Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Surround depth is very shallow; no pass-through connectors., August 7, 2006
While these are without a doubt 5 channel headphones, the spacial effects (no, that wasn't a misspelling of "special") are not impressive. I played numerous instances of "Battlefield 2" with these headphones. I also ran the various 5.1 diagnostics for my sound card. Whereas I clearly hear the 5-channel positioning with my speakers, the surround effects with the headphones are negligible. The difference can be heard if you listen closely enough, but you might need to really listen hard to hear any positional effects. I realize that headphones cannot have large a depth of field as speakers, but it should still be relatively simple to come up with a design to separate the speakers farther than they currently are.
I was also bothered by the fact that these headphones do not allow any pass-through capabilities. These headphones were not purchased to *replace* my 5.1 system - they were purchased to *augment*. When it's late at night, I like to turn my speakers off and use headphones so as not to disturb the rest of the house. The plugs on these headphones assume that you will *only* be using the headphones. So, in order to have both connected, I had to have the extra expense of purchasing stereo, Y adapters for each of the connectors. That's quiet a bit of arrogance on the designers' part to assume that these headphones will completely replace a loaded, 5.1 speaker system.
There is also no volume control - at all! I normally have the sound card at a medium-high level with speakers at a medium-low level so that I have room to adjust my speakers upwards if necessary. This is very loud for the headphones. I can easily hear the audio from the headphones if they're under my desk when the speakers are off. Considering that some lower-grade headphones come with a volume slider, the lack of one on these headphones only emphasises the arrogance of the designers' assumptions that these headphones would replace, not augment, any existing 5.1 systems that you might already be using.
As for sound quality, these are not as quiet on the bass frequencies as one might expect. (And technically there are not 5.1 headphones. They're 5.0 because they don't have a subwoofer in them.) They don't have a strong, lower frequency response, but that's nothing that a slight bump of the lower frequencies of your graphic equalizer can't handle.
If you have a 5.1 system and try to use 2.0 headphones, you could potentially lose a lot of audio. Try panning around near a waterfall or helicopter in "Battlefield 2" with stereo headphones but with your audio set up to 5.1. Sound just disappears when it reaches what would be the rear channels. These headphones DEFINITELY eliminate that annoyance. I can play and hear all five channels without a problem. That alone makes these worth getting unless you actually want to change your speaker configuration every time you want to switch between speakers and headphones. No, thanks. I'll pass on that.
These headphones are not the five-channel panacea that other reviews make them out to be; but, for the price they're worth getting if you don't want to disturb the rest of the house.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good for Computer gaming, Good for movies., March 16, 2005
I am really impressed how well these work for computer games. Sounds are tack sharp and there is a good spatial sense between fore and aft. No real booming bass. Good fit and pretty comfortable in the long haul. Bulky and somewhat heavy. The ends are somewhat noticeable in the corner of my eyes. Works well for shooters, RTS, KOTR, WOW, hmm just about everything. Doom3, scary as hell... Completely encloses the ear. The really nice thing is that I can play games and HEAR what is going on. Also muffles outside noise. For movies on my PC (you need front, rear, and center/sub 1/8" stereo phone jacks) they again makes everything sharp. One star for that missing booming bass.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty good. Need a little tweaking though, April 29, 2005
Not bad. No subwoofer but I don't even like subs that much. When 1st plugged into sound card (creative SB AUD2 NX) the sound was muddled. But if you tweak with the graphic equilizer on the sound card and the tone control utility. you could make it sound clear. Im doing that now as I write, haven't found the perfect combination yet, so that's one of the hassle for it (ie. it doesn't have a tone adjustment knob on the headset, you need to tweak the equilizer). Another bad thing is it doesn't have a volume control knob either, but you could solve that easily by tweaking the master volume on sound card. That's why I'm giving it a 4, the hassles of finding the perfect combination of tone and volume, detracts from its enjoyment (but once you get it right, its awesome).
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