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audiofx gaming headset
full article (polls, links, images, and text) @ http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/articles.php/review_218/
audiofx gaming headset
full article (polls, links, images, and text) @ http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/articles.php/review_218/
Oh the joys of receiving a new piece of computer hardware. The visual luster of untainted plastic, the feel of padding that has yet to be broken in from hours of gaming, the salty taste of... Well, maybe not the taste so much as everything else.
Meeting someone for the first time is not a great indicator as to how well they may perform at their job. Simply put, first impressions can lead to horrible situations down the road, often involving lawsuits and jail time, but that's a story for another time. With that in mind, I just couldn't help myself in detailing my first thoughts of the headset before I ever placed them on my head.
Since headsets are an essential part of every non-casual gamer's life, it should come as no surprise that functionality will surpass the general aesthetic look of a device more often than not. Thankfully that isn't the case with the AudioFX. It isn't bright and flashy, or featuring the color scheme for Counter-Strike, but it does have a nice monochromatic look that should appeal to almost everyone.
To hold it, you'll notice that the headset actually feels quite solid in your hands. It doesn't have so much weight that it feels like you're holding a brick, but it's not exactly as light as a feather either. This will probably come as good news to those of you worried about neck strain with this headset on.
People with all shapes and sizes of heads will be pleased to hear about the wide range of size adjustments available on the headset. The size adjustment has noticeable increments numbered 1 through 12 on both sides. Should someone else make use of your headset, it's always simple to remember what size number you were using and quickly adjust back to fit your head.
The headphone portion alone seems to feature a lot of comfortable padding. The attached microphone is located on the left speaker and will rotate from an upright position situated snuggly against the rest of the headset, down to the typical location in front of the user's mouth. Enough with the general aesthetics, on to actually pumping some life into the headset!
Set Up and Tweaking
Setting up the AudioFX is simple. Really, no lie! To install this headset I had to plug in the inputs marked "SPK" for the speakers and "MIC" for the microphone into the corresponding jacks in the back of my computer. The USB was plugged into a vacant USB port (previously occupied by my old USB microphone). Aside from ensuring Windows is set to "Stereo headphones" there is no more to be done in terms of setup.
Now, there are many of you who may be thinking to yourself, "Zips, why are there three connections for this headset? That's just too much!" Fret not dear reader, as each connection serves a unique purpose! As previously mentioned, the two primary connections are for the microphone and speaker functionalities. The USB connection actually serves two functions. First off, it's the very life force behind the vibration feature of the headset. Secondly, it provides the headset with a little bit of color by way of a sound intensity LED display.
Some users should ensure they are plugging the connections into the correct jacks. The colors on the AudioFX plugs did not correspond perfectly with my computer's audio solution. I make good use of my nForce 2 onboard sound, and because of this the microphone corresponded to a pink connection and the speakers corresponded to a blue connection in the back of my PC.
The method of setting this headset up may cause a problem for some people. To utilize every feature of the headset you must plug this headset into the back of your computer via the three connections. If you aren't too concerned about the vibration function, the LED equalizer, nor the use of the mic, then you can easily plug in the connection for the speakers into your desktop speakers' headphone jack.
How they Feel
Upon placing them onto your head and adjusting the size, you'll immediately notice just how comfortable this headset is. As mentioned, there is a good deal of padding everywhere that padding should be. The padding on the band that goes over the top of your head is quite nice for those of you who have short hair. Not only does it go a long way to add comfort to the headset, but it also prevents the headset from slipping when you throw your head back after another one of those "no way that just happened" deaths in Counter-Strike.
The padding on the ear speakers is quite soft and offers up a nice bonus on top of the comfort. Once covering your ears, it is extremely hard to hear much of anything else besides what is playing through the speakers. The dampening effect is a two way street as well. Provided you have roommates or other person's living with you, they will be eternally grateful when they don't have to hear constant gaming sounds or your Kenny G blaring.
Depending on how long your wear the headset, you may notice your ears starting to get a little toasty. With the headset on, you probably won't even notice just how warm your ears actually get until you take them off. On more than one occasion I did notice my ears sweating a bit after having used the headset for a while.
[ad]Sound Quality - Music
The first thing I did after setting up the headset was fire up Winamp and listen to some of my favorite and most often played artists. To kick things off, complete with their high energy style, was Panic! At the Disco. Surprisingly, the sound pumped through the headphones was crystal clear and the beats were as low and thumping as they should be.
I noticed no sound distortion and no noise crackling during the course of my listening. I continued to test out the sound quality just in listening to music by throwing in some of The Faint, Alkaline Trio, and a bit of the Kaiser Chiefs for my listening pleasure. I cranked the volume up slightly past half way and varied the degree of added vibration from none at all to maximum.
No matter what the setting was for the vibration, the sound quality never seemed to be phased. This is a very good thing indeed. If nothing else, the sound quality was enriched by adding the vibration effect. It almost feels like there's a tiny band member in your head providing happy little beats directly into your ear. Yeah, you heard me!
Granted, the artists I chose to sample aren't exactly the furthest apart on the broad spectrum of musical genres. Despite that factl, the selection of songs from each artist had a good mix of both slow and fast paced tunes, and ranged from mellow to intense in terms of the beats used. Without a doubt, the artists gave the headphones a workout that it easily handled.
Good Vibrations
The vibration feature should be included in every future headset ever to be made. I will make no concessions about that, it really needs to be included in every future headset. If you've ever experienced the joy that comes from a subwoofer in a speaker setup, you have some idea what the vibration feature has to offer.
