all right guys so today I have yet another audio product from isus it seems
like ever since they uh started producing products under the Zonar brand
and I'm actually just walking over here because I'm going to show you guys my
personal favorite sound card these days this is the Zonar zents uh which is an
ASUS sound card ever since they started really producing products under the
Zonar brand it seems like ASUS has gotten a lot more serious about audio in
general so this is the Vulcan ANC and ANC stands for active noise cancelling
and their take on this is that this is the first active noise cancelling gaming
headset for gamers so they're going for comfort and immersive audio which are
noble goals as far as uh headphones go
I'm a bit of a headphone guy so I'm actually really looking forward to
trying these out I'm not much of an active noise cancelling guy I have tried
the Beats although that is the only active noise cancelling headphones I've
used so maybe it was just that implementation I didn't like but I found
just the the white noise in the background more distracting than anything else uh so what else do they
have to say for themselves here active noise canceling gaming headset no noise
distraction oh okay well there okay they've addressed that already for me
apparently I'm going to try it out though long lasting Comfort directional and clear audio focus to win so 85%
active noise cancellation for high frequency computer fan noise well that's
one thought okay and then 30 D noise isolation for low frequency human and
environmental noise cool longlasting
Comfort lightweight complete ere coverage Ultra Soft breathable cushions
with memory foam let's start opening this up and then oh hey nice
presentation here so they've got some uh sketches from during the development of
the product as well as uh a view of the
actual looks like a carrying case of some sort for the headset itself which
is actually really handy to uh to have the product come with something like
that kind of like a shield shape here okay
what else do we find inside VIP member warranty notice in like a billion
different languages as well as a quick start guide
which hopefully has instructions like plug the thing into the
thing so what do we got here okay battery cover so it does
require batteries I would have preferred to see it use USB power but I guess that
doesn't work up to 40 hours with one AAA Battery though so I guess that's not too
bad there are left and right markings on the ear cups okay and that's pretty much
it shows you how to install the battery and connect the microphone and audio cable so let's open this baby up it's
got their Republic of Gamers logo on the
front all right so looks not bad in here
actually so there's the microphone uses like a shiny red plastic and then a
matte black flexible piece okay so the microphone positioning is actually looks
like there's ports here and here so it's not directly so that you're talking into
it so so if you breathe uh it shouldn't have too many problems with like
staticky sounding noises on the other side so a slightly indirect mic input um
is is actually my preferred method anyway so oh look it comes with an
airline adapter okay sure why not I mean usually they're available for free on
the flight but thanks ASUS uh what else we got here so we've got oh I see what
they're doing so they've combined the microphone and the
headphone cables here so you can see
these are the ones with the two bands and this one has three bands so it's
actually carrying uh separate signals see that okay so it all goes into the
headphones with one port now we get to the headphones themselves so these are
very very slick looking so they're folding as you guys already saw so you
can fold them either way this way or that way okay once they've snapped into
place that's actually not that easy to accidentally move them here I want you
guys to have a look at that mechanism cuz it's actually made metal which I
think is a very positive thing see that so when it clips into place it's just
these bumps right here slipping into place on the other piece of metal so
that should be quite durable uh the sizing is also a metal
strip right there so you can see it it has a wide variety of different sizes so
you can go all the way from here to
quite tiny actually this looks really really small it's not going to fit on my
head so yeah see it fits like that uh these pads use memory foam so you can
actually see how cushiony they are they take a very very long time to retract
back which is great for additional Comfort these are also larger much
larger than they look so if you have big ears see there's actually a lot of space
around the outsides here so even though this looks really narrow what happens is
once I put my ear inside it sits sort of
um it's sort of like here inside this
cushiony area here so you can see they're quite
large when you get them opened up from the side there okay the top band also is
using like a foam but it doesn't feel like it doesn't feel like the whoops
sorry about that just throwing things around here hopefully it's all right
okay so it seems to use more like a more like an air cushion cuz I can't even
compress oh no there it goes okay never mind yeah that's memory foam you can see
how long it's taking to come back out okay so let's have a look at the sides
we got like ASUS shiny chromy logo here
