Astro A50 Multi-Format Wireless Gaming Headset Review

 Setup & Installation

This was incredibly simple, I’ve seen so many multi format headsets that come with a dozen chunky cables that complicate the process, dedicated drivers, custom fitting cables (eg; a unique shape USB port) or other nonsense, not on the Astro A50. I hooked up a single USB cable from the base unit to my pc, it installed immediately, turned the headset on and it worked beautifully. Of course the headset was desperately in need of charging, but even then this only took about 30 mins, can be done while in use and again only requires a simple USB connection.

Hooking the device to Xbox was easy, connect the optical cable to your hub, plug in the USB, hook up the headset to the controller and you’re good to go, even easier on the PS3 as you do not need the controller cable, all tested out and worked first time without any trouble, pretty much idiot proof.

Audio Performance

Music is always the first thing I try on a headset and given the stellar performance of the A40’s a few months ago I wanted to see if anything was lost by losing the cable connection. Let me put this into the simplest terms I can, I have never heard a gaming headset play back my music as beautifully and as clear as the Astro A50. Bass is low, heavy and distortion free, but also gives a sense of space that goes beyond the headset, a room filling quality that is rarely felt through a pair of headphones.

Mid tones and treble are beautifully balanced too and I found myself listening to a lot more albums than I had planned before moving onto my next set of tests, gaming.

Battlefield 3 is always great to push a headset to distortion, especially when you get a lot of heavy explosions and people chatting on Mumble, it can quickly deteriorate into an auditory nightmare, the Astro not only gave me crystal clear chat audio, especially thanks to the channel mixer, but still gave me great scope of audio from the battlefield that was incredibly directional.

Movie performance was pretty impressive too and the EQ comes in handy as you need to switch it over to get a good front channel sound to balance the bass, something that didn’t seem a problem for music or gaming.