Do $450 gaming headsets make sense? - Master & Dynamic MG20 Gaming Headset
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
2,717 words · ~13 min read
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(intense music)
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- Imagine a gaming headset, but expensive.
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That's the Master And Dynamic MG20 Wireless Gaming Headset
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or headphones, as they say. You can use them for casual listening and for gaming.
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Let's check it out. Whoa, that sleeve just wants to slip right on outta here.
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Cool case, it looks like a type of cardboard that is, I would say low impact, more sustainable.
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It looks reused, I like it. Interesting.
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It's just the headphone and then a boom ARM for the mic.
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I don't wanna get too, ah, distracted by those right now though.
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Let's do the unboxing, let's focus. Here's the microphone.
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Looks like some, can you see it? There's some shmoo on there I feel like I could scratch off.
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It's a flexible, quite flexible mic boom ARM
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you can use the headphones with or without it, you can even talk with or without this.
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So, I'm gonna try a sound test for both mic modes later on.
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There's a sub box and the sub sub box. Let's deal with this first.
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Literature, a quick start guide. Not gonna use that.
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And a purse, bag, man sac.
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This is kind of interesting. It's canvas. There's a zipper pocket at the bottom for accessories
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for like the mic boom ARM. It's actually soft on the inside. It's softer than the canvas exterior.
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Zipper is really nice. And then the top opens, this feels like a magnet.
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How do they work? I don't know, but then they got some tags there too.
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Your microphone is meant to go in there, not in this zipper pocket, that zipper pocket's all bonus, baby.
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And it's not so deep that you lose it. This is a soft case.
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You could still sit on and break these headphones in here,
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but they're gonna protect them from scratches, abrasions
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and they're gonna hold all your accessories together. So, it's still appreciated.
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Come on out now. Now, these headphones come in two colors.
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This is, okay, put it in the other way, guys.
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This is actually like a problem.
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Oh my God, I'm defeated. It's out.
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I would recommend maybe going plug side down.
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Oh, whoa, I didn't notice this stuff before. There's actually a little pop filter for the boom ARM.
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They don't show that in any of their marketing, which is very minimalist.
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We also have a dongle, the low latency adapter for g-g-gamers.
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And then we've got two cables. One of them is USB-C 2A and the other, oh, wow.
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Hold on. Is USB-C headphone too, three and a half millimeter adapter
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for probably not your phone and then there's also the splitter.
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If you've got separate mic and headphone ports
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on say your motherboard. I'm gonna test with a phone later.
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These aren't designed for the phone. They are 32 ohms of impedance,
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whereas some more mobile-focused headphones would be say, 18 ohms.
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That's what my Audeze Sine are, but we're gonna try it anyway. They may just not go that loud, but we'll find out.
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Now I was hoping that we got the other color. This is black.
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I think they call it onyx. There's also a white,
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which I thought looked really smart. I'm noticing that these do not rotate all the way flat.
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They actually don't rest on the table completely. It's kind of like the camera bump on your phone.
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That may be sufficient though because you just need them to lay down on your chest.
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And they do that. These headphones are sweet because they're gaming headphones,
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but they actually look cool. So, I think a lot of gaming headphones,
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they look a little, plastic-y, clunky, a lot of RGB on them,
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which is cool for some people, but other people want a more minimalist,
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Nordic, mature kind of look. They are of course, very expensive, $450 U.S., 450 euros.
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But, here's what you get for that. Magnesium ear cups that are, they feel very light.
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The action of the rotation is very smooth. They're not very creaky.
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They're quite silent. That is huge. The ear pads, these are lambskin.
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They feel very soft, like a leather jacket I bought from Moores as a high schooler
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that I had for many, many years. They're an over-ear design with 50 millimeter beryllium drivers.
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You can see them there. And these go on just, yep, magnetically with some,
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see those keynote circles there? So yeah, a little bit of a friction fit
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and a little bit of magnet action. Then the headband, it has alcantara on the inside.
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Not a lot of padding. This really does feel like it could compress
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maybe after an hour of wearing it. And maybe this headband would dig in.
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They weigh about 320 grams once you get the mic ARM on there,
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that boom ARM just clicks in pretty snugly.
