Customer Reviews

TRITTON AXPC, USB True 5.1 Surround Sound Gaming Headphones

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

These headphones are a very good quality set. The base response they have is impressive, sound quality is very good and they are comfortable enough to wear for a long period of time. The microphone is also excellent with no problems with clarity.

Unfortunately, this company still does not have a good functioning Windows Vista software package for this headset, and doesn't seem to be in a rush to get one released. Functionality in Vista is therefore greatly limited, and the driver is very annoying - you have to reboot Windows to change from speakers to headphone or vice-versa.

I would not recommend this product to anyone until new proper drivers and software are released, and then I would probably give it a 5 star.

So I got my Tritton AXPC today and like a little kid on Christmas I tore into them, eager to try them out.

After getting it all set up I pop in some of my favorite games, consisting of Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Call of Duty 2, Unreal Tournament 2004 as well as Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. These games work flawless with the AXPC. Taking full advantage of the positional audio, which really helps submerse you into the games, although most gamers know it's more about reflex and counter attacks rather then pinpointing enemies.

The rumble effect that goes hand-in-hand with the subwoofer channel also provided a welcome extra dimension to my gameplay by emphasizing explosions and vehicle movement.

In three games however, the AXPC had serious issues with positioning ability. These games include Quake 4, PREY, Battlefield 2142. The rear audio in Quake 4 and PREY was completely missing. When you talk to a character and turn around so your back is facing them, all I could hear was ambient noise. There was no issues with my Logitech G51 speakers, I was able to hear the character loud and clear.

For battlefield 2142 I could not tell the difference between front and rear at all. I had also heard some popping noise as well. I tried both hardware and software rendering with no change. I attend to get some popping nose with my Logitech speakers using my onboard sound (Realtek ALC660).

After educating myself a little to see why these titles preformed poorly with the AXPC, I found out that these games use OpenAL which ties heavy with Creative Labs and X-Fi sound cards. Since Microsoft killed off DirectSound with Windows Vista, we are probably going to see more and more games using OpenAL. As to why the AXPC don't work with OpenAL I am not sure. Until C-Media or Tritton rolls out a driver update to combat this issues we are going to be playing these games in stereo mode.

After testing the games I wanted to spend a little time trying out the detachable microphone. I quickly rounded up some friends in Skype and TeamSpeak to see how good the mic sounded... The quality was superb! There wasn't a moment that someone couldn't understand me and they all marveled at the audio clarity coming through to them. A +20dB mic boost feature exists which can be extremely useful for voice applications that don't provide their own amplification, although a small amount of hiss is introduced.

I started to wonder "Can the AXPC be taken seriously outside of gaming?" I started to test some music to see how it sound. I played some my favorite bands consisting of Slipknot, Nine Inch Nails, Bullet for my Valentine, Daft Punk, Rage Against the Machine, and Guess Who. After just firing up some music, it sounded kinda plain with no real depth to the music. I popped open the equalizer and start to adjust some frequencies. After a little fine tuning I was able to get the music to sound remarkably well.

So now intrigued that the AXPC can be taken seriously outside of gaming, I wanted to explore other possibilities as well. I popped my copy of Lord of the Rings to see how it would sound with movies. I watched the climatic battle sequence in native 5.1 surround. Dramatic music, whizzing arrows, clanging swords, screams from behind and pounding orcs that set off the rumble motors... they all sound great on the AXPC, putting ordinary headphones to shame. Impressive would be an understatement here.

My wife got me a set of these for Christmas, and I can tell you they will be going back to the store. The sound that comes out of these headphones sounds like it's being piped through two tin cans connected with string. I tried classical music, rock, games, messing with the equalizer, but I could not get the sound to come out to my liking. The sound was crisp, but just didn't sound natural at all, no matter how hard I tried.

And then there's the comfort. For a set of headphones with the padding large enough to fit around my ears, I expect the padding to be thick enough to keep the main headphone speakers from touching my ears, but that is not the case here.

Between the audio quality and the comfort, I couldn't stand to wear these for more than about 10 minutes. For the price, there's got to be a better headset out there.

They claim on their website that it works with Vista. They don't says that they don't have any Vista drivers ready (after 7 months of Vista being launched) and they only have a BETA Vista 32-bit driver out.
I did install XP to try it out and it does work well for 5.1 headset. However, as others have noted in countless reviews, Tritton headphones do not do a good job at reproducing high quality sound and this is no exception (the AX360 product from them is also not that good at producing crisp high-end sounds).
I would recommend getting a real sound card or just using the built in 5.1 sound that most PC's come with now and a headset that has true 5.1 sound. I don't think this product is really worth it.

I noticed some other reviews that had issue, but I've not experienced any of those with this headset, and I've used it with with a few different PC's and even a Mac. Maybe Tritton came out with a new driver, or an updated version of this headset...who knows...all I know is that mine rocks. It's Comfortable, with really clean and full sound. Really nice high, mids and lows. Even though I don't use the mic very often, it works well, and people say they can hear me clearly. The four speakers in each ear cup do a great job of sound separation. I'm able to hear things in all different directions...and sounds that I never noticed in these games before. It nice to be able to hear where the the enemy is before I see him, and more importantly before he sees me. Also, all the cool ambient noises, like birds, wind, rain etc...are much easier to hear with this headset and all these directional sounds just add to the gaming experience. Pretty amazing.

I wish I would have seen these reviews BEFORE I bought this headset. It is of very high quality manufacture and the sound quality with music is outstanding. Problem is it doesn't do what I bought it for and what it is advertised to be; be a solid gaming headset.

As others have mentioned the Vista drivers seem to be the source of the problem and after writing the company I could not get any time frame on when they plan on updating the drivers. At times you can plug the headset in and it just won't work at all. Other times the headphones work and the mic doesn't. Other times everything will work for a few minutes and then give a system resource error and you are forced to reboot. It never just works without some sort of drama.

For those interested I using it on and XP machine you should have much better luck as it works on my XP machine just fine. It's simply too much trouble to bother with this headset using Vista.

Bought these over a year and a half ago. Save yourself the trouble and go by a Turtle beach headset instead! These annoying headphones require a driver to use which is incompatable with 90% of computers even with the updates and it WILL NEVER WORK! The mic blew out after about 6 months and the ear pillows squish your ears. I felt more like an air traffic controller then a gamer.

The product works good except for the speaker in the headphones seem to be cheap. It just doesn't sound good compared to others that I have used. But it is durable on the plus side.

I bought this headset to use primarily for home schooling children for interactive educational software. The quality seems very good and they are packed with features. When they work, the sound is excellent, and the microphone works well too (when it works.) Unfortunately, it is 9 months now since a preliminary, very buggy driver was released for Windows Vista, and still no update. Windows tries to run the software for this as "legacy" software, but does not do well. I think I would give this a five star for how well it is made, but it only works about 20% of the time in Windows Vista, so I give it a two. Tritton obviously does not care about selling this to Vista users, or many of us wouldn't be having these problems. What a disappointment. Maybe in a year or two they'll have a working Vista driver, but by then we'll probably have another version of Windows. Shame on you Tritton for not keeping your drivers updated on such a narrow range of products you sell.

You won't believe what you miss! I had bose tripod headset, this did better than the expensive bose. Sound can go very high which regular headset just can't do it. Is usb so no worry about ac adapter. Is really 5.1 surround i can heard it and test does show. The microphone is removable and is gold plane very durability and made for last. get it now! you don't what you missed, is design for games, but also work wonder with movies and music.