Ear Force X31 Digital RF Wireless Game Audio + Xbox Live Chat Review

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(More customer reviews)I waited to write my review until a week after receiving my headset. I have owned two sets of Turtle Beach headsets, I have an audio background, and I wanted to write a definitive review from somebody who has used multiple sets of their products and had knowledge in the audio field. The Turtle Beach X31's are a repackaging/redesign of the popular Turtle Beach X3 headset. I've owned the Turtle Beach X1's and now the X31's.
I'll start with the good. The X31's have some great features! Here is a list of basic features and improvements:
-Almost everything is updated! The X31's improve on everything that was decent in previous Turtle Beach headsets and you can tell Turtle Beach is definitely ironing out some of the complaints from previous model headsets and starting to get it "right."
-Newly redesigned 40mm drivers/speakers. You can hear a difference in the quality! Upper mids and highs/treble frequencies are a lot better represented, providing more clarity to the game sound.
-Chat boost. When the game audio gets louder, it slightly increases chat volume to match it so the game audio doesn't drown out chat voices.
-Effects. Bass boost button. Stereo widening button. Stereo widening + bass boost button. (each are all on the same button, you click it a number of times and hear an audible beep in your headset each step of the way)
-Power. Runs on two AAA's. I recommend Duracell rechargeable NiMh batteries. Battery life is what the package claims from my personal testing. It has a circuit in the headphones that helps use up every bit of power from the batteries. Typical battery life is around 20 hours in regular use with Bass Boost engaged. Also, the headset will shut off automatically if no signal is detected for five minutes, which is nice.
-Comfort. They redesigned the headphone cups to go around your ears better. The material on the cups is also softer and less plastic like. It's fabric mesh that is more breathable.
-Wireless. Truly wireless. Wires all plug in near your TV then you only have one wire to your controller to pick up the chat. The wire is redesigned as well, there is no "puck," it's a straight shot into your controller so that you can use the chatpad if you have it as well. =)
-Technology. 2.4ghz RF that is no longer "line-of-sight." In testing, the unit worked anywhere around my TV from within about 15 feet of the sender unit.
-Basic functions. Boom mic that bends out of your way easily. Being able to mix the chat/audio on separate controls. You can actually hear in older emulated games like Halo 2! (emulation makes the voice really soft in a game like Halo 2 if you're running it on a 360)
-Audio quality. This is a very nice headset compared to Turtle Beach's older models. I really enjoyed my X1's, but they were overly bassy, especially in the chat. This time around, it seems like the chat and audio go through separate processing. There's more mids and highs, not "bass all the time only with a bit of highs sprinkled in." The dynamic range is a lot clearer, there's more frequencies represented and better separation at loud volumes.
-Online advantage. I play mostly first person shooters online. I would say this headset has saved me at least 2-3 times PER MATCH that I've tried it out in. The better audio quality makes footsteps stand out better than with previous Turtle Beach models. The games I tested were: Doom, Halo 2, Halo 3, Battlefield: Bad Company, Battlefield: 1943, Call of Duty 4, Ghost Recon, and some other non-FPS games. In each game, I could clearly hear when there were footsteps around me. Also, even though the headset is only stereo (no 5.1 Dolby Digital), you can hear a distinct direction each sound is coming from with this headset. I could even hear when there were snipers around me, I could hear the bolt cycling on their sniper rifle! (even if they were upstairs...play Bad Company with this headset, it's a real treat!)
-Mic monitoring. Mixes in a bit of your own voice so you don't talk too loudly with the headset on.
Now here's a list of the negatives/improvements I think Turtle Beach could make:
-Price. Still a bit rough at $99.95. They are worth it, but a $79.99 tag seems a bit more realistic to me for Turtle Beach going forward.
-Mic monitoring. It mixes in your voice and you can hear yourself in pre-game lobbies, but let's get realistic here, as soon as all the game audio comes in, you can't hear yourself AT ALL. You still end up talking too loudly with the headset on.
-Material on earcups. The headphones are way more comfortable, but I noticed all around my ears you'll get some kind of black ink wear-off. The material they used rubs off on your skin and leaves black marks all around your ears? I can't believe somebody didn't notice this when playtesting the headphones before the company gave the green light to ship them?
-Chat. I know it's hard to take a low-level, noisy chat signal that is using really small bandwidth from Xbox Live and increase it real loud and make it sound good. The chat is a HUGE improvement, don't get me wrong. I still think they could make it better. They mention that there is no "hiss" from game audio. There isn't. The game audio itself sounds uncompressed and great. The problem is, you get a noisy chat signal, plus if you're using a wireless controller with batteries, you get an annoying hiss from that with the chat signal. I do not know for the life of me why Turtle Beach (an audio company, mind you) could not implement a "noise gate" into the chat processing so low level hiss could be eliminated and the gate would open up when speaking or voice comes through. That could be a simple button you could use to turn the noise gate on or off.
Also, with the chat, they took ALL the bass out of chat. It would be nice to have a little bass in there. Games like Halo 3 have the chat so loud that it starts to break up and distort, it's almost too much treble all the time in your ears! (and yes, I have the chat set up correctly, it's not boosted too much and my sender unit is set correctly as well along with dashboard/guide chat volume)
-Audio levels. A big one for me. It seems like you don't get audio out of the headset until it's up 1/3 of the way, then it starts increasing. You wish there was just a bit more audio that you could push the volume level to. You wish there was just a bit more bass that was added in as well. You still get a full bass sound, but it's not close to the X1's. I know it's wireless and they made them a bit quieter and with a little less bass to conserve battery life since low frequencies take more energy to reproduce notes, but you still wish there was a bit more, especially after using the X1's that get LOOOOUD and have a ton of bass! I was expecting the bass boost button to do a tad bit more...
-Battery life. Great at around 20 hours. I wanted to point out once again to buy rechargeables, because you will definitely go through batteries!
-Effects. I found the "stereo widening" function absolutely useless. It's not something they needed to add in and they could have made some other better effect or maybe another click to the bass boost instead.
Over all, I gave this headset a 4 our of 5. It's a great headset and a nice step up in features from the X1's and X3's. I think if Turtle Beach does one more headset, they will get everything right and put out an even better product. Worth the money, I would buy this headset again and recommend it to friends.
Thanks for reading my review!

