Customer Reviews

Thrustmaster T510 Dolby Digital 5.1 Decoder and Headphones

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

 

 

I purchased this set the week it was relesed. I originally planned on buying a $400 pair of Pioneer cordless Dolby digital surround headphones but I decided to go with these. Having never owned a pair of headphones that simulated surround effects I do not have a point of reference by which to judge the Thrustmasters. I wanted something like this primarily for late night Xbox sessions. SO for me the most important thing was the quality of audio and surround effect. I will say this, having played Halo 2, Men of Valor, Brothers in Arms, and numerous other Xbox titles with the Thrustmasters I really like the way they sound. The simulated surround effects are really good. Nice bass effects as well. As good as I would expect from headphones that is. Much, much better than standard stereo. So for that alone it is worth the price.

My complaint is with the decoder unit. I dont know why it is so bloody small. Its called portable. Indeed it is. The little decoder box is quite small and comes with a leather protective pouch. My question is WHY? Its not like your going to be using this on the road. The problem I have with the size of the decoder box is its controls. The power on/off switch is very tight. Too much pressure is required to turn on and off. The volume switch is a wheel type switch that turns up to increase and down to decrease. It is not always responsive and it is so small its a real pain to have to adjust. Another problem I have with this layout is the way it is patched into a particular system. If you want Dolby Digital sound effects then you have to have a Optical audio input on your game machine or Dvd player. You can use standard RCA type red/white plugs but you will get analog only. All the needed adapters are included so that is nice. But the way it works is, you plug one end of the digital Optical audio adapter(or analog RCA plugs) into the Xbox,DVD, PS2 whatever. The other end plugs directly into the top of the tiny decoder unit. THIS UNIT DOES WORK WITH XBOX! You need one of the Xbox AV Packs( I have the High Definition AV Pack) that has a Digital Optical Input for the digital optical cable provided. There are in fact 2 provided( 1 long, 1 short)From the bottom of the decoder unit extends the input for the headphones with 2 inputs. It is nice to have 2 inputs available so if your playing a game of double both can hear(the decoder is responsible for the surround effects so any pair of headhones will work). The pair of headphones themselves then plug into the decoder unit. The problem is that the length of the Digital Optical adapter is much less than the length of the headphone cord. the decoder unit will be located much closer to the Gaming unit/dvd the farther away you are. So unless you are sitting right in front of the TV, if by some chance you are sitting on a couch across the room from the TV and decoder unit, you will find yourself having to get up from your comfortable position everytime you need to adjust the sound, hit mute, or because depending on the game sometimes, quite often with some games, the sound drops completely so you have to turn the unit off then back on. In other words, its a complete drag to have to get up over and over again to adjust volume or whatever. Why couldnt the decoder be a larger base unit with a remote of some sort. Also because the rechargable battery life is a joke. Less than 2 hours you will need an extra outlet to keep the decoder plugged in. I dont mind this but be prepared.

The headphones themsleves are very comfortable and I like them a great deal. Like I stated earlier, from my untrained ears point of view, they sound great and are very comfortable for extended gaming sessions.

So despite my frustration with the design of this set, due to the high quality of the simulated surround effects, and because I use this set exclusively for late night video gaming only I would recommend the Thrustmasters for those with the same needs.

I will say, that in the middle of an Xbox live session of Halo 2 or in a single player level of Brothers in Arms with the volume turned way up it is easy to overlook and forget the frustrating aspects of its design because the sound is so amazing. YOu hear audio details you could never hear over small tv speakers and sometimes wont even hear over a traditional surround system.

One example. I was in a match of 1 on 1 in Halo 2 on Xbox Live. It was quite intense. It was a 5 minute round and we each had one kill. I was crouching and sneaking around trying to find him before he found me. I did not have the communicator on for the obvious reason that it wouldnt work with the phones. I had the volume nearly maxed out. The sound details were both amazing and suspensful. I admit that for the last 2 minutes of the game I was camping out at my favorite hiding spot, affraid to move. I heard background noises that I had not heard before. There was almost dead silence as time had nearly run out. It looked like it would end in a tie. I decided to peak around the corner once more and when I did out of nowhere the silence was shattered by the booming report from his .50 sniper rifle. He got me. The sound of the rifle was so loud and so unexpected, I swear I really did jump from suprise and I almost squeeled like a girl. I probably wet myself as well. It scared the living crap out of me. It was awesome.