Instead of simply increasing the lower frequency tones, the vibration actually turns extremely low frequency sounds into vibrations. Gun fire in the heat of battle can be both heard and felt, with the intensity depending on how far away the action is taking place. Drums and bass guitars offer up the same experience on this headset, and almost add a new dimension to listening to a song.
Thankfully there is an adjustable setting for the amount of vibration you wish to experience, and you can also completely turn off the feature if you're so inclined. Switching the vibration completely off also disables the side equalizer display that showcases the sound intensity. I rather wish these two features weren't tied together like that, but it's nothing too major.
Sound Quality - CS: Source
I'm a gamer, let's make no mistake about it. I enjoy many types of games and I spend a lot of time playing them. So what did you expect me to do with a gaming headset but use it while gaming? Naturally I fired up Counter-Strike: Source first. Granted, it may not be the game of choice to those diehard CS 1.6 fans out there, but I happen to enjoy it.
First thing you'll immediately notice is the amount of ambient sounds you simply will have a hard time hearing using conventional speakers. You may hear the added sounds, but only if your room is completely silent and you turn the volume up quite loud. You'll hear acoustic guitar sounds here and there, wind blowing, mild chatter as if from a television set. It certainly adds a lot to the atmosphere when you're waiting for a terrorist to pop out from behind a box.
Playing in cs_office was an entirely new experience for me with this headset. As a terrorist sitting at the end of the long hall, you can actually hear when a CT breaks through a pane of already cracked glass in the office area. It still sounds faint thanks to a good use of directional sound, but it is still very clear to detect on this headset. In contrast, I don't believe I ever heard the glass pieces falling when using my 5.1 surround sound system when in the same position on the map.
Approaching footsteps are also heard without much difficulty. It's always reassuring and quite humorous when you are accused of cheating simply because you can almost perfectly track an enemy. All it takes with this headset is listening to the intensity and direction of their approaching footsteps, and just like that you know where your next victim is. To you wonderful server admins out there, when you see someone in the terrorist spawn actively tracking another player that isn't in his line of sight, it doesn't mean they're cheating, it just means they're using this headset.
While on the subject of footsteps, the differences between surfaces (say between snow and concrete) are quite distinctive. It's nice to hear just how much of a "crunch" sound there is when running on sand and snow. It's the little details that go a long way to fully appreciating a gaming environment. The footstep audio cues go a long way in determining about how many enemies are coming from which direction. It'll surely give anyone a nice little advantage over those who use conventional speakers.
[ad]Gaming - Life Beyond CS
Sadly, since CS: Source isn't the only game in the world it would be wise of me to give a handful of other games a go. I took the time to enjoy a bit of time with DoD: Source, FEAR, Age of Empires 3, UT2004, Warcraft 3, and Guild Wars. Each game offers something different to the table in terms of audio experiences, mostly good but with a few bad eggs thrown in.
Day of Defeat: Source certainly blew me away with the number of soft atmospheric sounds found within each map. Every little detail was heard and I was literally blown away. First it was by a player with a panzerschreck, and then it was by how I realized I could actually feel the explosion through the headphones. It was an immersive experience to say the least.
It wasn't all fun and games though in terms of the audio quality. I did notice that the sound of a distance machine gun would introduce slight sound crackling through the headphones. No other weapon or sound would produce the effect, and I never noticed it with my old speakers. Even after several tweaking sessions with the NVMixer on my system, I was unable to get rid of the effect while in game. From what I've read though (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?&threadid=348606), the crackling may have always been there, even on my old speakers.
The recently released FEAR game also came out swinging in the audio department. Every radio command issued by your opposition is clear and you can immediately tell when you'll have to run for cover from a thrown grenade. Explosions in this game are often in occurrence and powerful in sound. The explosions almost sound thunderous to hear depending on how close you are to the center. If you're right next to a powerful explosion you'll be blown away at the sound pumped through the headset and the vibrations you feel! Get it? Blown away? Explosion? Oh, I'm so witty!
The other games all came out sounding strong. Spells, battles, gun fire, and the quirkly little sayings by the characters in Warcraft 3 gave me no problems and came through with some great sounds. I was quite pleased in my overall gameplay experience.
Voice Quality
Testing out the mic wasn't as in-depth as it could have been, but at least it was tested. Recording a simple phrase in the Windows sound recorder was the first test. It was just a brief test saying a quick phrase while music played through the headphone speakers.
While the speech was recorded fairly clearly, the music through the headphones was picked up by the mic. Meaning, you could hear the music playing faintly in the background. It was a little odd to find this out considering how hard it is to hear the music playing when you aren't the one wearing the headphones. Rule of thumb kids, don't play music at a moderate level while recording your voice, because it will generally pick it up as background noise.
During a game, I was pleased to hear that the voice quality sounded just as good as my old USB solution. Sure the test was done using CS: Source and the less than optimal Miles codec, but the quality was still satisfyingly clear.
Teammates could hear me just fine as I issued my amazing strategic ideas to them. Granted, those sayings were never anything more than "I'm on your team, stop shooting at me!", but you get the idea. It's also always a treat to give some good natured ribbing to teammates who throw flashbangs right in front of your eyes time and time again. It's even better when they can clearly hear your voice convey your utter disdain for their actions. Isn't that right lobster bisque?
Final Thoughts
Priced at a mere $50, there really isn't another headset that I would rather use. The AudioFX is a breeze to setup, features audio quality that is comperable to extremely expensive alternatives, a mic that is nearly as clear as a USB mic, and vibration that provides your ears with their own subwoofer effects.