Turtle Beach used to be a name invoked when you wanted something higher spec than Creative's older, generic Sound Blaster audio cards. What you lost in native game support, you gained in ahead-of-the-curve audio engineering, and the cards themselves sounded less like geek tech than tropical respites, with names like Maui, Montego, Rio, Riviera, and Santa Cruz (contrast with Creative's comparably dull Pro, Pro 2, Awe32, Awe64, Audigy, and X-Fi).
The company still sells a handful of sound cards--a couple Dolby Digital PCI cards and two USB dongles for mobile devices--but they're probably best known these days for their Ear Force audio headsets.
Last year Turtle Beach sent me an Ear Force Z1, which though my wife called it the most comfortable headset she'd used to make international Skype calls, sadly developed an audio short in the flex housing near the volume controls, causing the sound to cut in and out when you wiggled it. By the time I'd gotten round to requesting a review replacement, I was traveling back across the pond after an extended sojourn in the UK and I was on to other kit.
Enter the Ear Force PX 21, a newer, visibly chunkier stereo amplified headset I've had wrapped around my head the past few weeks. An update to last year's PS3-angled P21, Turtle Beach markets the PX 21 agnostically to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC/Mac gamers and sells it for $79.95 (same as the less well-rounded P21). Its raison d'etre? To be a stereo USB headset for chatting and an amplified headset for gaming, all controlled from a single box attached to the cable that lets you fiddle chat and game volume using discrete volume dials and LEDs.
Cable Doubles as Lasso
Do you sit directly in front of your video screen or somewhere back across the room? Turtle Beach isn't taking chances. The PX 21 comes with a high quality (read: thick) 16-foot non-detachable connector cable that could almost double as an escape cord, say you ever have to climb out a two-story building. The extra length should do nicely if you need it, but looks clumsy if you're gaming in close quarters, as I tend to (in a glider chair about four feet from a 26-inch LED TV). Put it this way: A bird's nest has less going on than a 16-foot cable tangled up.
The cable terminates in split-out USB and 3.5 millimeter audio ends, and a separate adapter cable lets you employ both simultaneously for discrete connections to your game system and a separate sound system, say you want to change up audio output without unplugging anything. Turtle Beach includes a Velcro strap to manage the cable's length, and you'll just want to make sure you're wrapping it well down so it's not weighting down the headset.
Amplification Station
The PX 21's integrated stereo amplifier sits about three feet down the cable from the headpiece and includes mic mute and stereo expander switches, bass, chat, and game volume dials, an Xbox LIVE jack to run mic output to an Xbox controller, and mic mute and "Chat Boost" LEDs (you'll need the USB cable plugged into something to power the expander--no battery options here, which is probably for the best given weight concerns).
The LEDs are terrific for quick visual reference, the Chat Boost feature really does keep the chat channel audible during loud gaming sequences, and bass boost adds plenty of eardrum-pummeling oomph to games with low-frequency effects. That said, you'll want to dial it back much of the time, since it tends to distort if you crank it (and you'll need to disable it entirely if you pair the PX 21 with Turtle Beach's 5.1/7.1 surround processor, the Ear Force DSS).
The only downside, having these many switches in close proximity to a moving body, is that it's easy to accidentally trip one unintentionally, or accidentally zero out "game" when you meant to thumb down "chat." A somewhat delicate plastic "belt" clip on the amplifier's back helps secure it out of the way--if you can find something that's away from your body, say part of the chair you're sitting in, to clip it to.
Next: The stereo expander, over the ears, and mic monitoring...
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