Astro Gaming A50 Wireless Headset

Sound is an important aspect of gaming, and the ability to communicate with your allies and your enemies is an important part of multiplayer video games. Because of this, a quality gaming headset is a vital element in any gamer's arsenal. At $299.99 (direct), the Astro A50 Wireless Headset is one of the more expensive gaming headsets on the market, but between its excellent audio quality, comfortable design, and compatibility with PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, it's currently the best we've tested. It sounds stellar, feels good, and has the convenience of a wireless headset, earning it our Editors' Choice for gaming headsets.

Design
The headset itself is a large pair of over-ear headphones with a flip-down boom microphone on the left side. They're black plastic, with some red and grey flourishes to make them look distinct. They're comfortable, and while they're slightly awkward to adjust thanks to very stiff connections between the headband and the posts connected to the ear cups, they fit around my head without pinching or feeling loose.

The controls are all placed just behind the ear cups, and feel distinct enough to be blindly controlled despite their small, slightly awkward positioning. When you're playing a game, watching a movie, or listening to music, you can switch between three preset equalizer modes using a slider switch just below the Power button. The top mode is a general media mode, the middle mode is a gaming mode that emphasizes explosions and bass, and the bottom mode is a competitive shooter mode that emphasizes ambient noise for situational awareness. A large two-direction button on the right ear cup adjusts the headset's balance between game audio and voice communication audio, which is useful in multiplayer games with voice chat, if you want to bump up team communication or emphasize ambient combat noise.?The control layout isn't very intuitive, though, and the Power, Volume, and Equalizer buttons are small, while the Game/Voice buttons take up the entire right side of the ear cup. The Logitech G930 offers a much better layout, with the controls spread over the ear cups, and the Razer Tiamat 7.1??has a convenient, large volume dial on its desktop remote. I do like that the boom microphone automatically mutes when flipped up; it makes multiplayer games more convenient.?

The headset automatically switches off if no audio is playing after a few minutes to save the battery, but the Power button is easy enough to tap when you want to restore the connection. ?It turns on and connects to the mixamp almost instantly with just a button press; you don't have to hold it down and wait for it to connect.

The mixamp serves as the transmitter, receiver, and charger for the headphones. It's a small, flat box with Power and Dolby 7.1 buttons on top and an auxiliary input, USB and mini-USB ports, and optical audio input and output on the back. The mixamp plugs into the computer or game console with one USB-to-mini-USB cable, and charges the headset with the other included cable. The USB cable only charges and serves as the voice connection; you need to connect the mixamp to your computer or console's optical audio output with the included optical cable. If you want to use the headset with an Xbox 360, a small port on the left cup lets you connect it to your controller to enable voice chat after everything else is hooked up.

The headset and mixamp both rest on an included stand. The mixamp sits on the base, and the headphones hang from a hook over the base, offering just enough room to run the charging cable from the mixamp to the headset. The stand is very light, so you might want to use some double-sided tape to keep it affixed to your desk or home theater system. It will stay in place with both the headset and mixamp on it, but once you take the headset off it's very easy to knock over.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/RPeLNSuRtbM/0,2817,2407651,00.asp

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