Confession: I have never been much of an "audio guy", largely being content to use whatever pair of cheap earphones that came with a long-since-dead cellphone I can find lying around the house. But getting my hands on this headset may have changed that.
A special limited themed edition of the existing A30 wireless headset, this is a tribute to everyone’s favourite Star Wars bounty hunter / solo dad The Mandalorian, coming in the colour of "Beskar steel" and with (interchangeable) show-referencing icons on the outside of each earpiece. The tribute even extends to little Star-Warsy noises sounding when you turn the headset on and off. It looks great, and offers a snug but very comfy fit.
Setting the headset up is basically as simple as plugging its USB transmitter into the front of your XBox (a PlayStation version is also available; you can also buy the right transmitter separately if you have both) and turning it on. Everything auto-detects and you’re off. Sound quality is great; straight away I noticed the satisfyingly crisp snap-hiss of merely navigating the menu of my old fave Destiny 2, and realised I was even picking up musical notes in the lower register of the score I’d never noticed before in my old headset (which is basically dead to me now). My television’s sound was also put to shame.
When it came time to hit multiplayer, online teammates reported even the A30’s internal mic did a pretty good job, but adding the detachable boom mic elevated clarity even further. The multi-function mini-joystick on the right ear makes it easy to balance voice and game volume on the fly. Perhaps the only issue I have with the headset is that I’ve found it a bit tricky to position the boom mic without it sometimes picking up the sound of my breathing. I’ve got a big stupid lower jaw though, so it’s very possible that it’s just a me-problem.
When game time’s over — and battery life is a whopping 27 hours, so you’ll probably still have some charge left — you can connect the headset to your phone via Bluetooth and listen to whatever, and wherever, you like. (Rep the Mandalorian on the bus! Drown out Dave’s annoying stories at work!) Controlling track selection and volume is easy with the multi-function control. Download the companion app and you can even mix from multiple simultaneous audio sources. Do you want the sound of you blasting the Hive in Destiny 2 to be accompanied by a soundtrack from the Spice Girls? Because now you can do it! The app also lets you dive into the nitty-gritty and customise balancing presets.
What a great piece of kit this is. It’s not cheap, but if you’re serious about your gaming and prepared to fork over the cash, it’s a worthy investment.
By Ben Allan
