Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsIts an Okay Headset
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2014
One word of caution, you need an optical cable (which is not included) in order to use this product. Most people don't just have one of these laying around the house, so you will need to pick it up.
These are exactly the same headset as the Turtle Beach X32. The only difference is the box and the stripe of color around the ears is blue and not green. However, even the instructions are the same, everything else is the same. You can tell Turtle Beach threw this model together to take advantage of PS4 early adopters. They threw it together so fast that they didnt even have time to make instructions for PS4. There are (brief, very brief) instructions for Xbox 360 and PS3, but aside from the outside box, you won't see one mention of PS4 anywhere on anything else after opening it. You just paid double the price of an X32 headset to be blue and have a 4 in the name.
There are virtually no instructions. Well, let me rephrase. There are TONS of instructions. But they are in every language known to man. By the time you locate your language, you get one page of BASIC instructions. No explanation on how to use this thing. I had to figure out how to use this through trial and error. One thing to be aware of, you need to hold the power button down for about 10 seconds to turn this on. I was trying to press it or hold for a second or two and it wasnt working. I thought I had a defective unit. No, you hold it down for a very long time.
I had no problems pairing, luckily that portion is smooth. When playing your game you will hear random sounds like the unit wants to boot down, or low battery, or low on signal or something. I have never figured out what this sound is. It isnt anything i just mentioned though, I can guarantee that. I think its just a sound that plays to remind you that the headset is on. Speaking of which in fact, you need to make sure to turn this off! There is no auto-shutoff (would be nice on a $150 headset). So if you take them off and set them on the ground when youre done playing (without turning off) then you will have a dead headset next time.
When your headset is dead you are really in for a treat. You need to huddle next to your tv, burn the retinas of your eyes while you sit so close to the TV. Plug the USB from your PS4 to the left earmuff. You also need a cable from your right earmuff down to your controller. You are far from wireless with this stupid thing. You always have to have the wire that goes to your controller for voicechat, which is stupid. You also always need the receiver unit plugged into one of the two front facing USB ports on your PS4. Which means that no only do you now only have 1 USB port available (none if you have to charge your headset), but it looks ugly poking out the front all the time.
The PS4 controller needs to spend most of its time plugged into the console since the idiots that created it didn't realize that we might spend more than 4 hours playing a game at a time and might need our controllers battery to last for more than 1 gaming session. If you need to charge your controller and your headset at the same time you are in trouble. You dont have enough USB ports.
All in all, this headset works. It gets the job done and it matches the color of the Playstation system. Its the same thing as the other model, just rebranded. Turtle Beach threw this together over a weekend. You can tell that virtually no thought was put into it. It really didn't enhance my playstation experience at all. Sound quality is average. Better than flat panel tv speakers. But not good enough to even call it good. Its mediocre or average. Voicechat quality is better than average, its good, but not great. The downside is the fact that you need to have a cable going into your controller, making the headset no longer wireless.
The headset was rushed together. Its a way to take advantage of early PS4 adopters. It seems like it worked. I considered returning my headset but I decided to keep it as a backup just in case. Its not a BAD headset, but its not a GOOD headset either. This headset will get the job done without winning any awards along the way. If I was buying again, i would probably skip this purchase, but for someone else it could be all that they need.
