Turtle Beach Earforce Z60 DTS Headphone X Review

Performance

The Turtle Beach EarForce Z60 is designed to be a gaming headset and I’ve decided that is the best place to start. I put them through their paces on Borderlands 2, Skyrim, Star Conflict, Battlefield 4 and for something a little different, Sim City (2013).

I hooked the headset up via USB, making good use of the built-in USB soundcard and its surround sound capabilities. On the default settings, I found the sound quality to have a nice warm tone to it, plenty of bass and a lot of clarity. This was great for shooting games, as the sound effects sounded powerful, the dialogue was nice and clear and there was plenty of detail in the sound overall. The surround sound modes are interesting, as they do offer a much wider soundscape and you can hear a very clear directional sound that’s great for first person games. However, I feel that the sound quality drops a little with these modes enabled and it’s not as crisp as it is in stereo mode. It’s really down to personal preference, but I prefer the stereo performance of the Z60.

The detachable microphone is nothing fancy, but it’s easily adjusted and the in-game chat audio is nice and clear; although it always is on every Turtle Beach headset that I’ve ever tested.

Music performance on this headset didn’t really excite me, at least not with the USB sound card enabled. The maximum volume I could get out of the headset in USB mode was 88dBa and this dropped off another 2dBa with virtual surround modes enabled (even on native surround tracks). Switching to the 3.5mm cable made a big difference, as I was able to get 97dBa out of the headset and get the full power of the drivers. I’m not saying that I want to deafen myself, but the extra power is great for when your source material isn’t especially loud. The sound quality is a little less refined, but you still get a lot of punch to the sound that’s great for watching movies or listening to music; when it comes to gaming, you’ll want the USB sound card.