Ear Force X4 Wireless Headphones(What You Think)

[Nato King]

http://www.turtlebeach.com/Portals/0/images/Products/EF_X4/x4_mic.jpg
http://www.turtlebeach.com/Portals/0/images/Products/EF_X4/x4_transmitter_tn.jpg
The Ear Force X4 wireless headphones push your XBOX 360 gaming experience
to a whole new level with the thrill and realism of Dolby® Digital 5.1 channel surround sound. Pump up the volume without disturbing friends, family, or neighbors. Freely move around as you play. Hear every nuance of the game – from an opponent sneaking behind you
to your teammate’s voice right next to
you. Trash talk online. Block out distractions. Feel the game expand all around you and become a better player.

Click link blow for more information about this.
http://turtlebeach.com/products/efx4/videodemo.aspx

[Symmetric-XBA]

I currently use the x3 from turtle beach and I have mixed reviews about it.

First the good. I LOVE the sound quality from the headphones. The sound from the speakers is unlike any gaming headset I've ever heard. Very crisp and clear high ends while able to produce a low end that will litterally rumble the earcups on your ears lol. If you're looking for amazing sound quality then I would def. reccommend the X3. The comfort as well is unreal, you can literally play for hours and hours w/o any sort of ear strain or heat at all. The headset as well is made from very tough plastic and metal. This is good b/c not only do you not get the "cheap" feel of the item, but the high quality products used to create the speakers and headset in general also tie into the fact that the mic on this headset is also top notch in my book. The voices from chat as well as gaming comes through crystal clear (which can be a bad thing as well when you have a bunch of screaming 8yr old kids on halo 3 lol). An amazing thing w/ these headphones is that you have 3 different controls for your audio and voice. First off you can just plug the headset directly into the controller (its still a wired connection, not wireless) and you have your basic mute switch and all that fun jazz. Then you have a rotating dial right below it where you can adjust the volume of the chat coming into the headset. On the headset itself you have a seperate controll on the earcup that will allow you to control the volume of the gaming sounds. Then you have the 3rd control dial on the wireless transmitter box that will allow you to designate how much sound you want to have sent through to your headphones.

I couldn't let this pass w/o commenting on one of the greatest features of this headset. The natural voice amplification. If for example, you are in halo 3 and your team is in a battle w/ another team, the headset will automatically increase the volume of the CHAT only when explosions and lots of added sound are sent through the headset. What this means is that you can be in the middle of rocket blasts, grenades going off, and tanks shooting wildly and you will be able to hear ALL your teammates crystal clear. Thank god someone finally put that tech. into it.

Now the bad. Batteries. Oohh how this thing eats up that AAA battery lol. I haven't checked as far as reliable rechargable batteries, however, the juice lasts for a while on 2 AAA batteries. Headset auto shut off feature. I know that they have put this into the headset to allow it a chance to save batteries, however, I can't tell you how many times I've played halo 3 on the pit, and in the middle of calling out locations of the other team, my headset shuts off (which then requires me to press the button on the headset to turn it back on). Or another example is rock band 2, if you start a song you will be able to talk and whatnot through the tune, but then in the middle of a song the headphones will switch off and unless you have a) lightning reflexes, or b) a section where nothing is going on in the tune, you have to wait untill the end of the song b4 you can turn the headphones back on. Granted I don't know if this has been fixed, but its a small gripe in the long run on these headphones. Last bad thing, price. Wow, and you thought gas was expensive lol. $200 for a pair of headphones is incredibly expensive, but then again, so are ferrari's.

I've said a lot and so now hopefully we can see if they have improved on the bad and made the good even better. Bottom line is that I would reccommend these headphones to anyone anytime. If you want literally the best out there, than these are for you.

[Omen28]

Thats cool but 200 bucks? Thats a little steep.

[Symmetric-XBA]

yeah i agree, however, ebay is def. a good place to look. or just shop around to find a lower price. when I bought them I thought afterward "what the f*** was i thinking" then after using them, there's not a day that goes by that i regret this purchase.

Oh btw, I also found a solution to my "bad" section of this product. The comments I made in regards to the "cutoff" and everything can be fixed. I'm currently using the ms hdmi cable (yes i know there are cheaper hdmi cable out there), but there are still rca connections next to the digital audio connection. I used the "piggy back" rca's that come w/ the unit to connect it to the IR port and now my headphones do not cut off.

Apparently a lot of users using the X3 were having this issue and then Turtle Beach came out and said:


It's come to our attention that some X3 owners use their headsets for chatting
over Xbox Live only, without having the IR connection to the Xbox active.
The X3 headset is designed to sense whether signal is being sent from the
transmitter, and not through the controller. If the headset detects no signal
from the transmitter for about two minutes, it will turn itself off to
preserve battery life.

In other words, no game sounds will be coming through the IR transmitter
to the headset, but the Live chat connection from the headset to the Xbox
controller and going out to the Xbox Live network will be active.

In the above case, you will be using the X3 in place of the stock headset
that comes with the Xbox 360.

There is one consequence of using the X3 this way:

Since there is no sound coming from the Xbox 360's analog outputs, the X3
will shut itself off after 2 minutes or so of what it "thinks" is no audio
activity. Once the X3 shuts itself off, you will not be able to hear the
Live chat either. You may think that there is something wrong with the
headset, but that is not the case. They are working as designed and this
is a feature to conserve battery energy and not a defect.