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The plug part goes in and then there's an additional little click. And you can kind of see that
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there's this little plastic bite out of it that you can feel that extra click because of that.
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The action of the adjustment that's what you're getting.
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So, your head can be that much bigger than mine. My head is I would say small to medium.
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You can actually feel that this headband is ribbed on your head.
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Those are speed holes, guys. That's for radiating heat.
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Now, I noticed there's buttons on the sides, but I didn't yet touch them.
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Each side has a wheel. This side's wheel is ratcheted.
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You can actually hear it click while you're wearing them.
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This side's wheel is also ratcheted. So, this one is for appears to be volume.
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This appears to be the volume of your mic, your speaking volume versus the volume that you hear.
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There's a button here. It looks like it could be on off.
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It's pretty tactile. It's not too cliquey. And there's a button over here that says 7.1
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and another button that says Bluetooth. So you don't need to use that dongle that it comes with.
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And then there's, I guess that's an indicator light. No, that's a microphone.
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That's cool, it actually has this little grill over it.
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Looks really nice and premium. These are an over-ear design.
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So, my ears are completely inside of the ear cups, not an on-ear design,
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but my ears do not touch the drivers themselves, which is a big pet peeve of mine
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and it does happen quite frequently, at least on one of my ears.
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So, it sticks out more than the other one, I guess, but they're not touching.
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And because the ear cups are pretty rigid, these don't really compress too much.
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I feel like even if I was, for some reason laying on my side,
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I still wouldn't have my ears really touch the drivers.
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Comfort, pretty good. Caliper pressure, which is like this way, not too high.
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Maybe if you had a big melon, they would be, but they don't squeeze too hard.
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They do move quite a bit. Don't take these to the gym and try to bench press stuff.
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Cool, well I guess it's time to hear what they sound like.
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So, learn more about their chargers today at the link below. You can probably even charge these puppies.
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Is there gonna be a tone or something? Whoa, there's all these like THX sounds happening.
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Ah, okay, it's pulsing. I guess that means, yeah, you can see that.
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It's trying to pair that way, but I got this dongle going.
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Do I have to press this Bluetooth connection button?
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It made like a sword into a sheath sound like, shhk.
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I hear nothing. Finally, I can hear something through these headphones.
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All right, I got it. Okay, finally listening wirelessly.
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Whoa, cool. I can already tell from just taking my mouse,
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mousing over these interface elements, you know, they have that really cliquey kind of Rolodex sound.
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I can tell that the soundstage is kind of wider than I'm used to in a headset.
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It just sounds like those clicks, they're not just like right in my ear. They're kind of, they're out here somewhere.
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It's more spacious. That's sweet. Make it a free for all.
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- Can you hear us? - I can't hear you guys really. You guys are talking about me?
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Yeah, these are pretty isolating. They say that they have a balanced kind
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of closed slash open design. I don't really know what that means looking at it.
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I do see on the ear cups that there's these,
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what I would think are vents right here. So, maybe that's contributing to a wider,
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more natural soundstage, which is what open backs are characteristic of.
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But, these are mostly closed. And, to the extent that they're pretty isolating,
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I couldn't really hear you guys at all. These are a little bit warm, I'll say that.
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They're already a bit warm 'cause they do seal pretty closely around my ear.
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And they have that lambskin as we talked about. Well, I'm definitely immersed.
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Oh no, no, no. (guns firing) I got killed by that guy from rusted aldrin.
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These headphones are sweet though, sound-wise this isn't a review just an unboxing,
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but these don't like automatically suck. Man, I am slaying.
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Oh God. So, this is what it sounds like with the internal microphone array ,no boom ARM.
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That's what I've been using this whole time. Now, let's try plugging in the boom ARM.
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And I got the boom ARM just totally straight, wind sock on.
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It's not pointing toward my mouth at all. That's what it sounds like.
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Now, I'm gonna angle it so it's like basically right,
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one finger width away from my lips. And that's what that sounds like. And that same configuration,
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but with no wind sock sounds like this. Peter penis applause, Peter Parker, pickles, pepper, blah.
