ASUS Vulcan ANC Active Noise Canceling Gaming Headset Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
2,170 words · ~10 min read
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all right guys so today I have yet another audio product from isus it seems
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like ever since they uh started producing products under the Zonar brand
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and I'm actually just walking over here because I'm going to show you guys my
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personal favorite sound card these days this is the Zonar zents uh which is an
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ASUS sound card ever since they started really producing products under the
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Zonar brand it seems like ASUS has gotten a lot more serious about audio in
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general so this is the Vulcan ANC and ANC stands for active noise cancelling
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and their take on this is that this is the first active noise cancelling gaming
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headset for gamers so they're going for comfort and immersive audio which are
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noble goals as far as uh headphones go
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I'm a bit of a headphone guy so I'm actually really looking forward to
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trying these out I'm not much of an active noise cancelling guy I have tried
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the Beats although that is the only active noise cancelling headphones I've
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used so maybe it was just that implementation I didn't like but I found
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just the the white noise in the background more distracting than anything else uh so what else do they
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have to say for themselves here active noise canceling gaming headset no noise
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distraction oh okay well there okay they've addressed that already for me
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apparently I'm going to try it out though long lasting Comfort directional and clear audio focus to win so 85%
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active noise cancellation for high frequency computer fan noise well that's
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one thought okay and then 30 D noise isolation for low frequency human and
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environmental noise cool longlasting
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Comfort lightweight complete ere coverage Ultra Soft breathable cushions
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with memory foam let's start opening this up and then oh hey nice
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presentation here so they've got some uh sketches from during the development of
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the product as well as uh a view of the
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actual looks like a carrying case of some sort for the headset itself which
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is actually really handy to uh to have the product come with something like
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that kind of like a shield shape here okay
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what else do we find inside VIP member warranty notice in like a billion
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different languages as well as a quick start guide
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which hopefully has instructions like plug the thing into the
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thing so what do we got here okay battery cover so it does
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require batteries I would have preferred to see it use USB power but I guess that
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doesn't work up to 40 hours with one AAA Battery though so I guess that's not too
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bad there are left and right markings on the ear cups okay and that's pretty much
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it shows you how to install the battery and connect the microphone and audio cable so let's open this baby up it's
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got their Republic of Gamers logo on the
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front all right so looks not bad in here
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actually so there's the microphone uses like a shiny red plastic and then a
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matte black flexible piece okay so the microphone positioning is actually looks
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like there's ports here and here so it's not directly so that you're talking into
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it so so if you breathe uh it shouldn't have too many problems with like
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staticky sounding noises on the other side so a slightly indirect mic input um
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is is actually my preferred method anyway so oh look it comes with an
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airline adapter okay sure why not I mean usually they're available for free on
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the flight but thanks ASUS uh what else we got here so we've got oh I see what
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they're doing so they've combined the microphone and the
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headphone cables here so you can see
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these are the ones with the two bands and this one has three bands so it's
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actually carrying uh separate signals see that okay so it all goes into the
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headphones with one port now we get to the headphones themselves so these are
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very very slick looking so they're folding as you guys already saw so you
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can fold them either way this way or that way okay once they've snapped into
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place that's actually not that easy to accidentally move them here I want you
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guys to have a look at that mechanism cuz it's actually made metal which I
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think is a very positive thing see that so when it clips into place it's just
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these bumps right here slipping into place on the other piece of metal so
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that should be quite durable uh the sizing is also a metal
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strip right there so you can see it it has a wide variety of different sizes so
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you can go all the way from here to
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quite tiny actually this looks really really small it's not going to fit on my
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head so yeah see it fits like that uh these pads use memory foam so you can
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actually see how cushiony they are they take a very very long time to retract
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back which is great for additional Comfort these are also larger much
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larger than they look so if you have big ears see there's actually a lot of space
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around the outsides here so even though this looks really narrow what happens is
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once I put my ear inside it sits sort of
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um it's sort of like here inside this
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cushiony area here so you can see they're quite
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large when you get them opened up from the side there okay the top band also is
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using like a foam but it doesn't feel like it doesn't feel like the whoops
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sorry about that just throwing things around here hopefully it's all right
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okay so it seems to use more like a more like an air cushion cuz I can't even