SOLUTION:
Please make sure there is always some game sound being played through
the headset, so that it "knows" to keep itself powered on.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

so if you were like me and used it just as a chat connection, then there's the solution lol. I felt like an idiot when I read the solution.

[Omen28]

So they are worth it then? And one question, does it play the game sounds as well as the people that you are playing with? It seems like that would be kind of annoying.

[JarkMan]

i used to have the X3s but i upgraded to the Astro Gaming Headset the MLG edition these headset are 250.00 dollars they are amazingly comfortable they come with a mixamp so u can plug ur xbox into the headset and ur computer or Mp3 player at the same time it does get 5.1 dolby digital surround sound but only with the purchase of the optic cable even with out it its amazing and u can adjust to hear the sound of game to voice ratio http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i227/z3r0scape/a402580x435.jpg http://www.astrogaming.com/products/detail/12/MLG_Edition_A40_System/

[Symmetric-XBA]

I'd like to compare these w/ the X4's. They cost 250 and you have to buy the "optional" optical cable, where as the x4's cost 200 and come w/ an optical cable already. I don't doubt that they sound great and are very comfortable, but if I drop 250 there's no way that I'd want to drop an additional 30 on just an optional cable.

[Kamshaft]

Save your cash and get....

http://www.onkyousa.com/model.cfm?class=Receiver&m=TX-SR606&p=i

I just bought it (~$620), and it's simply an amazing receiver.
Kam

[JarkMan]

my headset is amazing and the best part about them is that if someone else has a pair u can daisy chain them together to hear each other talking with out letting the other team hear u as if u were in a custom game thats why the MLG players use these and they are just simply AMAZING!!! even with out the optic cable they are awsome

[OBL infad3ll]

i tested these at PAX and the sound quality was amazing!! and there only 150!! the only problem is there not out yet:confused:
http://http://www.trittontechnologies.com/products/TRIGA611.htm

[BananaMan]

I can't believe you guys are paying almost as much as a 360 for a headset!

[OBL infad3ll]

hey if you heard the sound from these, you would too. its just like cars you could buy a 12k kia or a 1mill ferrari, some people spend more for quality.

[JarkMan]

ya its WAY better having ur own personal headset then having to wear a regualr xbox headset and have the game sounds coming thru a tv cause when u have the xbox headset on u really only get sound from which ever ear is un covered and sometime the people yelling in the headset makes it hard for u to hear what there saying so u turn up the volume which could make it annoying for those around you and people can hear it thru ur mic but with a head set both ears are covered u get an integrated sound and voice the X4s have a built in sensor to turn up the voice volume when someone is talking but with the Astros X40 headset u can manually set the voice to game sound and u can play it as loud as u want cause u wont be disturbing others with the volume cause of the headset and u can drown out any distractions that may be caused by the out side world they headsets just make an all around better gaming experiance

PS excuse the lack of sentence structure to lazy to put in periods

[OBL infad3ll]

i used to have the X3s but i upgraded to the Astro Gaming Headset the MLG edition these headset are 250.00 dollars they are amazingly comfortable they come with a mixamp so u can plug ur xbox into the headset and ur computer or Mp3 player at the same time it does get 5.1 dolby digital surround sound but only with the purchase of the optic cable even with out it its amazing and u can adjust to hear the sound of game to voice ratio http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i227/z3r0scape/a402580x435.jpg http://www.astrogaming.com/products/detail/12/MLG_Edition_A40_System/

wow couldnt wait for the tritton headset so i bought these, and wow they are amazing! worth the money

[Symmetric-XBA]

Save your cash and get....

http://www.onkyousa.com/model.cfm?class=Receiver&m=TX-SR606&p=i

I just bought it (~$620), and it's simply an amazing receiver.
Kam

Great receiver, however one problem. As of right now there is only one piece of media that is truly recorded and encoded in true 7.1 surround sound. Granted when other stuff becomes encoded in a true 7.1 you will be able to fully enjoy the entire sound experience. However, if you have only 5.1 speakers on a 7.1 system, you're not getting the full use out of it. As well if your media is not truely encoded in 7.1 (I'm not saying technology that "claims" to "split" the signal into 7.1) then there really is no need. My audio engineer professor explained it to us and said that untill more media is truely recorded in 7.1 its not worth the money. What I mean by a true 7.1 encoding is that in the mixdown phase of post production the channels during the mastering session are divided and individually recorded, w/ 5.1 channels you have 6 audio tracks, and w/ 7.1 you have 8. Most studios today with the exception of Lucasarts and Skywalker Sound do not encode and master their works in 7.1. If you rely on a piece of equipment to provide the "splitting" of the audio channels, then not all of your audio channels will be fully there b/c you are removing some of the signal by the device and forcing it into other channels that are not supposed to be used. In essense you're forcing a round peg into a square hole and you can get it to fit, however you have to remove some of it to get it in. It all boils down to the way the encoding and mastering was done in the studio that determines how many channels it has to work with. Good receiver though, but sorry to say kind of pointless unless you have a true 7.1 encoded media to enjoy it on.