First of all let me preface this by saying I am not a writer and have never reviewed anything before. I also am no audiophile so my opinion on the sound quality is just that since the only thing I have to compare them to is the sound coming from my 12 year old 31” RCA Television.
My first impression out of the box was very positive. I was at work and had nothing to connect it to other than my computer using an adapter. I went to Dolby.com and listened to the headphone surround sound test and while not perfect they did a pretty decent job. Left and right channels are very distinct but determining front and rear leaves a little to be desired. Front and rear kind of blend in to the middle making it difficult to determine exactly where the sound is coming from.
On to the Xbox - Once I got home, the first thing I noticed was that the cables were short. Not sure of the exact length but unless you are within a few feet of your Xbox you will need some RCA cables to extend them. You’ll also need a power outlet within a few feet or use an extension cord for the AC adapter. The headset has a microphone for connecting to the communicator puck but unfortunately the plug would not fit securely into either of the three communicators I tried. Previously I’ve had a similar problem using some cell phone headsets even though they were supposed to have a 2.5mm plug. Others I’ve tried work fine.
It has been a long time since I’ve listened to music with my old Yamaha stereo headphones so I can’t remember how it felt wearing them. These completely cover your ears and are very comfortable. The only dislike is that they seem just slightly on the heavy side after wearing them for a while. They cut out a lot of outside noise and it takes some getting used to because you can’t hear yourself talking to your teammates. You setup the Xbox voice output for speakers only and volume is controlled using the inline amplifier. The drawback to this is that you can’t independently control the game volume and other player’s voice volume. This could be a real bitch if you end up with a screaming Timmy. I wish they had somehow used the speaker output of the communicator for voices. This would have at least allowed you to easily turn down player’s voice volumes and still allow you to hear the game sounds.
Other than a slight hiss during quiet times the sound quality is great. There are so many ambient sounds in Halo 2 which I didn’t realize were there that it took several games to get used to them. Since it is not true surround sound there were times when I couldn’t tell positively which direction some sounds were coming from. Occasionally I would hear shooting which sounded like it was coming from one direction yet I was on the edge of the map and there was a wall there. Maybe it was the echo off the wall. I don’t know for sure.
Despite the cable length issue I am very pleased for the most part. My goal was to have a way to play at night without disturbing the entire household and they work perfectly for that. If you are used to a Dolby 5.1 home theatre system you will probably be disappointed but if you are just trying to cut down on the noise level like me I think you’ll agree they are well worth the money.
http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/earforce/axt/
Here are a couple of true 5.1 head phones. The Pioneers are wireless and are supposedly very nice. $399.00
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/product/detail/0,,2076_4171_108990338,00.html
http://gear.ign.com/articles/583/583114p1.html
http://www.behardware.com/articles/497-1/5-1-headsets-comparative-test.html
It has been a long time since I’ve listened to music with my old Yamaha stereo headphones so I can’t remember how it felt wearing them. These completely cover your ears and are very comfortable. The only dislike is that they seem just slightly on the heavy side after wearing them for a while. They cut out a lot of outside noise and it takes some getting used to because you can’t hear yourself talking to your teammates. You setup the Xbox voice output for speakers only and volume is controlled using the inline amplifier. The drawback to this is that you can’t independently control the game volume and other player’s voice volume. This could be a real bitch if you end up with a screaming Timmy. I wish they had somehow used the speaker output of the communicator for voices. This would have at least allowed you to easily turn down player’s voice volumes and still allow you to hear the game sounds.
Other than a slight hiss during quiet times the sound quality is great. There are so many ambient sounds in Halo 2 which I didn’t realize were there that it took several games to get used to them. Since it is not true surround sound there were times when I couldn’t tell positively which direction some sounds were coming from. Occasionally I would hear shooting which sounded like it was coming from one direction yet I was on the edge of the map and there was a wall there. Maybe it was the echo off the wall. I don’t know for sure.
Despite the cable length issue I am very pleased for the most part. My goal was to have a way to play at night without disturbing the entire household and they work perfectly for that. If you are used to a Dolby 5.1 home theatre system you will probably be disappointed but if you are just trying to cut down on the noise level like me I think you’ll agree they are well worth the money.
http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/earforce/axt/
Here are a couple of true 5.1 head phones. The Pioneers are wireless and are supposedly very nice. $399.00
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/product/detail/0,,2076_4171_108990338,00.html
http://gear.ign.com/articles/583/583114p1.html
http://www.behardware.com/articles/497-1/5-1-headsets-comparative-test.html
