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- The subject of today's video is the X-Box wireless headset.

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Microsoft promises no less than exceptional sound

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with a light and flexible design that's perfect for gaming all day.

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That's right my friends, 15 hours of rated battery life

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with the added benefit of pairing directly to your Microsoft X-Box console.

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And that was an outer carton for press I think.

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This is the actual retail packaging, oopsie daisies.

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(Linus laughs) Let's see what's in here, shall we?

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Congratulations on being one of the first people to receive the all new group wireless headset

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which delivers best in class evil.

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(Linus chuckling) - [Man] What? - Despicable Me.

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- [Man] I know - [Linus] Comfortable and intuitive design.

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Really all three of these condense down to what I already said.

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It's lightweight. It's comfortable. It sounds good.

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And it's got great connectivity. So like many new wireless headsets and headphones,

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one of the features here is being able to seamlessly use the device

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as you switch between your other devices. So you're on your laptop for example

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or you're on your phone, you can just, (Linus snapping figures) switch right over.

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So it uses the built-in connectivity on your X-Box meaning you don't need a dongle or anything like that

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to get low latency, high fidelity audio. And then it uses Bluetooth to connect to other things.

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Now this is interesting, to keep my reaction authentic

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I haven't looked at any of the available materials for this

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before sitting down with it. And that is a very...

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That is a very funky bendy microphone.

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It's got two mics, one for your voice, that one's right there.

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And then one for noise cancellation. So, you know, if your little sister or whatever

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will hit this one first and then this mic will know, hey, that probably ain't relevant.

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And it'll just focus on your own voice. That's cool. We've got these dials on the ear cups.

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So this one right here is labeled game and peeps.

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So that would be your fellow gamers.

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So you can say, "Hey, yeah. No, I want to hear more of the game right now," or "No, I want more of my emphasis towards my chat."

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And then this one right over here is volume control,

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easy peasy.

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(clattering) In terms of included accessories, we've got a USB type C cable and not a whole lot else.

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There is a microphone mute that's down here on the bottom of the microphone boom ARM,

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but you can also configure it through software to automatically mute.

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So we're going to take a little bit of a look at that. First of all, I want to know

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how lightweight and comfortable it is because as you guys know

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I am all about lightweight gaming peripherals, okay?

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I need the lightest gaming peripherals

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for my maximum enjoyment. (Linus laughing)

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That's our volume. Just turn the volume down so I don't get kind of startled here.

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(indistinct) The noise isolation is excellent.

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I can't hear a damn thing you just said. What was that? - [David] Oh, nothing.

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We weren't talking about you behind your back. - Oh, cool. Okay. - [Jono] We like you. So much.

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(David and Jono laughing) - That's...

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Oh, that's cool. It's kind of a pain in the butt

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to get it dialed in in the first place, but that is a cool feature.

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Once it stretches out, it doesn't move.

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So when it's on your head, it won't accidentally change.

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That's really neat. I like it. So see that?

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I can't pull it down. - [David] Yeah, that's pretty cool. - I think Microsoft has struck a really good balance here

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of ear cup pressure and headband pressure.

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And one of the big mistakes that even experienced headphone makers can make

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is not putting deep enough or strong enough padding

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on the headband. And you can see they've used, instead of like memory foam or something like that,

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which sounds really good on paper, they've used a really strongly rebounding foam.

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That's important because a memory foam if you're wearing it for four or five, six hours at a time

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is going to get too compressed and you'll start to feel the hard plastic

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or metal band that's underneath it. Whereas this does a pretty good job

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of having kind of a three point mounting system to your head with the ear cups and up here.

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It's also worth noting that in the ear cups they have gone with, see that?

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A slower rebounding, more of like a memory foam style.

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There's a great degree of variability in people's head shapes and ear position.

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So that's a reason that I am disappointed to see

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that there's only a small amount of play

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in the ear cups here. You see that? Nothing side to side.

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See, I'm just flexing the plastic and just a little bit up and down.

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Okay, back to this pair... Okay, I think we're just in pairing mode.

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So I guess that, we better grab the X-Box, hey? Big shout out to Vessi Footwear

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for sponsoring today's video. Vessi Footwear is known for being lightweight, comfortable,

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and most importantly, water resistant. The shoes are made with a material called dynamax

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which keeps your feet dynamic to the max. Sorry, excuse me.

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Cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Lots of us here at LMG wear them all the time

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and you can too. So keep your feet dry by using offer code, ShortCircuit,

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to get $25 off at vessi.com/shortcircuit.

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(swooshing) Oh, dang it. We got to update the gold controller. One moment please.

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This will be my first time using it bare back. (chattering)

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I took it home, but I just, I couldn't do it. (Linus laughing)

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This thing is so baller. Anyone wanna buy it? The pairing button also acts as a power button

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so you can conserve battery. Nice. Show me the headset.

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There isn't like an update you need for the X-Box to like detect this thing.

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Is there? Yeah, nothing.

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Let's give it the old sheddy shut down, Mc'shut downerson.

