Maximum PC Headphones RSS Feed

AirDrives

Tom Edwards — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:00:00 -0500

Every once in a while, we actually step away from our computers to get some exercise—and do our best to avoid the cavalcade of cars, bikes, and pedestrians that share the roads with us when we go for a run. Until recently, we had eschewed wearing headphones when we pounded the pavement, but AirDrives earbuds have us rethinking this position. By fitting around your outer ear and lying just in front of your ear canal, rather than inside it, AirDrives allow you to hear the music on your MP3 player but still be aware of environmental sounds, so you’re less likely to be clipped by a car you didn’t hear coming. And although they aren’t inserted within the ear, the AirDrives remain snug, even after a long run, and remain in place much better than designs that lack an over-the-ear loop.

AirDrives won’t provide you with the most impressive audio experience, however; low tones, in particular, get lost in the mix. And if environmental noise is particularly loud, you’ll be tempted to turn the volume up to the max, further worsening sound quality. However, another benefit of the outside-the-ear design is that even if you turn your MP3 player up to 11, the AirDrives are much less likely to harm your hearing than in-ear buds.

These buds aren’t the ideal choice for situations in which you want a noise-cancelling experience, on an airplane for example. And even at the gym, you’ll likely want a headphone that blocks out the techno emanating from the spin class next to you. But when you want to listen to music yet still be aware of your surroundings—on the slopes, on the road, in the office—AirDrives are your best option.

Future Sonics Atrio m8 Earbuds

Michael Brown — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:56:33 -0500

We’ve tested a lot of earbuds over the past few years and invariably find ourselves gravitating toward products at the very high end of that market—we’re talking buds that’ll set you back more than the most expensive iPod. At $200, Future Sonics’s Atrio m8 earbuds certainly aren’t cheap—but they’re competitive with some products that cost twice as much.

The first thing you notice when you stick the m8s in your ears and hit play is the bass response. We immediately pulled out these earbuds and did a double take to see how they could pump out so much low end. Exceptional bass is one of the attributes we’ve always dug about Shure’s $400 SE530 buds, but they don’t deliver nearly the sonic boom that the m8s produce.

To be fair to Shure, the SE530s deliver more frequency response at the high end of the spectrum, a fact we attribute to the three separate micro drivers in those buds, versus the single driver in the m8s. The bigger the driver, the easier it is to produce low end. A big driver also sacrifices highs, but Future Sonics has achieved a remarkable balance in its design.

Hold the m8s next to the SE530s and you can see where Future Sonics invested most of its manufacturing budget: the drivers. The m8s fit just as snugly and comfortably in our ears, and they were at least as effective at blocking outside noise, but they just don’t look as elegant as Shure’s product.

We listened to a wide variety of tunes encoded in both WAV and FLAC on Cowon’s iAudio7 digital media player (look for our review at www.maximumpc.com). We dug how the m8s were able to deliver each of the musician’s contributions on Betty Davis’s “Git in There” (from They Say I’m Different ). Davis’s predatorily nasty growl is the obvious focal point of this song, and it sounded fabulously seductive on the m8s, but these buds also did full justice to the backup band’s funky drum, guitar, keyboard, and bass work, too. These are some sweet buds.

Creative Aurvana X-Fi Headphones

Michael Brown — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:59:37 -0600

We’ve never liked headphones that use active noise cancellation because they simply mask environmental noise by generating background hiss. But Creative’s Aurvana X-Fi headphones are almost good enough to win us over.

Donning the headphones and activating their noise-cancellation circuit instantly silenced the background cacophony created by our building’s HVAC system and myriad nearby computers—and we could barely detect the circuitry used to accomplish the feat.

That’s impressive, but Creative has also taken two features from its X-Fi soundcards and embedded them in these phones. We’re big fans of Creative’s X-Fi Crystalizer because it adds a natural and pleasant sonic presence to both compressed music (e.g., MP3s and WMAs) and songs played straight from CD. We’re not so impressed, however, with Creative’s X-Fi CMSS-3D, an algorithm that taps the onboard DSP to widen the stereo sound field.

