Tritton AX Pro Headset Review

Have you ever been sneaking up on someone about to assassinate them, only for them to turn around and kill you at the last moment? It is extremely frustrating, and I had no idea how people did it until I found gaming headsets. It started with my best friend from high school buying the Turtle Beach Ear Force X41 headset. That headset blew me away with how much more of the game that you could hear, and also made me realize that there is a lot of the game that you miss when playing without them. Well needless to say I scraped some money together and bought me a pair of the comparable but cheaper Tritton AX Pro headsets.

I’ll start out with a couple of specifications from the triton website (www.trittonusa.com). It has true 5.1 surround sound in a headset form, How they achieve this is by having multiple speakers in the actual earpieces (picture to the right).

This also makes the bass super clear and loud as well. The headset has a handy controller that allows you to adjust bass treble and everything in between separately. The headset will accept optical audio (which is essential for the true surround sound, but you don’t have to have optical audio to use these they come with an analog cord that can achieve surround sound) and the package comes with a very fragile optical audio cord, which you will want to replace with a better one as soon as you can. The package also comes with another set of ear pads, leather and a cloth texture; you will be comfortable with either set it just comes down to preference.

Now all of this info has been great so far. Now for some of the pitfalls with the headset. First off, you will find that the plastic casing feels cheap and acts pretty cheap as well. I have a fairly large head and after taking these off one time I found that the ear piece had split and the whole thing was loose, this was just after normal wear on them. The second biggest problem is that the audio is hard to hone in, and seems to change with each game. So you will find yourself adjusting the volume fairly often. If you are in a party you will want to turn down the voice volume because it quickly overpowers the game volume, and makes it hard for me to focus on the game sometimes. During extended game play with the head set I found that it got heavy on my head and my ears also get a little hot, but not overly hot, just a bit uncomfortable.

The microphone is detachable and you can use the supplied cord to use these as an MP3 player. The cord is split into 4 (this is for the surround sound) and it is hard to find which one works best. The manual will describe what each color is but I found all of them to be listenable but kind of odd sounding. So I wouldn’t suggest doing this. The other disadvantage to this headset is that it is corded; this results in a bunch of cords around your television and Xbox. You have a power cord, the audio cord (optical or analog), and the cord that leads from the control box to the headset. Now this may seem like it would be hard to set up but it is very easy and everything is labeled or color coded. If this is still too much then it come with an installation guide, the hardest part for me when I set it up is reaching behind everything to pull the cords through but if you have a lot of space behind your TV you are set.

A huge advantage to having this headset, or any other head set, is that you can hear the game as loud as you want without anyone at your house hearing. So these are ideal for night gaming and any other time you might want to be quiet. A word from the wise though, just because they can’t hear the game doesn’t mean they can’t hear you screaming when you get spawned camped this has gotten me into trouble before.

Overall the headset is a winner. Out of a 10 I would give the headset an 8.5. There are a few things that could be fixed like the cheapness of the plastic, but the good outweigh the negatives. I would highly suggest this headset to anyone who wants a truly immersive experience with their games, or if they just want that competitive edge.