A specialized headset for a specialized mission
At A GLANCE
(+) Spec Ops
Sturdy, well-designed headset for gamers; individual controls for 5.1 audio channels; comfy as hell over long periods; line noise reduction.
(-) Semper Rigidum
Mic doesn't detach; headset doesn't detach from remote either; fixed mic distance.
When you think about hardware required to play games on a PC, the focus instantly go to CPU and GPU, with little consideration often reserved for audio. Audio is immensely important in a gaming experience, just as it is in movies. But since most of us don’t play games in a theater and instead have neighbors or loved ones that don’t want to hear every gunshot or spell cast, a good gaming headset is a must for any serious gamer. We spent a while testing the Roccat Kave XTD 5.1 Analog and were pleasantly surprised.
The Kave XTD Analog is, just as its name says, an analog gaming headset (read: no drivers required). The 3.5mm jacks plug into your sound card at the back of your PC to give you Dolby 5.1 surround sound. There’s a single USB connector to supply power to the in-line remote and a couple of lights that are on the headset itself.
At first, you may ask yourself: Why would I want 5.1 surround when my sound card supports 7.1? The answer lies in the fact surround sound is based on placement of speakers in a room. A typical 5.1 setup has five speakers: left front, center, right front, right rear, and left rear. A 7.1 setup adds two more: left and right. As rooms get bigger, it becomes harder to cleanly mix sounds as the fade from rear to front or vice versa the farther apart the speakers are. Adding the two extra speakers in 7.1 alleviates the resulting “sound hole.” When you take that model and scale it down to a headset, the need for the two discrete drivers for 7.1 disappears, since there is so little distance between the speaker and your ear canal.
As a result, the 5.1 surround on these cans sounds great, and one doesn’t feel like they’re missing out on the extra two speakers. Roccat’s Kave XTD line of headsets features line noise cancellation, so you don’t get as much of that white noise hiss when there’s no sound playing. In game, gunshots in first-person shooters sound accurately placed, and speech of characters sounds crisp and clear.
The headset itself feels comfy, and we wore it for a couple of hours without any discomfort during testing. The structural elements of the headset are made of a heavy plastic that feels pretty durable, but it would have been nice to see aluminum. Ear cups and headband padding are made out of a cushy foam that feels nice and squishy to the touch. The ear cups are easy to remove and clip into place, making replacing worn cups a cinch.
The headset weighs in at 11.8 ounces (335g), which is enough to make the headset feel hefty in your hands, yet lightweight when affixed to your noggin. The attached mic works well and can swing up to stay out of your way when you need to play those single-player campaigns. Our main gripe is that the mic boom is rigid, so the user has no real choice over the distance between the mic and mouth.
Attaching the Kave XTD 5.1 Analog is fairly easy, provided you have color-coded 3.5mm female jacks on your motherboard or sound card. Our test rig, ironically, had 3.5mm female jacks that were identically colored to preserve the look of the rear panel. The Kave’s male jacks don’t have symbols printed on the plastic to give any hints. We can never remember what colors mean what, so we had to look it up.
The inline remote has four discrete volume control wheels. The left two wheels control subwoofer and rear channels, while the other two control the center and front channels. There is a switch for “movie” and “game” modes, too. Honestly, the difference in modes is really subjective and up to taste. But that’s the cool thing about this remote: It lets you customize your levels to your liking, and the game/movie switch is just one extra level of customization.
You’ll find the obligatory mic switch next to the movie/game switch. At the far end of the remote closest to the cable that heads to the PC, you’ll find the volume knob. The knob has a little resistance to it, so you don’t over-adjust your volume too much. If you give it a quick twist, you can still silence or bring up the battle sounds really quickly if needed.
The remote also has a belt clip built in, and comes with a stand for your desk. The little stand doesn’t have much weight to it, so it’s easily knocked over or moved with an unintended tug of the headset’s cable. The stand does have a little lip on the end, so if you have a small paperweight or book, you can use that to weigh it down.
That leads us to another point: This headset is designed to be bound to your PC. It can’t disconnect from the inline remote, nor does the mic detach from the headset. This is a feature that we found really useful in other headsets like the Kingston HyperX Cloud II, but isn’t completely damning if you accept that you won’t be wearing these on your commute.
The Kave XTD 5.1 Analog has a bigger brother, the Kave XTD 5.1 Digital. The Digital variant has the same headset design, but uses a different remote with a USB sound card built in. The Digital variant also has Bluetooth connectivity so you can use the headset to answer calls while in the fray.
Overall, the Kave XTD 5.1 Analog headset focuses on one thing: gaming. By skirting the edge of over-specialization, it achieves good results for an analog headset in-game at the expense of usability while AFK.
From maximumpc
from http://bit.ly/1enDv3a