Audio purists, of course, will cringe at the thought of using any of these features because this processing alters what the artist has wrought. And as much as we like the noise-canceling feature’s ability to isolate us from the outside world, we did turn it off while listening to music because it adds a harsh edge to midrange frequencies. We found this phenomenon particularly noticeable while listening to the guitar and Linda Thompson’s plaintive vocals on “Walking on a Wire” (from her collaboration with former husband Richard Thompson, Shoot out the Lights).

These headphones are clearly not designed for mission-critical applications such as monitoring mix downs. They also consume batteries at an alarming rate: Having neglected to turn them off before leaving for the day, we came in the next morning to find their two AAA batteries completely drained (they behave like normal headphones without power, so the lack of batteries doesn’t render them useless).

As much as we like Creative’s X-Fi Crystalizer technology, as great as the Aurvana X-Fi headphone’s sound, and as nonintrusive as their noise-cancellation circuitry is, we still prefer the passive noise-blocking technology offered by in-ear phones such as Shure’s SE530.

Rocketfish USB Gaming Headset

Michael Brown — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:36:10 -0600

The gap between cheap and inexpensive widens to a yawning chasm when you’re talking audio gear, which is why we’re so pleasantly surprised with the Rocketfish gaming headset. We didn’t realize this was a Best Buy private-label product until after we’d given it a listen, but we’re glad we didn’t dismiss it out of hand.

The Rocketfish headset looks much more expensive than its $50 price tag would imply, despite being fabricated primarily from plastic, thanks to earcups and a mic stalk that are wrapped in a matte black, rubber-like skin accented by glossy red stripes. The stalk is flexible, but non-removable (it pivots up out of the way when you don’t need it).

The mic supposedly has noise-cancellation technology built in, but we weren’t impressed with its filtering capabilities: It picked up plenty of both environmental and breathing noise. Despite that criticism, the mic sounded better than those that came with some of the more expensive headsets we’ve reviewed lately.

The Rocketfish delivers surprisingly deep bass response, and it sounds much better than we expected from headphones in this price range. The oval ear cups both pivot and spin, rendering them comfortable for long gaming sessions, and they do a good job of isolating your ears from outside noise. We found them to be just a bit small for our ears, but they still prevented audio from leaking out.

A volume control consisting of a thumb wheel and a slightly awkward slider switch for muting the mic is located on the generously long 9-foot USB cable. This is the best headset we’ve seen for gamers on a budget; in fact, the only feature on the Rocketfish that really passes for cheap is the cheesy elastic suspension headband

Turtle Beach Ear Force AK-R8 Headset

Michael Brown — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:20:36 -0600

One of the reasons we picked Turtle Beach’s Ear Force HPA2 headset as one of the 19 awesome upgrades we recommended in our June 2007 issue was the fact that it’s analog and can be paired with a soundcard. The new Ear Force AK-R8 is USB only, but this enables it to offer some compelling features in addition to fabulous surround sound.

An inline control module on the 8-foot cable, for instance, has SPDIF inputs and outputs, plus a 1/8-inch input for a stereo mic and a 1/8-inch analog output for a second set of stereo headphones. This same module also houses a DSP chip, a six-channel amplifier, and a built-in stereo microphone that can be used to monitor outside sounds—such as your significant other hollering at you to quit playing Supreme Commander long enough to take out the trash. Unfortunately, activating this mic turns on the boom mic (and vice versa).

A software front-end for the DSP runs on the host PC to provide a 10-band equalizer for each of the four speakers in each ear cup (front, surround, center, and subwoofer), plus separate ambiance controls for the front and surround channels. While by no means audiophile quality, Turtle Beach’s gear has always sounded a cut above what the competition has offered—and the AK-R8 is no exception—but we’re disappointed by the company’s decision to follow the crowd and introduce a rumble effect into this product. Strapping a vibrator to your head might be fun in some situations, but it’s just annoying when you’re playing PC games. Fortunately, Turtle Beach’s effect surfaces only when you significantly boost the frequencies routed to the subwoofer.

This is the best headset we’ve heard for gamers who prefer to roll without soundcards.

