviously there. I think a simpler grill mod could possibly do wonders for this headset; but for now, it stands at #2 for headsets in Patrick’s and my eyes. So when they are priced somewhat near the HPX's, and have the features it has going for it, it's pretty much a matter of taste.

 

Sennheiser HD595 ($170)

​

Intro-

Now we are into my familiar territory. Sennheiser HD595’s have been my go to headphones for music listening and gaming for a few years by now. There is a good reason they have been a favorite of the MLG Pro circuit for years now.

Design wise, you will see a pretty standard open circumaural headphone, with a leather headband pad, velour ear pads, clicking headband adjustments, and one very long cable coming from the left ear. It is simplistic and stylish. It is natively a 1/4” jack with a 1/8” adapter, though this adapter is huge. Pat brought out his HD650 adapter while we used the HD595s so it wouldn’t wreck the headphone port from its weight. If you get this headphone I would suggest shelling 10 bucks for the HD650 1/4” to 1/8” adapter.

But these headphones are super comfortable. They do not clamp at all, the velour isn’t hard, but isn’t too soft (they will start to get soft after years of hard use, in this case you can buy replacement pads).

Sound-

As I’ve said above, there is a reason why 595’s are a favorite among MLG circuit players. Basically when you talk about the pro’s of the headsets, when you have the 595’s, you take those pros, and just take them to the next level. We went into this review fully expecting the headphones to outperform the headsets. The headphones were a good way of determining the quality of the headsets, since if you just compare headsets to headsets; you merely get a gauge of the biggest fish in the little pond.

So like I was saying, the 595’s just excels at the qualities you want in a gaming headphone; a nicely balanced sound, a huge soundstage for directional positioning, very good clarity. These will have more of an even sound than the HPX in terms of bass. While AD700’s are the top price to quality gaming headphones for the humungous soundstage, the 595’s closely rival that, and aren’t bass light, which makes them good for the grenade blasts, and also for music.

They are very versatile. I can listen to a variety of genres with these headphones, though they really excel with acoustic guitar/piano/vocals. Rock I now leave to my Grados, but The 595’s perform well enough, they could probably use some EQ adjusting, though I will always defer from that myself.

The one problem you guys will notice immediately since you are gamers is that they have no mic. It’s been discussed in this thread even arguing the convenience of a mic would somehow outweigh sound quality, and that’s something that Pat and I just won’t agree with. Especially when using the Astro Mixamp, you have a lot of options for a mic. A Zalman mic is good for home use, though can pick up a lot of background noise if you were at a LAN. There is also a collar mic produced by Califone that is more noise cancelling, but takes effort to attach it to your headphones. For those without the Mixamp, you can use the stock 360 mic, or you can use the Modern Warfare 2 throat communicator. By far the best technique I’ve seen for converting a headphone into a headset is the modification by Tommyboy, linked below, where he installs a detachable boom mic. Or if you are not competent in soldering which not a lot of people are, you can do the method Fragtality uses. There are always options when using straight up headphones, but if you guys still want to go with headsets you at least know how they stack up.


Sennheiser HD650 (~400)

​

Intro-

The HD650’s are world renowned as some of the best stereo headphones out there. These are no joke. This is the point where you need to worry about the rest of your setup in order to make these headphones really worth it. I had the pleasure of listening to these using the Audio-GD Compass for music and used the Astro Mixamp for gaming.

With these headphones, you get the similar style that the other higher-end Sennheisers have. You get the nice velour ear pads and a very comfortable fit. When you first get HD650’s, you might experience the sensation known around audiophile forums known as the 650 clamp. Pat mentions it in his write-up on them, but just to add further input, if you guys get these new and are worried, they do get better. I popped them on and even with my big head I could listen to these for hours on end. I prefer the leather headband of the HD595’s over the cloth headband of the 650’s, but they were still very comfortable.

With the 650’s, you’ll have a very long cord which terminated with a ?” jack, and included is a very nice adapter to make it 1/8”. I am going to have to pick one up now since it’s so much better for your headphone ports than the 595 adapter.

Sound-

The sound of the 650’s was great to say the least. I was worried about the Mixamp not being able to drive these headphones, but it did a fine job of doing so. Pretty much what I was saying about the HD595’s is that these headphones just take the pros of the headsets and just exemplify them. This is no different. The clarity you get with these headphones paired with the 5.1 is phenomenal for directional positioning, and these headphones handle bass very well (one of the reasons audiophiles love them for music, bass is a hard thing to get right with headphones since there’s so little air to travel through between the drivers and your ear), so you do get the Turtle Beach HPX kind of feel with the grenade blasts and that oomph for a truly immersive experience. They have a very deep and a very full sound.

And in music I didn’t want to stop listening. I’m glad Pat has a lot of FLAC, because if you have lower encoded mp3’s playing through these, you will really be able to tell the flaws. But with all of the qualities this headphone has, it comes at a steep price; probably way too steep for anyone who is interested in these solely for gaming. Even if you were to get these for gaming, you would need the Astro Mixamp because I’m guessing most TV’s won’t be able to drive them.