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The Ear Force X31 is our third generation of wireless headsets for the XBOX 360. Like the X3, the X31 combines XBOX live chat with wireless game sound so you can hear the game sound and the voices of other players in the headset. In other words, it replaces your XBOX communicator headset and external speakers. By hearing the XBOX Live chat in the center of your head rather than in one ear, you can communicate better online. By eliminating speakers you can turn up the game without disturbing others. And, by having the game sound right on top of your ears, you can hear even the softest sound cues that are impossible to hear with speakers. For example, you can hear when someone is quietly sneaking up on you and react faster. That means you\'ll have a totally immersive gaming experience while becoming a better player.Just like the X3, the X31 includes a headset and small transmitter. As you can see, the colors have been changed so it\'s easy to see it\'s a new model. What is different, however, is that we made the headset more comfortable by increasing the size of the ear cups so they sit around your ears rather than on top of them. We also replaced the vinyl ear cushions with these soft, fabric mesh cushions that let your ears breathe. The most significant improvement is that the X31 uses digital 2.4 Giga Hertz Radio Frequency wireless technology. This new digital RF technology is a huge improvement over analog IR because it delivers CD-quality sound with no background hiss, no interference from plasma TV screens and no line of sight restrictions between the transmitter and headset. Sound quality is improved with new 40mm speakers that use the same design as our high-quality X41 50mm speakers for better frequency response and improved clarity in the game sound.Inside the headset is a digital signal processor for bass boost and stereo expander effects, which can be turned on by pressing this button. This makes the expander more dramatic than the X3.

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