Since buying C an Xbox for her birthday, I’ve spent a lot more time in the computer room playing on my Xbox Elite than playing in the front room on limited edition Halo Reach Xbox, on the 52″ TV, connected to the TrueHD 7.1 Amp.
To be honest, I actually prefer it, as we’re being a more sociable with each other. In the past, I would normally spend a good couple of hour playing on the Xbox downstairs, and C would lose hours on a “Dinner Dash type” time management game.
In the computer room we both have an LG LED 23″ FullHD Monitor/TV which we have the Xboxs connected to, which we then use as a 2nd monitor. The LED TV’s are great and give a great picture, however the sound quality is only average at best. I’ve spend the last week or so with a pair of £10 Sony headphones on, which does give a lot better sound, but….I do miss the surround sound.
Now we have the history out of the way, you now know why I’ve been out and bought this headset. As I mentioned above, I tend to spend more time in the computer room being “sociable”, but miss the surround sound. I knew there were headsets out there that could product a surround sound experience, as this type of stereo expander has been mainstream for quite a while.
I did look as some headphone which actually had multiple speakers in each earphone which would give an actual surround sound, however these are advertised as being able to give a true 7.1 using only a stereo headset….obviously I was intrigued and bought them.
The DPX21 is essentially a bundle. It’s the Ear Force PX21 headet, with the Ear Force DSS digital processor. The processor itself has an optical input, which then passed 7.1 / 5.1 to the headset giving you the 7.1 surround sound experience.
Now to be honest, I was a little dubious, as everything in my head suggests, that stereo headphones and and will only produce a stereo sound ….surly ?…….I wrong was I !!! These things are AMAZING !!!
Once I’d got everything wired up (which was slightly messy to be honest), I fired up Red Dead Redemption on the Xbox and was totally blown away the the ambiance. I then fired off a couple of shots, and just sat there with the biggest smile on my face. I have to say, that my expensive amp and 7.1 speaker system in the front room has been equalled if not beaten by this £100 headset !
I then plugged these into the PS3 and put on the Black Hawk Down bluray (my Bluray of choice when testing an audio system), and again… AMAZING !
As you can probably tell from the above, the headset is universal, it works on the PS3, Xbox and Mac/PC (assuming you have an optical port)
The headset itself is very comfy, it is a little weighty, but the head strap is adjustable enough to take the weight.
All in all, this is an amazing headset, and suggest to anybody who is playing games on a Xbox, PS3 or even PC/Mac in 2 channels due to not having room to place the speakers….and have a £100 spare, go buy theses, they are amazing !
I found these at Amazon for about £110, however with shopping around I found them at just over £90 at shopto.net with free shipping.
As always, unboxing photos below, as well as the official blurb from Turtle Beach describing how these work.
As I mentioned in my previous post (Vectra SRI CDTi), I was bugged that it didn’t have an MP3 player. Well I thought, maybe I can change the head unit, or pull this one out, and see if it had any auxiliary sockets at the back, then I thought….Ooooo, why don’t I just get one of the FM transmitter thingys.
First off I bought myself a ITrip, which even though it stated on the box that it was compatible with the Ipod touch, this apparently didn’t mean the 2G. I bought it, plugged it into my ipod, sat in the car, turned on the stereo, pressed play….and nothing, no LCD display, nothing. So lucky for me, I hadn’t even left Curry’s carpark, so took it back for a refund Pretty glad I did, as it was almost double the price that is was online at other leading retailers.
That night I came home and did a little research, and found that Gear4 also did one, however this used the RDS technology to a, display the ID tags as the radio station, and b, send a signal to the headunit, if it moved stations.
This turned up on Thursday at work, ripped it out of the box, plugged it in…..nothing……
Luckily, my office seems to have been taken over by Apple in the last couple of months, it went from nothing apple to, 4 Iphone 3G’s, and 4 Ipod Touch 2G’s.
I kindly as a few people to try it in their, and it worked….DOH !
Got home that night pretty gutted, as my Ipod seemed to have a fault with it, so C decided she ought to by an Ipod Touch as it had been tested and working with several in the office.
Long story short, C bought an Ipod Touch from the shiny Mecca that is the Apple store (there are no Ipod touches anywhere…..believe me, we tried, but that’s another story), and we got to try it out.
It works, and works well.
The button on the left scans the radio waves where you are and finds the clearest frequencies, once found it sets itself to this (eg 99.9 FM seems good near me). Hit play and your away, it scrolls the ID tag along it’s own screen in a very cool blue LED font, as well as displays the frequency it’s using. Program your radio to pick this up, and all is cool.
The quality is good, I wouldn’t say is it CD quality, but around the same as a well tuned in radio station (I know, I know, obviously, however just thought I’d point that out if anybody though it was going to be as good as the MP3 dock you get is some cars, personally I don’t think it is).
We did get a little interference, however this was fixed by moving the Ipod from underneath the head unit, to a SunGlasses holder above the centre console, we realised we were actually getting interference from the windscreen wipers.
While driving from home to Leicester, it did adjust it’s frequency from 99.9 to 99.7 and with it being RDS, the Head Unit re-tuned itself (very cleaver I thought).
Conclusion, for £30, it beats buying and fitting a new head unit, the quality isn’t perfect, but very good.
Pretty glad I did, as it was almost double the price that is was online at other leading retailers.