And then if you were interested in them for music, you would want to get an amp. I mean, these things aren’t die-hard necessary, sound will still come out of the headphones regardless, but why buy a Ferrari and only drive it in 1st gear? If you are serious into music, and want a great headphone for gaming to boot, these are a great choice, but it’s a tough price to swallow. Most people start off with semi pricey headphones, (IE HD555’s, 515’s, AD700’s, etc.) then graduate to the 650. I totally invite anyone with a passion for music and gaming to take the plunge, but as the greeting from Head-fi says,
“Welcome to Head-fi! Sorry about your wallet...”

 

Tritton AX720($130)

​

Intro-

The Tritton AX720’s are a brand new release from Tritton. In this model and the AX900, Tritton has ditched the multiple driver 5.1 setup in the headphones like the AX Pros, but rather switched to stereo and use a Dolby Digital decoder box to bring Dolby Headphone virtual surround sound to the headset. The thing about 5.1 headsets is that when you have 4 drivers to cram into each side of a headphone, the way companies achieve this is by using smaller drivers. The problem with those drivers is they lose sound quality when they are smaller, so it kind of defeats the purpose when you think about it.

The Tritton Ax720’s look very similar to other models in the Tritton lineup, the headphones are a hard plastic with a glossy white finish while the decoder box is matte white with some orange thrown in. It’s fairly similar to what the Macbook has, though I don’t know if the headphones dirty up like a Macbook does. White is nice until it isn’t white anymore, but so far so good.

On the comfort side of things, I found the Trittons to clamp my head. The shell design doesn’t make for too much give for the bigger heads, and I found the cloth like ear pads harder than normal, though I imagine they can break in. I’m sure the headphones would be more comfortable to people who don’t have 7 3/4 sized heads like me, but then the HPX and Astros would in turn be more comfortable in that case as well, but right now, things look bleak for my big noggin. They are circumaural headphones, but like the HPX and A40, my ears do touch the rims.

As far as the decoder box goes, setup and concept is fairly simple. The box gets fed by an optical cable, and then has 2 6 pin ports for Tritton headsets. If you want to PC game, there’s a USB cable that goes from the back of the decoder box and into the computer, and if you want to game on Xbox Live, you just take a 3.5mm to 2.5mm cord and connect your Xbox controller to the volume handle located on the cord of the headset (Think of Turtle Beach X1).

The mic is more like the Astros than the HPX or PC 350. It secures well, the only problem I face is that the mic is pretty close to the cheek/touching it, due to its placement. As far as MLG players go, the decoder box does require being plugged into a wall socket, which makes the decoder box non MLG event legal. However with the PC adapter, if you use a 4-pole 3.5mm splitter, you can use this headset with the Astro mixamp. If you do not want to use the splitter, I believe iti would be as simple as plugging in the green plug of the adapter into the mixamp, then just take the cord from the cord dial to the xbox 360 controller, though in that case, you wouldn’t be able to use the closed daisy chain network.

Sound-

On the music side of things, the Trittons reminded me of the PC 350’s and A40s. It has very light bass in music. It doesn’t have as much clarity as the A40’s or PC350’s. With the lack of bass, it seems like a pretty thin sound, and I’ve noticed some notes in the middle registries of a song will be very faint as well. But while these don’t perform as well in music as the other headsets for music, they aren't terrible like Skullcandies from your local Walmart. Still, I would choose my headphones over the headset for music in a second.

For gaming, I started playing Call of Duty: WAW for Xbox. When I had everything set up and started playing, the DH 5.1 was decently immersive. Again the lack of bass in gaming isn't as big a problem like it is for music, the same for the other headsets. It definitely reminds me of the Astros sound. I would say as far as rankings go that it would be around that of Astros in terms of in game sound clarity and directional positioning, I would say the Astros pull slightly ahead, however, the fact that it's close says something when the difference in price is over 100 dollars. 130 is a lot more attractive a price than 250, and you still get the 5.1 Dolby Headphone which I think is a really neat thing to have for gaming.

However with the cheaper price you don’t have some of the features of the Astros such as: Cross brand capability (Astro Mixamp can be used with almost every headphone/headset, the Tritton decoder box cannot), The option of analog inputs (Astros will give you the option of the normal red and white input as well as optical while the Tritton only has optical),the mp3 player, and then the speaker tags, which I can’t say I’m shook up about it.

So while the Ax720 doesn’t have the clarity to match the other headsets used in the review, it is a good budget 5.1 headset. It is an easier purchase to swallow than 100 + 130 for an headphone + Astro Mixamp, or 250 for the Astro A40 audio system. The Trittons do have balance for game and voice, but it’s takes a little longer to find the balance than it does with the Mixamp since you’re dealing with 2 different dials. It’s hard to get the right game volume and then choose the right voice volume if you’re mid game.

