Who wouldn’t want superhuman hearing?
Editor's note: IGN is ramping tech and hardware reviews back up, one product category at a time. We're kicking off with deep dives into some of the best-of-the best headsets, GPUs, Mice, Monitors, and keyboards from the last few years.
Turtle Beach has been around the PC audio game for a long time, and the mere mention of its name brings back fond memories from its sound card days for a lot of gamers like myself. Though the company is no longer producing sound cards, it offers an extensive lineup of headsets for every gaming platform at every price point, and I'm taking a look at its Ear Force PX24 (See it on Amazon), which is positioned as its affordable multi-platform headset at a $79.99 MSRP - they're often sold on Amazon for $65 or less. The inclusion of premium features such as an external amplifier and built-in support for PC, Xbox One, and PS4, combined with the price point place it at the top end of the entry-level market.
Design and Features
The Ear Force PX24 is lightweight and well-constructed, basically consisting of a plastic frame wrapped in leather with some padding. They are flexible to the point that they’re unlikely to break, and I was able to bend them around backwards, touching the outsides of one ear cup to the other without breaking the top 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 with or without the included SuperAmp, although you’ll probably want to use it in order to enjoy the full feature set. The SuperAmp is a battery-powered unit that 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, which was helpful.
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 was able to whisper into the PX24 and know everyone could hear me clearly. Plus, I didn't have to worry about creeping out the others on a call with my breathing since I could hear when it was being picked up and reposition it.
Superhuman Hearing is kind of like a loudness button. Press it and everything is 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 never used it since I have too many devices that need charging on a regular basis anyway and didn't want to hassle with it. It's a major flaw in this headset's design, and could be a dealbreaker for some.
Cross-Platform Goodness
Obviously some of us like to play games on multiple platforms, and 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. Thankfully, Turtle Beach does and the Ear Force PX24 is designed to be cross platform. The headphones plug into the SuperAmp, and on the side 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 extra 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
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 things that terrify you.
As a freelancer 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 and voice quality was 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, so 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, and the PX24 do not bring the same level of excellence to music and movie audio that they bring to gaming audio.
Purchasing Guide
The Turtle Beach Ear Force PX24 Gaming Headset has an MSRP of $79.99, but like a lot of PC hardware it can generally be nabbed at a discount. It's currently listed on Amazon for right around $65:
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The Verdict
The Turtle Beach Ear Force PX24 stands out with multi-platform support and an external amp that's easy to use and brings useful benefits to the table. Superhuman Hearing is also a unique and convenient feature that could give you an edge in detecting enemies, and it's totally not cheating. Mic monitoring is also excellent, so the only real drawback to the PX24 is not being able to charge the SuperAmp while using it. It's a major flaw in my opinion, and a deal-breaker personally.
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