we got like a carbon fiber look on the side I don't think that's actual carbon
fiber but you know how it is uh we've got a switch for the active noise
cancelling so hopefully they work even if you're not using the active noise
cancelling actively um then we've got the input for here we go so this is
where the microphone goes right there and then that is where the input goes
which is right here so go ahead and plug that in now it's completely completely
set up don't forget guys you've also got inline volume control which is right
here with a little dial on the side as well as your microphone mute right there
all right so let's put these on and I'm going to sort of oh ah button right here
to install the batteries doesn't come with batteries but uh I'll have to track
down a AAA in order to try these out
here there we go let's see if I can spend a couple minutes here and evaluate
the Comfort actually these are really
comfy they're not really that light like they they ASUS says yeah they're really
lightweight and they're reasonably lightweight like they're not they're not
heavy headphones but they're not super super light either like something like a
steel series Siberia V2 is definitely lighter they're a little bit bulky in
the ears but I mean the materials they're made of are just heavy there's
not a whole lot you can do about it you put all that thick foam on there it
actually starts to add up and then you start adding like uh batteries and
things like that then it starts to get a little bit on the heavier side however
the top headband is quite comfortable it's very very cushiony so even though
these aren't broken in at all uh they are quite
comfortable although I'll have to actually let's you know what give me a
second I'm going to try these guys out and see how they sound so I've spent a
little bit of time with them
um now it's funny because ASUS's literature claims that this actually
is carbon but rugged carbon
Shield I I just I just don't know if I
buy that I think the whole thing is definitely not carbon cuz if you look at
the back that's that's like definitely
plastic but maybe I can see where the material kind of changes here so maybe
it's a very thin labor layer of carbon um although what I can tell you guys
I've I've gone ahead see there's a little red LED so that's what uh that's
what lights up when you turn on the active noise cancelling it really works
so besides these headphones being quite closed like I'm I'm having a hard time
hearing myself talk right now I actually have music playing in it too which which
isn't helping matters but in addition to that once you turn on the active noise
cancelling then it it blocks out more
noise I had my assistant today is helping me film these videos just try
speaking to me in the same voice and then the same voice again and then I
also tried holding CU one of the things as says it's best for is blocking out
the noise of fan so I tried holding my head next to the fans that are on this
computer over here and turning the active noise cancelling on turning it
off and seeing how much of a difference it made it makes an enormous difference now if you're going to be using these
with like quiet music or you're going to play games quietly then you'll find the
active noise cancelling like like I often do kind of bothersome because
there is a definite hiss to it there there is because that's what active
noise cancelling is it's insert it's inserting white noise so that it blocks
out some of the noise around you however they are functional unlike beats without
the able a battery and without the active noise cancelling on so that's a
very good thing which means you can use them without and they still do have a
very noise isolating design overall um and if you're listening to
things louder then it becomes far less noticeable which is definitely a good
thing as well I'd say in terms of overall audio quality I've spent very
little time with them so far but the base is more than satisfactory these are
up there with some of the best gaming head sets that I've used in the past uh
maybe not as good as something that's more like uh a dedicated headphone
something like a Sennheiser hd555 but they're definitely up there
with yeah the best gaming headsets that I've used uh one thing that's actually
mentioned on the ASUS documentation that I didn't even notice until uh until now
is that they definitely recommend using it with a headphone amped sound card and
I would definitely back that up so I tried using it on my on another audio
Source already and then I'm trying it on the test bench right now as well just to
compare and the volume level that I'm able to achieve on just regular onboard
non- amped audio source is not as high
as if I was really listening to music and I really wanted to turn it up it's
not as high as I'd like to get so I would definitely recommend guys if
you're going to pick up something like this then pick up an amped sound card
whether you have that onboard on your motherboard or whether you get an
additional sound card that has an external power as well as as an amped
headphone outport so thank you for checking out my unboxing and overview of
the Vulcan ANC active noise cancelling headset from ASUS I'd say this is a very
very satisfactory first attempt for Aus for a headset and I'm really looking
forward to seeing what they have coming in the future don't forget to subscribe
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