Matthew D. Sarrel
Manufacturer’s product page: http://ift.tt/2jt8ZJ1
$70 street
Rating: 7.75
Excerpt 1: The feature-packed Ear Force PX24 are tops in the entry-level gaming headset market.
Excerpt 2: Cross-platform compatibility make the Ear Force PX24 a great choice for PC, mobile, and console gamers.
Tweet: The Turtle Beach Ear Force PX24 is a multi-platform gaming headset with great features.
Strapline: Who wouldn’t want Superhuman Hearing?
Intro: The Ear Force PX24 sits alone at the top of the entry level gaming headset market, distinguishing itself with a feature-rich external amp and support for Xbox One, PS4, PC, and any other device with a 3.5mm audio jack. The headset does an excellent job at reproducing gaming and voice chat audio (which is what it was made for), but isn’t satisfying when listening to music or movies.
Spec chart
| Audio Connection | 3.5mm |
| Volume Weight | 8.3 oz |
| Speaker Frequency Response | 20Hz - 20kHz |
| Headset Power | Rechargeable Battery |
| Battery | Lithium Polymer |
| Speakers | 50mm Speakers |
| Battery Life | Up to 30 hours of battery life |
| Microphone Design | Adjustable Omni-Directional Mic |
| Headband/Earpad Material | Mesh Fabric |
| Earcup Design | Over-Ear |
Turtle Beach has been in the gaming audio space for a very long time. Unboxing the PX24 brought back fond memories of my first Turtle Beach sound card purchased in 1993, probably for about the price of a PC today. There is a link between these products in that they both open up a new world of vibrant, realistic and detailed audio for gamers.
The Ear Force PX24 is lightweight and well-constructed, basically consisting of plastic wrapped in leather and some padding. They are flexible to the point that they’re unlikely to break, although gamers can figure out how to break anything. I was able to bend them around backwards, touching the outsides of one ear cup to the other without breaking the band. I dare you to try that with another headset. The combination of being lightweight and having ample padding made the PX24 comfortable for all-day wear.
The headset can be used alone or with the included SuperAmp, although you’ll probably want to use it with the SuperAmp in order to enjoy the full feature set. The SuperAmp gives you control over volume, virtual surround, mic monitoring levels, bass boost via a common function button and dedicated buttons for Superhuman Hearing and mute. The common function button is easy to use: simply press it to select the feature you want to adjust and then use the scroll wheel on the side of the SuperAmp to adjust that feature up or down. Beeps warn you when you’ve reached the top or the bottom of a range.
Mic Monitoring, where the PX24 plays the microphone input through the headset, is tremendously helpful. I am no longer that guy sitting in a crowded cube farm screaming into my headset on a Skype call. I know now that I can whisper into the PX24 and everyone will hear me clearly. Plus, I don’t have to breath into my microphone and creep out the others on the call because I can hear when it is picking up my breathing and reposition it.
Superhuman Hearing is kind of like a loudness button. Press it and you’ll instantly make everything so loud you could hear a pin drop on another planet. It can be very helpful when playing online multiplayer games when things just feel a little too quiet. Virtual Surround didn’t make much difference in any of the games that I played during testing.
The SuperAmp contains a built-in battery that is charged from any USB port using the included cable. The battery is rated to last 30 hours between charges and that’s consistent with what I found during testing. When the battery dies, you can unplug the headset from the SuperAmp and keep using the headset while you charge the SuperAmp. My only real knock on the PX24 is that I could not charge the SuperAmp while using the headset because attempting to do so resulted in overwhelming static. I contacted Turtle Beach to ask about this static and the response was that “charging while using is not recommended.” As great as this headset sounds, not being able to take advantage of the SuperAmp while it’s charging means that I would end up never using the SuperAmp because I have too many devices that need charging on a regular basis anyway. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether you want to add a gaming headset to your list of devices that you need to remember to charge on a regular basis.
Cross-Platform Goodness
Every gamer needs a comfortable and accurate sounding headset. However, some of us like to play on multiple platforms. In the past, this meant a headset per platform which was a bit silly. The recent generation of consoles (Xbox One and PS4) include a 3.5mm jack on the controllers, PCs have a 3.5mm jack, and so do most mobile phones. Yet few headset manufacturers make devices that are cross-platform compatible.
With the Ear Force PX24, Turtle Beach does. The headphones plug into a small amp called the SuperAmp and on the side of the SuperAmp is a rocker switch to select your platform. So simple, yet so powerful. The result is that this could change your world – or at least get you to throw out that box of headphones on your shelf.
Cross-platform compatibility was very good in my testing on a PS4, a PC, an Android smartphone and an iPad. I simply plugged the SuperAmp into my platform of choice and slid the rocker switch to the correct setting. The PX24 was recognized and worked well across all platforms, although sometimes I had to plug it in, remove it, and plug it in again to get my Windows 10 PC to recognize it correctly. I absolutely love that I could unplug the SuperAmp from my PC and plug it into my PS4 controller to play a game or two and then go back to my PC and plug it in there.
Gaming performance
I tested the PX24 on my PS4 with a variety of games and found that the headset provided very good in-game audio and voice chat, although how much of an improvement the headset made varied with the game. In-game audio in Madden NFL 17 probably benefited the least from the PX24, although voice chat was much improved over my el cheapo headset. Sounds in Destiny came alive and I’m pretty sure Superhuman Hearing tipped me off to enemy locations a few times. The trick with Superhuman Hearing is that you leave it off until you need it, then turn it on to get the volume boost, then turn it off and continue playing. If you leave it on the whole time it defeats the purpose. The Last of Us really set me straight on how much the PX24 improved in-game audio, although I caution you that when you turn on Superhuman Hearing in this game you will hear something that terrifies you.
I bear the burden of spending much of my day on VOIP calls, usually through Skype or Goto Meeting. When connected to my PC, the PX24 provided a fantastically upgraded experience for voice calls. Mic Monitoring prevented me from screaming at others on the call. Voice quality is excellent. I could hear sounds that no one else could, including running water in the background on one call that no one would own up to.
Keep in mind that the PX24 are gaming headphones. They are tuned for gaming and voice chat, not for movies or music. I am extremely demanding of my audio equipment and my discerning ear was disappointed by the overall sound quality and accuracy across the full range (bass, middle, treble) when listening to music. There’s a difference between loud and accurate that is much easier to hear with music than with games. The PX24 are OK, but they do not bring the same level of excellence to music and movie audio that they bring to gaming audio.
The Verdict
The Turtle Beach Ear Force PX24 stands out with multi-platform support and the SuperAmp provides enough features to keep everyone happy. Superhuman Hearing is a convenient feature that could give you an edge in detecting enemies. Mic monitoring makes voice chat as much of a pleasure as it could be. The only drawback to the PX24 is not being able to charge the SuperAmp while using it. The PX24 is still a great entry-level gaming headset.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire