Review of Steel Series Spectrum 7xB Headset for Xbox 360 (Black)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $179.99
Sale Price: $73.41
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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program Unpacking this thing is a little scary, what with all the cables and parts. But not all of them are needed, thankfully.

The build quality looks good. The transmitter the size of a deck of cards. However, see below:

Pros:

Easy setup

Sounds great, with some isolation from external noise (but also see Cons below)

Comfortable for hour-long stretches. (I'm wearing glasses.) Probably shouldn't play for much longer than that at a time.

Interference-free wireless performance, so far

30-foot range (but I only need 10 feet or so at most)

Choice of USB, 3.5 mm, or RCA input

Disassembles for easy packing (if you do that a lot)

Retractable mic boom! Very nice.

Decent directional sound performance (but see below)

Great balancing of chat versus game sound via "LiveMix" setting. This is a very nice feature that dials down the game volume when you're chatting.

Auto power-off (after about 5 minutes)

Connects to Mac or PC as well

Cons:

Mic "only compatible with Xbox 360"

They could have varied the button design a bit more to enable you to distinguish them more easily by touch

Although they tout their crystal clear digital transmission, this offers analog inputs only ... weird. So the channel separation is limited, not as good as real Dolby Digital. Seems like a waste. However, it's certainly good enough for gaming, if you're not a purist.

Pricey!

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program Last week I just bought my Astro A40 5.8 wireless headphones for gaming. I returned the nightmare setup I tried from Turtle Beach with the DSS mated to the new Earforce X12. But then along comes this set I had never even heard of. I have to say the first thing I liked was the look AND feel when I opened the box. For the selling price I would hope so.

A nice feature if you take your gear to friends homes to game is these break down easily (into 5 pieces) for easy transport. It included ALL the cabling you need though I was sort of surprised it does NOT use any optical cable. It works just fine so who cares. Next you sync it and enjoy a very nice & rich sound. It has audio presets to play with and though I am now already spoiled by my other brand 7.1 surround headset, these do REALLY well. They honestly do. I also like the LiveMix setting that will lower the game volume for game chat for you. I REALLY found myself enjoying this in my online play.

Comfort. I wear eyeglasses and these are much more comfy than my Turtle Beach X12's were. I can go about 45 minutes to an hour before any pain. My Asro's I can wear till I fall asleep with NO pain with glasses but I paid a steep price for that much comfort too.

Controls are fairly easy, MUCH easier than those on my Logitech 7.1 Surround headset I just sold today from my gaming PC. And just to clue you, these are made for the XBOX only but buy a couple cable options (I bet you already have ALL you need laying around now!) and these will also work with your PS3 and PC as well. I really don't know why they don't make this knowledge available and offer to sell you this to expand their presence in the marketplace????? Anyway, these sound wonderful. Warm, mess with the different presets to get the sound you prefer and NO hiss, NO popping, NO hassles! So no, it doesn't not sound as wonderful as my Astro A40's.....But at way less money it sounds better than I ever expected. I can't believer I had never even heard of this company before! I would give these a solid 4 but for the asking price I feel surround sound should be included. Also they need to explain the options of multi-platform use. So for sound quality, an honest 4. For value, not so much? So 3 stars overall.

Best Deals for Steel Series Spectrum 7xB Headset for Xbox 360 (Black)

The popping and crackling the headphones suffer from make them practically unusable. I gave the set the benefit of the doubt due to being within range of 20 or so routers but then I moved and am now only within 2 (including my own) and the problem persists. I've tried moving it, wrapping it foil to no avail.

They are pretty comfortable. They are on-ear not over-the-ear like I expected but still comfortable. I wear a 7 and 3/4 cap and the headset fits well in its fully extended mode. The mic works very well (or so I'm told by those I talk to) and the sound quality is very good with great bass for a wireless package.

Honest reviews on Steel Series Spectrum 7xB Headset for Xbox 360 (Black)

I bought this wireless headset to use for my pc. I know its a Xbox headset but it read in the description it was pc compatible. So I bought the thing and found it needed the 360 controller to plug into for the microphone portion. And although it has no cords running directly to the system it has quite a bit of setup i.e. the transmitter has cord to the system for power and another for the r/w audio cables, and a cord from the mic to the controller. Not the most plug and play setup. If all I were to use was my console this would be a great wireless option, but for an easier and more complete pc experience (albeit not of the high quality) I would rather use my 30$ Plantronics.

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I bought a pair of these after doing research on other similar wireless gaming headsets. I do not own another pair of headsets to compare these to.

The Good:

-Three Different Sound Qualities

-Sound quality itself was great

-Live Mix which separates your friend's voices from in-game sounds

-Extremely Comfortable, and I have a big head

The Bad:

From 11 feet away with a direct LOS, continually received crackles and pops in my headset. I didn't notice static, just every now and then would have a crackle and pop, sometimes disconnecting the sound for up to three seconds unless I moved my head. I attempted the following:

-Attempted to move the mixer around, away from the wireless router.

-Turned cell phone off

-Turned laptop off

-Turned baby monitor off

-Turned every wireless contraption off

I still continued to receive crackles and pops from what I imagine is the headset losing connection.

Also, upon plugging the voice dongle between the controller and the headset, I received a constant stream of static in my headphones. It's extremely noticeable and I had to unplug the dongle after a minute or two. I attempted to try an additional two times with no success.

These headphones also somehow seemed to affect my wireless router range. The same day that I plugged this in (and the mixer stays on even if the XBOX is off) I could not access my internet 20 feet away from the router. I could previously walk down the street a little bit and still have connection. I turned off the mixer, and bam, I could walk down the street and access the WIFI like normal. It also caused signal from the router to be dropped as well. I'm no tech geek so I can't back this up with frequency lingo, but I'm attempting to look at this logically. It has to be these headphones.

So now, if my wife wants to use WIFI upsairs while I'm using my headphones downstairs, she hasn't been able to. That, along with the crackling and popping noises, has made me reconsider the purchase. Returned the headphones, I expected much more from this product. For reference, my setup was an E2000 Wireless Router, Wired Xbox 360, Baby Monitor, these headphones.