5
$100, http://www.turtlebeach.comW
e know good surround-sound headphones exist. We pitted models from
Pioneer and Sony against each other in our May 2005 Head2Head and
came away impressed with both contenders (Sony won the match by a nose).
We’re much less taken with Turtle Beach’s effort.
Of course, we’re talking about two completely different price categories:
Pioneer’s model SE-DIR800C sells for $400 and Sony’s model MDR-DS8000
fetches twice that. Turtle Beach’s Ear Force HPAs go for just $100. Then again,
the Pioneer and Sony products do a lot more—they’re both wireless and they
both have surround-sound decoder modules, for example. Turtle Beach relies
on your PC’s soundcard for signal processing, and these headphones keep you
tethered to your source device.
Yeah, yeah, we know. Whadaya want for a hundred bucks? Well, we want
headphones that sound good with games, movies, and music; that are comfort-
able to wear for long periods at a time; and that are rugged enough that we
don’t have to worry about throwing them in a bag when we head off to a LAN
party. The HPAs score well in only that last category, thanks to hefty materials
and solid construction.
Unlike conventional headphones, the HPAs have three separate jacks
to match a 5.1-channel soundcard. A separate adapter enables you to plug
in speakers at the same time. To test the headphones, we plugged them into
a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 soundcard and played games, movies, and DVD-Audio. The phones did a commendable job producing booming bass and tight
midrange—critical to all three applications—but they had difficulty producing
inspiring highs. Compared with both mid-priced loudspeakers and stereo head-
phones, high frequencies on the HPAs sounded muted and flat.
And when it comes to producing surround sound, the HPAs fall flat on
their face. No matter how much we tweaked the inline amplifier’s separate
volume controls for front, center, surround, and subwoofer channels, the HPAs
never pulled off the trick of throwing audio events behind our heads. And if a
surround-sound system can’t
accomplish that, it just doesn’t
deserve the designation.
—MICHAEL BROWNTurtle Beach Ear
Force HPA
These phones fall far short of their surround-sound promise
W
ireless audio frequently entails sacrificing fidelity in the name of conve-
nience. Toshiba seems to have licked the noise problem with its Bluetooth
headphones, but not without making a few other minor tradeoffs.
Audio quality is the most important consideration when we evaluate
headphones, and we were surprised at how good—and how quiet—these
Toshibas sound; we detected zero background noise. Demonstrating excellent
dynamic range playing audio CDs on a PC, they produced throbbing bass in
Robert Earl Keen’s “The Great Hank” and still managed to turn out sparkling
mandolins in Paul Thorn’s “Where Was I?” Game soundtracks sounded equally
good. The phones didn’t get uncomfortably loud, but at max volume, they
drowned out pretty much all outside noise.
The Li-Ion battery delivered a little more than six hours of continuous use
on a full charge, and the headphones remained comfortable during extended
listening sessions. A sturdy yet flexible plastic band wraps around the back
of your head, and the foam-covered earpieces rest snugly on top of your ears
without being too tight. Volume- and track-control buttons are integrated into
the left earpiece. Detents on the volume buttons make them very easy to locate;
the track-control buttons (which function only with Windows Media Player and
WinDVD) are only a little more difficult to manipulate. A large button in the cen-
ter of the earpiece toggles between pause and play.
You might recognize these headphones as Logitech’s wireless iPod
phones, but Toshiba tells us its own engineers are responsible for optimizingthe Bluetooth audio delivery. The company claims you can wander up to 16 feet
away from the source, but the signal broke up if we moved about vigorously at
any distance. We also experienced infrequent dropouts while seated, but these
weren’t common enough to bother us.
You’ll need to purchase an adapter if your playback device isn’t already
outfitted with Bluetooth 1.2. Toshiba’s PC USB adapter costs $45, but we’ve
seen other models selling for half that. We advise anyone looking for a wireless
personal audio fix to check out
Toshiba’s offering.
—MICHAEL BROWNToshiba Bluetooth
Headphones
These cans deliver quality wireless audio
reviews TESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED
8 MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2005
Turtle Beach’s Ear
Force HPA head-
phones are OK, but
if you really want
surround sound,
look elsewhere.Toshiba’s wireless headphones use Bluetooth technology to
cut the headphone cord.8
$90, http://www.toshiba.comTURTLE BEACH EAR FORCETOSHIBA HEADPHONES