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Peter Parker, pickles, penis, pickled penis in a jar. No!
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That's what that sounds like with a sock on and off.
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Sweet action. I'm gonna try using it with my phone now.
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Let's see if I crank it. I'm at three quarters.
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It's already louder than I would normally use. So yeah, your phone can drive these fine.
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Let's see maxing it out here. Oh, oh, don't max them out, guys, not good.
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Maybe with a better amplification that'd be okay, but like that got kinda rough and muddy.
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Distorted when I turned it up all the way. The mids are super clear.
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The vocals are coming through nice. I haven't made a determination on the bass yet.
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It's definitely present. I just don't know if it's very tight. So, let's do some experimentation here.
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Do they have any controls on here? Can I pause and stuff? I have this multifunction button.
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What does that do? Tapping it paused.
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Tap it once more to play. If I go double tap.
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Oh, it does go to the next track. I wonder if I go one, two, three.
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Uh, I think that just did next again. One, two, three.
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No, you can go back. Little finicky though, it took two tries.
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And if I hold it, Google assistant?
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No, it just paused it. Oh, there is the Google assistant.
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Okay. So yeah, it can do everything that you would expect
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with that multifunction button. But many of those things took me two tries.
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Let's see what's up in the app. We're on English, bro. Oh, one thing I wanted to try is if I take them off,
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will they pause?
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No. They said that they have detection so that you get longer battery life
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'cause they advertise 22 hours of battery life. 50% of that you can get in half an hour,
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but they say that they preserve battery life by pausing automatically and these definitely did not.
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I can still hear Peter McCormick talking here on his podcast. Got a battery level here.
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Oh, there's an update available. Wow, I guess I gotta take that.
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(light music) Okay.
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25% done. (light music)
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it went like thrash, grunge, new metal.
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(light music) Let's go update, let's go.
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(light music)
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Update complete, yeah. All right, I got a battery meter, 100%.
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I'm up to date. What do we have in the hamburger menu? Quick start guide, support, legal links, language,
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nothing I want. Settings, sound profile. They give us some EQ here.
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There's no EQ flat, which is the default.
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That's nice, that's what it should be. E-sport, now again, this is a gaming headset.
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It's not just headphones. That's why it doesn't just have genre based EQs.
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Bass boost is cranking. It's kind of V shaping it. It's cranking the bass and lowering the mids
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while leaving the highs flat. And then can I do whatever I want on here?
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Is there a custom? Come on, man. Auto off timer, never or 10, 30, 60 minutes, three hours.
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Your device will power off if the empty 20 detects is not being worn.
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Oh, okay, so that's why it wasn't pausing. Okay.
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So, it's not ever gonna pause when you take them off, but it will automatically turn them off.
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So, if I set that to 10 minutes and then I take them off and I let them sit here,
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they'll power down after 10 minutes if they detect that they're still not connected on my head.
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Okay, that's cool. Restore app default settings. Dude, there's barely any settings.
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I'm kind of disappointed by the app. I really wished that I'd be able to mess with the EQ.
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That's it? Hey, I guess I'm glad it exists, better than nothing.
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Overall then, I think this is a good headset. I think the sound is good enough.
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These are expensive, but they're also versatile. You're not limited to just using this headset as a headset
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that never leaves your desk. You can ride transit with it and just treat it
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like your music listening headphone. So, for that reason,
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I think the sale price is less daunting.
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There's also an aesthetic you get with these that is worth a premium above, I dunno,
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your Turtle Beach Plastic Fantastics. Because if you care about the look of your battle station,
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you have a really cool prominent, headphone hanger and a really minimal aesthetic.
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There needs to be gaming headsets that match that aesthetic
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and this is them. Overall I think they sound okay. I would rather buy these than the Apple AirPods Macs.
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- Really? - Which are, I mean, those are more expensive than these and less versatile.
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These are pretty good. I think they're worth exploring. Someone could do a deeper exploration
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to the sound quality, look for reviews for that.
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But these, they don't suck. The price isn't outrageous for what you get.
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This little thing just flew into my, (blowing), it's stuck on my skin now.
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Just stay on there. Watch "ShortCircuit" forever, guys, see you later.