It’s been many moons since the world of online gaming first stumbled upon the idea of voice communication between players. Texting your comrades while trying to dodge enemy fire is a risky business at best, so a few ambitious souls sat down and wrote programs that allow players to connect to each other or a centralized server to facilitate cooperation – and of course the occasional round of taunting. The most widely used application, in my experience, is probably Teamspeak, but that may be fodder for a different day.

Since the advent of voice communication, the means of doing so have improved drastically. And it’s no wonder: gamers spend money, and money drives business. Most gamers now use specially designed headsets for these purposes. Many companies even boast surround sound headsets, sporting multiple speakers to support truly positional audio. Today’s headsets are leaps and bounds better than what we started with, and we will be examining one such headset now, the eDimensional AudioFX.

At first glance, the AudioFX headset appears to be nothing more than a typical headset, though well padded. However a closer inspection will reveal each earpiece has three strips of LED lights. A visual inspection will not, however, reveal the truly nifty feature of this headset, the built-in “rumble” motors. Just like your X-Box controller, this headset is designed to make immersive games that much more realistic. So let’s get started with the real ins and outs of the product.

Sound Quality

The most important part of any headset or, headphones in general, for these purposes is its capability to accurately reproduce the crack of a gunshot, the rumble of an explosion, or the death cry of your fallen enemies. And if you’re purchasing any sort of headset, chances are that you will, at some point, hear music through them.

The AudioFX unit is a closed aural design, which is to say that it doesn’t allow sound to escape from the rear of the driver unit and annoy the people around you - handy for LAN parties. However, closed aural units have their own characteristics when it comes to sound reproduction. In the case of the AudioFX headphones, the average sound is very mid-ranged. For most people, this won’t really be a problem since a large percentage of the sound we hear lies within the mid-range frequency spectrum. For the discerning type (like myself), some serious equalization is necessary for this unit.

However, once you get your EQ set up to your own taste, it will be very difficult to be disappointed in the headset’s performance. I was pleasantly surprised by the definition these headphones were capable of producing. Deep, rich lows, and crisp, clear highs are all there, even to some fairly extreme levels of volume.

The microphone assembly seems well designed and quite rugged. A standard bendable stem rotates on the left ear cup, and can be turned totally upright when not in use. For those of us not in our early teens, the stem seems kind of short, and sets off to the side of the mouth. However, the cardioid has no trouble hearing and reproducing speech accurately. Out of all of the headsets I’ve used, the AudioFX has the best microphone to date.

Comfort

The AudioFX headset is designed to be worn for long periods of time it seems, by the sheer volume of padding on the unit. The ear cups are well made, and the headband has a firm but comfortable pad as well. The one downside to this set, as with many in its price range, is that the ear cups are not around-the-ear, but rather on-the-ear. With the excellent padding, this becomes less of an inconvenience, but after several hours of gaming, my ears did “feel the burn,” so to speak, of being squeezed by the unit. A quick break was usually enough to alleviate any irritation, and after using the set for near a week, they were broken in somewhat, and a lot more comfortable than they seemed when newly arrived.

Not specifically a comfort issue, but handy nonetheless, I will make mention that this set stays very well planted in position even through vigorous thrashing of the cranial area. Probably not all players will head bang while trying to scope an enemy halfway across a map, but if (like me) you do, this headset may be a wise purchase.

Another not-quite-comfort-related feature is the lead for the various plugs comes into the left cup, and not both. This is becoming a standard feature on more and more headsets, and rightly so as it makes the tangling cords problem that much less troublesome.

Features

The gimmick of these headphones is obviously the LEDs in each ear piece, and the built in rumblers. The LEDs, while sort of nifty, are completely aesthetic and quite obviously of no real use to the wearer. However, if you like things that flash in the dark, tack on another point of value. The LEDs, while not contributing significantly to performance, do not subtract anything either.

The useful feature here is the “force feedback” capabilities of the headset. Controlled by an on/off switch and level dial in the in-line volume pod, the rumblers kick in whenever a suitably low frequency comes through the line, thus simulating the feeling of your subwoofer punting you in the chest. Well, not quite.

But, even though you can’t feel your pants shake, or your heart stop beating, the feature does create a more immersive environment when your head is really in the game. A nice touch too, is that the rumbling follows your positional sound. That is to say that if something explodes on your right and creates a louder sound in the right earpiece, that earpiece also vibrates harder than the left. This may not seem like much, but it’s a very interesting experience knowing where and how far away that mortar shell landed not only by sound, but feeling.

Obviously it’s not a true force feedback system, as that would imply you have input on the headset, but that really isn’t important here. The rumbling, when added to the already alluring sound quality of the headphones is a real bonus for us late night players who don’t want to wake up their roommates or parents in the middle of the night by rattling windows clear down to the basement.

Physical Design

We discussed earlier that the wire leads for this unit are a single piece going into one earpiece, rather than the split design found on the majority of cheaper headsets. Now we’ll talk about the other side of the line. As it happens, to be a “batteries not required” piece of equipment, eDimensional had to find a power source for the LEDs and vibrator motors in the headset, and they, quite intelligently, thought a USB power connection would work pretty well. So, along with the standard 3.5mm microphone and speaker plugs, we see a USB connector dangling from the end of the cable as well.

There are two ways to look at this. If you’re like me, you have a nice set of surround sound speakers that have a desktop volume control. Said volume control will probably also have a headphone jack in it. At first this seems rather convenient, but not so much for this headset. The leads are basically designed to be plugged in to the same general area, and that general area is not a desktop headphone connection. But for people with the right connectors on the front of their cases - speaker, microphone, and USB - everything works out great. Obviously the sound still works when jacked into my desktop controller, but I can’t use the microphone and vibration features at the same time.

One great use for these headphones is laptop gaming. All three required jacks are usually quite close to each other on laptops. On my PowerBook, in fact, the three were straight in a row - very convenient! The closed aural design also contributes to usefulness of on-the-go gaming as you may have a hotel roommate you don’t want to disturb while pumping zombies full of .45ACP.

The only real, but very minor, inconveniences about this whole affair both have to do with the cable. The leads to each plug, after splitting from the main cable, are very thin and tend to get tangled up easily. I was afraid that they might tie themselves into a knot in my laptop bag and end up broken. So far that hasn’t happened.

The other gripe is the size of the volume and vibration control pod. I’m not sure what they have stuffed into it, but knowing a bit more than your average Joe about electronics, I’m pretty sure it didn’t need to be quite so big. Due to the absoluteness with which the headset attaches to your head, the weight of the pod isn’t really an issue, but I felt uncomfortable with it dangling behind my chair and caught it several times on the arm rest while standing up.

Conclusion

eDimensional has put quite a piece of equipment out with the AudioFX gaming headset. Never have I been so impressed with the sound quality of a headset in its price range. Nor have I often worn headphones of its style that were as comfortable or immobile, an almost mutually exclusive pair of words in the world of headphones. The microphone is also top-notch. Add your basic functionality to the inherent cool factor of anything that moves your body while something on your screen is exploding, and a good looking and comfortable shell (we were always partial to black and silver in these parts), and you get a great piece of gear like the AudioFX headset.

Pros: Excellent sound quality Vibration feature for added realism Batteries not required One piece plug lead Comfortable Cons: Individual connector leads seem flimsy Oversized control pod

Overall Rating: 9.0/10 (higher is better) Manufacturer Info: Company: eDimensional Inc. Pricing:    $49.99 MSRP