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Astro A30 Headset Review

Review
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It's been a while since I've reviewed a pair of headsets, in fact it was over a year and a half ago. While the set has served me well, it was PC only, and a recent change in life situation has found me needing a solid headset for my console gaming - one capable of both voice and Dolby Digital playback. There's a wide range of options out there with a wide range of prices, but one of the premier companies known around the gaming circles has been Astro. Enter the recent Astro A30 headsets - a smaller and lighter version of the popular A40 cans, designed not only for consoles and PCs, but for use in portable gaming. Lets take these for a spin, shall we?

The first thing you'll notice about the A30's is the incredible build quality. Actually the first thing you'll notice is just how well everything is packaged, the presentation will remind you of an Apple product with your product laid to rest in quality boxes and padding. The headset itself comes with a hard zip up case with a pocket to hold cables. I've never seen a headset that felt so solid - there's no cheap plastic like material anywhere on it; the piano black finish of our headset oozed style, while the overall size and curves of the pair of cans making it easy to wear. The outside of each ear piece has removable "speaker tags" which allow you to customize the look of the headset. It ships with default Astro branded ones, but you can order custom tags on the website for $20 a pair.


Everything in the package with extras including:  optical cables, rechargable battery, and extender cable adapter.

The cushions, which let in very little outside noise are incredibly well put together and comfortable. It's not that cheap fake leather feel of other headsets, the material feels like a high quality cloth. Your ears will never tire wearing them with the material being very breathable, and there's plenty of padding across the top adjustable band.

What's odd is you'll notice there's only a six inch cable off the headset, certainly not long enough to plug into any device. This breakaway adapter takes different style cables that are included for different purposes. You can plug the headset directly into a portable device like an iPhone or PSP, hook it up to the Astro MixAmp, or plug it directly into your PC via one of the included cables. As you can see, versatility is key in the Astro A30's, allowing them to be your go to headset in any device - even the cable to hook up to portable devices as a built in inline microphone, so you can use it with an iPhone to make and receive calls. After spending $150 on the headset, you'll probably want to use these as much as possible, so the versatility and portability is definitely nice.



 
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Jackel
10:25 AM
5/13/2010

I fall in that "May be too expensive for some" category. I have been wanting the A40's for a while now. I know that if they ever go on sale, I'll probably be unable to resist purchasing them lol.


bapenguin
10:28 AM
5/13/2010

It's a tough pill to swallow, but like any good theater equipment there's a wide range of prices. I firmly believe when combined with the MixAmp that these are home theater headsets more so than a gaming accessory.


smurphster
11:52 AM
5/13/2010

these look mighty nice, but i too fall in the "too expensive for some" category. the set i have (turtle beach X1) is decent enough and with fewer cables


aeiah
8:00 PM
5/13/2010

god damnit, did the website monster just swallow my post?

im too lazy to type it again. in short: the mixamp seems far more interesting than the headset. you could mix game audio with voice audio through pc speakers, and also mix in your home theatre pc audio into the same set, providing a gamer-centric mixer solution that's probably better than a full blown mixer/amp in some situations


Serapth
1:03 AM
5/14/2010

As a counter option, I picked up a set of Turtle Beach X41's and I have zero regrets. One of the biggest gotcha's I have ( and I believe Bap has the same issue ), is I often game on a projector, so I either ran a pair of wireless headphones or I run 10-15 feet of wire to my head.

I previously picked up a pair of Sony Wireless headphones and frankly, they were shit. Crosstalk/feedback was horrible and no mic support for Xbox gaming. The Turtle Beach X41's however have a cable to connect to your XBox controller to support the mic. THen there are a few other neat features, like the power supply is from USB, so you just stick the receiver beside your Xbox 360 and plug it in, done. I live in a world of wireless soup and amazingly enough, there is very little feedback. This is a house with 6 PCs, 4 wifi phones, a PSP, DS, two wireless routers, 4 cordless phones, etc... and it still works smashingly.


Regardless, all high end headphones claim you wont feel them over time, and this is complete bunk. I don't know if I have dainty weakling ears, but they all become annoying quickly.

The downside to the X41... I needed to buy a 20$ USB dongle to get Dolby from my PC, which frankly was too hard to configure once I got it, especially given the complete lack of documentation. Cost wise, they were 175$ canadian.


So, if wireless is your thing, check these out.


bapenguin
7:51 AM
5/14/2010

Thanks Serapth. Eventually I may end up picking up one of those and just use the A30's on my PC exclusively.

Right now I'm projector free and gaming in a 10x10 bedroom, so distance isn't an issue. But once we move it'll become a problem again.

As for ear fatigue, I wore these for about an hour of Halo Reach followed by a 2 hour movie (Brothers) and i completely forgot they were on my head. The only reason I remembered they were there is I moved and hit the side of them on the wall. They are extremely light, flexible and comfortable. And I have a big head to boot!


Serapth
9:50 AM
5/14/2010

Hmmm, I would be interested to hear if the X41's were uncomfortable to you. I have a hunch I might just have wussy ears.


There is one big gotcha I forgot to mention last night... I had to switch back to using old school component hookups, because sound is over optical. Then again, this is probably going to be a problem with any system that uses HDMI, unless you are running to a receiver in the middle. In any case, if you want to do your gaming over HDMI, you better have a receiver that supports 1) HDMI in 2) Optical out ( if you want 5.1 that is ).


How does the thingy for the A30 connect anyways?


bapenguin
11:47 AM
5/14/2010

Right now I have the 360/PS3 into my receiver with HDMI with the audio dongle on the 360 going form optical out to the MixAmp. PS3 optical I just switch on the fly if needed.

Right now I don't have speakers hooked up to my receiver, but I do get audio out of HDMI and Optical at the same time.

Sadly a lot of receivers do not do HDMI->Optical Out even if it supports optical out. Good thing both the PS3 and 360 support audio output on both channels at the same time.


pyrestrike
12:11 AM
5/19/2010

bapenguin,

How would you rate the A30's movie use? Does it feel overly simulated, or is it about as good as you can expect from a headset? Thanks for the review, I am probably going to pick these up anyway, but I'd like to know how they fare in as many aspects as possible

Brian


bapenguin
4:56 PM
5/20/2010

They are solid. Like I said in the review, I forgot I had the headphones on while using them.

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