Plantronics Audio 90 Multimedia Stereo PC Headset

by Plantronics

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000665P5
• Item model number: AUDIO90
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (160 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 14, 2003

Product Description

Take command of your gaming experience with this Plantronics PC headset. Offering rich stereo sound with maximum bass, itM-^Rs also great for music, Internet chat/telephony, and speech recognition. With convenient in-line volume and mute controls, and a noise-reduction microphone, itM-^Rs the perfect choice for an exceptional multimedia and gaming experience.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

150 of 155 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Sounding, Comfortable and Affordable Headset, August 24, 2002

By 

"paulusw" (St Andrew Jamaica) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plantronics Audio 90 Multimedia Stereo PC Headset (Personal Computers)

I am truly impressed with this headset. It fits the head snugly and not too tight. It has a reasonable weight, not too heavy and the adjustable mic (for length) works very well. I can't comment on how I sound :-) but the good clarity of the mic during internet telephony was commented on. The headphones sound quite good, large 40mm drivers do bring out the bass very well. The mids and highs are all clean, without distortion.

The unit is constructed of good quality plastic with the mic on a swivel joint on the left earpiece. The swivelling joint is stiff and has not yet become loose :-). Time will tell though. The padded earpieces are covered with a nice airy cloth material, and it is very comfortable when worh for long durations. The headband is fairly easy to adjust and once adjusted doesn't slip.

All in all this a really nice headset. I use mine for internet telephony and it works a charm. Constructed well, sounds excellent, good adjustability with volume control and mic mute on the cord. There is also a neat little lapel clip if you need to secure the cord and (controls) in place. A good buy ... get one.

103 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Gaming Headset, Slight FLAW, June 6, 2003

By 

C'racker Jak "gadgetxe" (Astoria, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plantronics Audio 90 Multimedia Stereo PC Headset (Personal Computers)

...

This headset has everything the more [$$$] version has but a whole lot cheaper. I will state the pros and cons.

PROS:
1: Great Sound
2: Mic is better than average
3. Light Weight

CONS:
1. Might hurt ears if worn for a long time.
2. The end of the wire, are two wires that are joined (will explain)

Here is where the Slight Flaw comes from, the end of the wire has two leads, mic and sound. It is both connected and cannot be separated. The problem is for people who has speakers and an earphone out. It cannot be possible to plug the ear connector to the speakers and connect mic to the back of the comp. Its a slight prob but if you have a front panel with both sound and mic then you'll be fine.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Good sound but very poor build quality, March 23, 2005

By 

Kevin (Belmore, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Plantronics Audio 90 Multimedia Stereo PC Headset (Personal Computers)

I bought this after doing much research for a headset to use on my computer with occasional voice-to-text use. The mic works really well (great for voice applications), although the moveable boom is more marketing hype as it only moves 1 inch with little effect. It is bendable which is good. Audio quality for games and music is very good. Bass response is also surprisingly sufficient. It can output very loud music/sounds without distortion, much better than smaller headsets or earplugs.

If you wear it for longer periods 1 hour+ you may find it hurts your ears.

Also rebranded along the lines of Plantronics GAMECOM Digital Stereo PC Gaming Headset. Identical to the Audio .90 except for some extra printing and different packaging to compete with similar products from Logitech and others.

Volume control works, but isn't very good quality as at max volume you may hear some noise during adjustment. There is also a built in mic mute switch which shows a red sticker when the mic off.

There is also a small clip on the cable which you can adjust to clip to your shirt which keeps the volume control close to you or the cable away from your feet. I haven't really had a need to use it, but it does work.

The plugs are gold plated and have colour coded rings for easy identification.

BUT it is POOR QUALITY - the cable is long (great feature) but fairly thin. Cables on my previous cheapie US$10 Logitech headset were much better quality. After 3 months i noticed the left channel occasionally dropped out, then it permanently stopped working. I took it back to the shop and they took 3 weeks to get it replaced. Now 15 months later the left channel has stopped working agin!

Now this seems like a trend :( I did some research with Google and i've seen stories of other Plantronics products having the same problem. When i jiggle the wire between the headset and the volume control the sound comes on and off. The weirdest thing is that the cable comes in the left speaker then gets routed to the right speaker via the headband. But the right channel works fine and the left does not.
So I opened it up and found that they use a very small PCB to solder the wires together which is the weak spot. I ripped off all the wires, soldered the tips, twisted them together and resoldered them, such a waste of time but now it works again although the cover doesn't close properly.

Also interesting that the warranty is only for 12 months. I'm unimpressed at paying US$50 for something of such poor manufacturing quality compared to $10 headphones which last much longer (the foam ear bits wore off my old Logitech after 3 years but it still worked fine).

Recommend you try something else unless you're OK with replacing it after a year. I've seen it on sale as low as US$18! Open air-headphones are also great but leak much more sound to those around you than closed headphones.