One problem I had with the mic was it constantly appeared on. I recorded a message of mine and hit playback on Xbox live and got constant feedback that sounded like if you have a double ended 3.5mm cable plugged into an Aux in of a speaker, the jack in your hand, and when you put your thumb on the jack you get a humming sound coming out of the speaker. My teammates said it wasn’t noticeable to them unless they cranked their volume, but it makes things difficult when your voice is either constantly going off, or isn’t working at all(like if I rotate the jack that goes into the controller it can cut out). I believe I just got a dud cable, but it’s something you guys should watch out for. When you get any product, make sure it comes with everything and that everything works, so if it doesn’t work you can contact the manufacturer right away. I had no problems with the mic when using the PC adapter or the PC USB.

Also, as far as noise cancellation goes, these don’t do as much as the PC 350’s. The cloth ear pads don’t provide the seal that the leather from the 350’s does, so noise isn’t really cancelled. It’s kind of like the Astros where it’s like these are closed…but not really. At least with absence of a seal you don’t get the airplane feeling though.

So to sum up, while the headset may not sound as well as the others in terms of clarity, the 5.1 and the price sort of picks up the slack for that in gaming, so these are something to consider when shopping since you get the 5.1 decoder box with the headset for the price of 130$. In my opinion, these are a contender when the choice is between these and A40s since the quality of the A40’s and the mixamp wouldn’t be worth it, but with other headsets and headphones, I would say the quality increase would be worth kicking in the extra money.

-----------------------------------------------------------------


Ok guys, so that will do it on my end for the review, hope you guys learned something about these headsets and headphones, and hope you guys enjoy whatever purchase you decide to make. So while we may be pretty analytical and some might say harsh in our reviews, i want to kind of repeat that these headsets aren't terrible or anything. Some are just better than others. Some are much better, and some are more bang for your buck. But the idea here is just to show you what you get for your money, so you can get the most out of your money. Each one of these headsets might suit certain people. Everyone has their own requirements, so now they have everything laid out for them.

Thanks again!

 

UPDATE:

After a while of letting the original thread set in, the reviews have received over 35,000 views on different forums. Some more emails have been exchanged, and I'm pleased to announce that you guys can be expecting more reviews in the near future. I can't divulge everything, a few things that are coming your way are hush hush, some others are maybes, and i just wanna throw a few surprises at you guys for ****s n giggles. But here's some sneak peaks i suppose lol. Expect some variety with different brands and hopefully more closed options. So far what will be included are Audio Technica AD700's, 3 mystery headsets that will be tested a week before public release, sennheiser pc 300 IEM headset, shure se530, shure se110, and other inclusions are in the works but i don't want to say anything unless i'm 100% certain. Please visit the links below for some video reviews and unboxings of headsets/headphones, and some video reviews have been posted already, and more are on the way. Please comment/rate/subscribe! thank you!

Full Youtube Page - http://www.youtube.com/user/MLGSteggy

 

Being HeadSETs, you might want to also comment on the mic pickup quality as they can vary significantly. When I tested, I recorded Teamspeak output on another PC to get an idea of how it would actually sound at the other end.

 

I have been keeping that in mind with the video reviews, dubbing them in the mics that the reviews were about, I'm in the process of that now. Unfortunately it slipped my mind to do it with the pc 350's, but I know a few people who would be happy to provide a soundbite, then i'll make a separate video of just headset mic qualities. I can tell you now before the astro video review is put up that it is only a mono microphone while the other headsets are stereo, so it's been kind of annoying editing with the dub in one ear.

 

More C&C is always appreciated

 

Here's a little suggestion.
You should either give a headphone 1 to 5 stars or a score from 1 to 10 to distinguish between them and make reading faster.
BTW, good review +REP YA!

 

Would Astro A40's be worth it for use with the 360, and PC, along with with acting as just as headphones?

 

Excellent reviews. I've actually been looking into the HD595 as a music headphone.

If you're ever in the mood to review some more headsets, I'd be interested in your thoughts on the Razer Carcharias ($80, stereo) or Megalodon ($150, surround), or maybe the Plantronics GameCom 377 ($50, stereo) or 777 ($100, surround). I had a 377 and replaced it with the Carcharias after I won one for free, but I'm curious to see just how well they stack up against other headsets (or how poorly, because I am an idiot who knows nothing about audio ).

 

I was actually talking to a representative from Razer the other day, and shot over the idea I had for the new roundup review. I'm just waiting on their decision on whether or not they'd like to participate in it with their products.

 

Good stuff. Were you talking to Tom by any chance? He's a good guy, he's the one who's always answered my questions.

 

I spoke to PR, Kristine Page. Hopefully they will say yes, a lot of headsets they have would make good counterparts to the other headsets we already have in the review.

In other news, got word from Steelseries, and you guys can expect 3 headsets of theirs in the review

and I finally slapped together the editing of the Tritton Ax720 video review. Please rate/comment/subscribe to it, and the other videos of my new youtube page(made a new youtube page and edited videos to take out any copyrighted audio, maybe i can do the partner thing somewhere down the line)

Thanks guys!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKy5wd_X1hQ

http://www.youtube.com/mlgsteggy