I bought this dolby headphone setup after falling in love with the demo on dolby.com of the dolby headphone technology.
I must say, when they first arrived I was very pleased with the sound. It was new, and therefore a novelty to my ears. After a few weeks of trying these out on anything I could hook them up to, I started to feel like they needed more. The headphones are good to the untrained ear, but once you compare them to a pair of senn's, or even sony mdr's, they sound terrible. the high frequencies are missing, the mids are non existant, and the lows, well, lets just say they arent that low, but are way over done.
So off to the electronics store I went and came home with a pair of sony mdr 600's for about $80. Again, my ears were pleased. the sound was much better, and I was happy. Xbox games sounded great in dolby headphone, cd's were great and easy to listen to because of the "spacing" effect the decoder has on stereo sound (no more voices in your head causing listener fatigue).
yet again, after a few months, and now having a much better set of headphones, I began to notice more problems. This time, my mind was on the decoder. the decoder lacks the power, or driving force, to power a nice set of headphones. Along with that, the dolby headphone technology isnt pushed hard enough to deliver that unbelievable effect. I found that the unit spent so much power on converting the signal, that it lacked in actualy sending power to the headphones. the highs and lows were there, but werent powerful, like a good surround sound system should be. Also, clarity was an issue, and it was apparant that little if any amplification was being done before the sound got to your ears. The solution? Simple, buy a headphone amp. sounds easy enough, huh? well, not quite. headphone amps are hard to find these days in stores, and when you do find them, they are upwards of $300. I'm not talking about a radioshak volume increaser for $30, thats a waste of money, but a real headphone amp that amplifies the signal, makes lows deeper, and highs richer, giving that awe inspiring sound. I purchased a Pocket Amp 2 version 2 from gary ali. you can do a search on google for PA2V2 and you will see what I am talikng about.
Finally, after months and months of experimenting, my ears are smiling. I have never experienced such great sound through a pair of headphones. the power is incredible, the surround will knock your socks off, and music sounds oh so good. This little unit is definately the center piece of my setup, but it did take some spending to get what I was looking for, and it sounds way better than my $500 sony hopme theatre system.

Overall, a good unit, that just needed some finishing touches.
t510 $130 + sony headphones $80 + PA2V2 $60 + xbox advanced a/v pack $20 = one set of happy ears, and the best, non disturbing, gaming experince EVER!

I bought this baby hesitating about the cost. But decided to give it a shot and it turned out awesome. The decoder really helps for stereo sounds. Overall they worked great so far. Buy these if you want 5.1 sound without disturbing anyone.

Must Buy.

I bought these headphones for the surround sound capability for watching movies late at night when the family is asleep. I already have a Dolby Digital amplifier that has virtual surround sound processing for headphones. I got to admit, the packaging for the Thrustmaster was nicely done. But that's about the only good thing. The headphones are comfy but cheap looking. The volume control is way over on the other end by the input device which means if you want to turn the volume down in the middle of a movie, you have to get up and walk over to your equipment to turn it down. How bad is that design? Also, the included decoder is not compatible with Sound Blaster cards. I have a home media center PC which I typically use to play movies. The output on the Sound Blaster is a SPDIF whereas the input to the Thrustmaster decoder is only Optical. So basically, in order to use this with a PC you have to ensure you have an optical output on your sound card.

As far as the headphone sound goes, it's not that good. All dialog was echoey, bass was non-existant and the volume control didn't go high enough for me. Because the virtual center channel was faint, I felt it needed to go a few more stops on the volume control but what was there wasn't enough.

I compared the quality to the virtual surround sound on my Sony amp the the Sony was just as good, if not even better. Oh and one last thing, I emailed Thrustmaster support and after the one guy (named Hercules!?!) couldn't answer my questions he decided to ignore all emails from me after that. For that alone I would advise anyone against buying this product.

The main purpose for these headphones was so that I could use them with my Xbox. After receiving the headphones, opening the box and looking at all the connection cables, I discovered the the cable for the Xbox is something called a SCART cable. SCART is some kind of connection that TVs in France use! Well, living in Ohio, I don't have a French TV! These things are all but totally useless to me and I can't believe I paid over $100 for them. I guess they'll be going back to Amazon.