My Plantronics headset died, well out of warranty. After a sniff around I settled on a pair of Sennheiser PC130s which turned up today.
Initial impressions are that they are quite flimsy & nowhere near as well built as the plantronics. (A big) But (for me) is the warranty on them is twice as long as the Plantronics which died. Enough of an incentive to give them a go. Time will tell I suppose.
In use they're fairly comfortable, being on-ear rather than over-ear. They'd probably be a bit hard on the lug-holes after a day+night lanparty sesh. In hindsight, I'd probably should have shelled out the extra 20 for the PC 150s.
One great feature for me is that the boom mike swings both ways, so you can wear it either side of your head. This means I can simultaneously bleat in TS, drink and still have mouse control. The left-only plannies got on my tits for this reason. Most games can swap l/r speakers to adjust but I haven't found a driver switch in the creative drivers yet.
Oh and MP3s & movies sound pretty good although nowhere near proper cans.
£30 squid from here.
8/10.
Monday 12 January 2004
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Yes you should have, my PC150s are superb. :)
ReplyDeleteCrumbs, Plantronics are hardly sturdily built either. Personally I'd never use a headset for listening to regular stuff, they just suck too much. I use a set of cordless Philips HC8852s for regular use, music and movies etc. Not as good as my old Sennheiser HD590 Precisions but then I really need cordless most of the time because I've fucked countless headphone leads by rolling my chair over them.
ReplyDeleteFor headset, I use the Plantronics DSP500s. They're a little mad because you gotta switch audio between analog and digital (they're USB) but they just jack straight in the front of my PC when I need them and there's NO microphone level shite to bother with.
Anyone used this thing at all? Getting fucked off with having to fumble around in the crow's nest of cables behind my tower everytime we play DC/RS/whatever. Quite tempted by it...And have in fact just ordered it.
ReplyDeleteI use the non USB version of the ones Lurks has - Plantronics. They feel kinda light compared with completely enclosed models, but the sound and mic pickup is superb for gaming.
ReplyDeleteYours for £40 (because of nearly a tenner delivery from Insight) and very nice indeed. One small gripe though is that the in line volume control could do with being a little further down the line and not so high up.
Not ragging on about this or taking a dig or anything but I would say, a few people don't seem to spend time sorting out their analog microphone in levels in TS. It should be considered a trade off, if you want cheaper analog units - they're absolutely fine but you really MUST use the loop back features in your voice comms software and make sure you aren't too loud. Remember to yell as a test, because you tend to do that in a game :)
ReplyDeleteI couldn't resist & sent the 130s back for 150s.
ReplyDeleteDo: As Lurks says, sort your levels.Don't: Leave your speakers turned on, giving everyone a taste of the sound effects from half way accross the map :(
Muz: I use one of these & turn my speakers on & off. £1.50 seems better than £10 to me :)
I use an amp so when the headphones are in, speakers are off. Actually it's a bit more complex now because the wireless headphone transmitter get a feed from the tape record out loop from my amp. So I just turn speaker volume to nothing to nuke them. If I want to use the (digital) headset, I've got to press some buttons in the control panel to switch from my sound card to the plantronics audio out.
ReplyDeleteGot my front panel audio hooked up yesterday, gutted that the back one doesn't work as well. Plan was back for speakers, front for headies. Dunno wether to stick in an live card for speakers or use Muz's linked jack and just swap at the appropriate time. Prolly go with the MuzJack, much easier to implement. So....ta muz!
ReplyDeleteJust an update: Plantronics switch widget works a treat. Headies, mic and speakers plug in to widget, widget plugs into line out/mic in on soundcard, and switch on top of widget switches lineout between headies and speakers.
ReplyDelete