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The headset powered off automatically when I shut off the console though. So that's cool.

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Again, more power saving features. Actually we can take this opportunity to talk about the looks.

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I think they are fine. (all laughing)

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No, honestly though, like they're pretty gamely looking, but not to the point where as an adult,

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you feel stupid wearing them, you know? I will say because the mic is so short,

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the mic indicator is not actually as useful

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as it is on some other mics like maybe your face shape will be slightly different.

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Your eyes are sort of more forward and you can actually see that. I can't see this.

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Like this is cut off by my cheekbones. So it serves no real purpose for me

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but your mileage may vary. Hey, update for the headset.

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There we go. So there's a Linus tech tip for you. Try turning it off and turn your back on again.

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I... (Linus laughing) Oh, Tempest engine.

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- [Man] Hardware accelerated. - Oh, well let's help that game developers use it.

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- [Man] They do. - Well, good for them. - [Man] Yeah. - The dual sense,

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I, look I'm not arguing with you about the dual sense. We have never argued...

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I've got a golden control. (background laughs)

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Hey, I got sound now. (background cheering)

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EQ, so we're doing a way with that. Let's go custom and just leave it flat, bass boost though.

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You want that bass boost? - [David] Oh, yeah. - [Linus] Let's do it. - [David] I wanna hear bass from here. - [Linus] Auto mute.

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This is cool. So it silence is your mic when you're not speaking. So people can't hear your mom calling you for dinner

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or whatever the case may be. Let's throw it on medium for starters.

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Mic monitoring. Cool. So yeah, I was hearing myself through the headphones.

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I'm going to turn that off though. Now I'm hearing a little bit of scratchiness

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or interference sometimes in sort of sudden sounds. Like you know how when you first turn on

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a wireless accessory sometimes it can be a little like (Linus screeching) for a second and then it's fine?

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As I'm navigating around I am hearing a little bit of that but let's see what happens in game.

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(eerie music) Wow that bass boost though.

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This controller is terrible. (eerie music)

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Hey, by the way, does anyone want to buy it? (Linus laughing)

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It's really great. Okay, we need to lose the bass boost.

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That much is very clear to me. I think my audio snobbery is real, these...

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(eerie music) Okay, I got to remember how much they cost though.

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Can I just use them a little bit more? Spacial audio, very good.

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Like the bass is so loose.

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(Linus growling) Like it's just, somehow it manages to have overdone bass

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and yet I feel like I can't enjoy the engine rumble at all.

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Does that make sense? - [Man] Yeah. - It's a $100.

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Hold on. It's a $100. Here's the bottom line when it comes to sound,

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you are paying for convenience and features,

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one touch pairing, the automatic muting, support for, you know, Dolby Atmos.

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All of that is good stuff. And actually I'm a huge fan of the idea

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of being able to quickly switch between focusing more on the game or focusing more on chat

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'cause it's the kind of thing that if your group is changing over to another game sometimes you'll have your end game music

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turned up or turned down and you'll need to fine tune that kind of thing.

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That is great. It's comfortable. It is lightweight.

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It definitely meets my expectations there. But if you're buying this for US $99

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expecting that somehow your mind is going be blown

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because your audio file headphones that costs 250 or $300

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sound flat compared to this, you are in for a disappointment.

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It is still a $99 headset.

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Microsoft's engineers are not magic. They cannot make a $99 headset sound like a $300 headphone.

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But if you're after it more for the features and if your point of comparison is other $99 headsets

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then I think you're in pretty good shape. One thing that could totally push me over the edge

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and to make me say, "This, yeah, this thing is great," is if the microphone stands out.

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So I'm going to go ahead, I'm going to unpair it from the Xbox. I'm going to pair it to my laptop here

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and we're going to see what we think. Yeah, the effortless connection selling point

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is really not blending for me right now but hopefully that's just due to us being using

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pre-production firmware on it. But then we did just update it.

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Let's try disconnecting it from the Xbox for now then. Okay, for better or for worse,

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I now have it paired to my phone, but not my laptop.

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So this is what the microphone sounds like. I haven't heard it yet. Hopefully it's pretty good.

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Okay, I wanna hear this. (swooshing) Sounds, it sounds pretty damn good.

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If Microsoft's goal with this product is to deliver good enough sound quality

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while also improving the experience of everyone around you

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for anyone that buys the first party X-Box headset

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then I say, mission accomplished.

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Is it audio file grade? Absolutely not. But if that was what you expected

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then you just weren't being realistic quite frankly.

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It's definitely already a little kind of sweatier

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than I would prefer. I'd love to see Microsoft come out with like a mesh style ear cup.

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You can see that they have made it easily replaceable. So maybe that's something that we will see down the line

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but overall a 100 bucks, yeah.

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Any more than a 100 bucks, aah, it starts to get a little bit tougher

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unless the audio quality gets better. Hope you enjoyed the video guys.

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Subscribe to ShortCircuit for more first impressions and unboxings like this one.

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And I will see you there.