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Today we have some gaming royalty in the eTeknix office, the Astro a50 wireless gaming headset. Ever since we reviewed the Astro A40 headset a while back I've been dying to get my hands on the high end wireless edition. The Astro A40 simply blew me away with its incredible sound reproduction, build quality and comfort, so naturally I wanted to see what Astro could do with an even more ambitious and expensive headset!
The A50 is remarkably well equipped, featuring plenty of high end features that set it apart from the competition, as you can see from the spec sheet below there's everything from a long life Li-Ion battery, 5.8 Ghz wireless tech, powerful drivers and more. Of course this kind of capability comes at a price and I'm sorry to say that the price is a staggering £250. This puts it out of the reach of your average gamer and into enthusiast territory, so while that may be a lot of money for a peripheral, the real question is "is it worth it?"
Back in 2011 Skullcandy acquired Astro Gaming in a move which seemed to be a good fit for both manufacturers. Skullcandy had of course built a good audio brand but never quite cracked gaming and Astro were showing signs of being an interesting alternative to the Razers of this world. Today we have one of Astros high end gaming products to review, the A50 Wireless which is designed for use with PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in mind… as well as any device with optical or 3.5mm out.
If you use your rig to listen to music then there is a good chance you won’t be happy with the onboard sound from the motherboard. ASUS have released the STX II and STX II 7.1 to build on the huge success they experienced from the earlier Essence STX solution. Today we review their follow up sound card and headphone amplifier – the Essence STX II 7.1 Sound card.
Kaeyi Dream checks out the Orion for Consoles headset from ASUS released under the Republic of Gamers brand mark.
Sometimes you really need to ask yourself “what’s in a name?”. Seeing a name like Sennheiser, Beyer Dynamics or Grado will immediately equate with audio excellence…..but not always so much for the gamer.
The Vulcan ANC headset uses active noise cancellation to add to complete in game immersion, and is the first we have seen to do so with no loss in bass and fidelity, as well as outstanding passive noise cancellation of > 30 dB. 40mm drivers using neodymium magnets are engineered for extreme low end punch coupled with crystal clear highs for unparalleled in game experience coupled with precision placement. The Spitfire dongle ups the ante with built in amp for lower distortion, 7.1 virtual surround and ASUS’ unique FPS EQ. The Vulcan Pro can also be used with your favorite sound card without the Spitfire USB if desired.
Asus' Xonar line continues its impressive lineup with the Xonar DG, proving to be an exceptional value at $30. It does a good job providing richer, fuller sound over speakers, but the built-in headphone amp is where this card really excels.
It’s unfortunate that desktop sound cards are becoming less popular. Many years ago, sound cards with their dedicated audio processors could genuinely benefit gamers and their computers when CPUs were much slower. Nowadays, sound cards are being displaced by such factors as fast CPUs, increasing usage of software audio processing, and improved motherboard audio. Nevertheless, there will always users who demand the benefits sound cards can bring to the table. Audiophiles demand sound quality, home theater PC users can utilize the outputs and connectivity, and gamers can step up their game with accurate positional audio. ASUS has tackled these challenges with its Xonar sound card line-up. Today we’re looking at the two budget Xonar cards, the DGX and the DSX, though ASUS has made an entire range of Xonar solutions...
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