Tritton AXPC Headset

Michael Brown — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:07:00 -0500

We reviewed Tritton’s Audio Xtreme 360 headset in our July issue. As you can tell by its model name, that device is aimed as much at console gamers as it is movie watchers and PC gamers. The AXPC is a little simpler, better suited to PC users, and nearly $50 cheaper. But it sounds just as mediocre.

The AXPC shares its stablemate’s 5.1-channel surround-sound speaker design—four 30mm drivers in each earpiece—but it doesn’t have a Dolby Digital decoder module. It also doesn’t have the Xtreme 360’s ability to host a second set of phones, but neither of these factors are shortcomings for PC cans. The fact that this headset relies on your PC’s USB port, on the other hand, is a negative for anyone with a dedicated soundcard. The AXPC offers only EAX 2.0 support—not very impressive when you consider that Creative has taken EAX to version 5.0.

Tritton, however, did improve the detachable microphone in every respect: The flexible stalk attaches via a threaded mount (as opposed to the thin wire and plug on the 360), it delivers superior voice quality, and it’s far better at rejecting extraneous background noise (an important advantage if your PC has noisy fans).

While testing with the included helicopter demo (as a crudely rendered helicopter circles your head, the sound of its engine is supposed to follow), the AXPC was very effective at fooling our brains into believing that the helicopter was actually behind our heads. The effect was marred, however, by severely abrupt transitions from the front to the side and from the side to the back—the sound just cuts out from one speaker and resumes in the other.

he AXPC’s “rumble” effect drove us nuts, and there’s no way to defeat it other than to switch the phones to 2.1-channel mode. The rumble isn’t force feedback, in which specific events in the game cause physical effect; the earcups simply vibrate in response to low frequencies. Bleh!

Shure SE530PTH Earphones

Michael Brown — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:02:51 -0500

With that question in mind, we couldn’t resist auditioning these pricey phones to the sound of Cake’s Fashion Nugget, ripped and FLAC-encoded, on Cowon’s D2 digital media player. We don’t know if Shure’s BOM (bill of materials) justifies a $500 price tag, but we did have awfully big smiles on our faces after using these earphones.

The SE530PTHs fit snugly in your ears and prevent outside noise from reaching your eardrums, just as Shure’s other in-ear phones do. In the past, there’s been a downside to this setup: When you need to hear outside noise—such as when your roommate is desperately trying to tell you the house is on fire—you’ve had to pull the buds out of your head. So Shure came with a brilliant solution called Push to Hear (PTH).

Push to Hear is a slightly bulky module that fits in-line between the earphones and your MP3 player. Activating PTH turns on a directional microphone and cuts the player’s volume. A green LED assures whoever is speaking that yes, you really are listening. PTH is a terrific, albeit expensive, solution to a common problem.

Every link in the audio chain is crucial to delivering a great audio experience, but we draw a (dotted) line at spending twice as much on your earphones as you do your MP3 player. So, no Kick Ass for you, Shure.

Shure SE530PTH Earphones

Michael Brown — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:10:48 -0500

For the price of one set of Shure’s SE530PTH earphones, you could buy two 30GB iPods, 17 sets of Apple earbuds, or 500 encrypted songs from iTunes. A worthy investment or Marie Antoinette–style consumption? With that question in mind, we couldn’t resist auditioning these pricey phones to the sound of Cake’s Fashion Nugget, ripped and FLAC-encoded, on Cowon’s D2 digital media player. We don’t know if Shure’s BOM (bill of materials) justifies a $500 price tag, but we did have awfully big smiles on our faces after using these earphones.

The earphones themselves feature three sets of microdrivers in each earpiece: a tweeter and two woofers. These bass twins deliver a heaping helping of low end—not as much as M-Audio’s IE-20XBs (reviewed in the March 2007 issue), but it’s much better defined in the Shures. They deliver faboo sound at the other end of the spectrum, too. The vibraslap opening on Cake’s title track sounded like it was drilling deep into the left side of our brain—and we mean that in a good way.
Every link in the audio chain is crucial to delivering a great audio experience, but we draw a (dotted) line at spending twice as much on your earphones as you do your MP3 player. So, no Kick Ass for you, Shure.