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compress oh no there it goes okay never mind yeah that's memory foam you can see
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how long it's taking to come back out okay so let's have a look at the sides
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we got like ASUS shiny chromy logo here
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we got like a carbon fiber look on the side I don't think that's actual carbon
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fiber but you know how it is uh we've got a switch for the active noise
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cancelling so hopefully they work even if you're not using the active noise
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cancelling actively um then we've got the input for here we go so this is
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where the microphone goes right there and then that is where the input goes
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which is right here so go ahead and plug that in now it's completely completely
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set up don't forget guys you've also got inline volume control which is right
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here with a little dial on the side as well as your microphone mute right there
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all right so let's put these on and I'm going to sort of oh ah button right here
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to install the batteries doesn't come with batteries but uh I'll have to track
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down a AAA in order to try these out
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here there we go let's see if I can spend a couple minutes here and evaluate
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the Comfort actually these are really
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comfy they're not really that light like they they ASUS says yeah they're really
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lightweight and they're reasonably lightweight like they're not they're not
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heavy headphones but they're not super super light either like something like a
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steel series Siberia V2 is definitely lighter they're a little bit bulky in
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the ears but I mean the materials they're made of are just heavy there's
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not a whole lot you can do about it you put all that thick foam on there it
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actually starts to add up and then you start adding like uh batteries and
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things like that then it starts to get a little bit on the heavier side however
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the top headband is quite comfortable it's very very cushiony so even though
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these aren't broken in at all uh they are quite
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comfortable although I'll have to actually let's you know what give me a
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second I'm going to try these guys out and see how they sound so I've spent a
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little bit of time with them
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um now it's funny because ASUS's literature claims that this actually
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is carbon but rugged carbon
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Shield I I just I just don't know if I
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buy that I think the whole thing is definitely not carbon cuz if you look at
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the back that's that's like definitely
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plastic but maybe I can see where the material kind of changes here so maybe
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it's a very thin labor layer of carbon um although what I can tell you guys
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I've I've gone ahead see there's a little red LED so that's what uh that's
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what lights up when you turn on the active noise cancelling it really works
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so besides these headphones being quite closed like I'm I'm having a hard time
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hearing myself talk right now I actually have music playing in it too which which
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isn't helping matters but in addition to that once you turn on the active noise
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cancelling then it it blocks out more
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noise I had my assistant today is helping me film these videos just try
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speaking to me in the same voice and then the same voice again and then I
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also tried holding CU one of the things as says it's best for is blocking out
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the noise of fan so I tried holding my head next to the fans that are on this
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computer over here and turning the active noise cancelling on turning it
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off and seeing how much of a difference it made it makes an enormous difference now if you're going to be using these
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with like quiet music or you're going to play games quietly then you'll find the
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active noise cancelling like like I often do kind of bothersome because
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there is a definite hiss to it there there is because that's what active
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noise cancelling is it's insert it's inserting white noise so that it blocks
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out some of the noise around you however they are functional unlike beats without
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the able a battery and without the active noise cancelling on so that's a
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very good thing which means you can use them without and they still do have a
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very noise isolating design overall um and if you're listening to
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things louder then it becomes far less noticeable which is definitely a good
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thing as well I'd say in terms of overall audio quality I've spent very
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little time with them so far but the base is more than satisfactory these are
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up there with some of the best gaming head sets that I've used in the past uh
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maybe not as good as something that's more like uh a dedicated headphone
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something like a Sennheiser hd555 but they're definitely up there
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with yeah the best gaming headsets that I've used uh one thing that's actually
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mentioned on the ASUS documentation that I didn't even notice until uh until now
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is that they definitely recommend using it with a headphone amped sound card and
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I would definitely back that up so I tried using it on my on another audio
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Source already and then I'm trying it on the test bench right now as well just to
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compare and the volume level that I'm able to achieve on just regular onboard
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non- amped audio source is not as high
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as if I was really listening to music and I really wanted to turn it up it's
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not as high as I'd like to get so I would definitely recommend guys if
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you're going to pick up something like this then pick up an amped sound card
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whether you have that onboard on your motherboard or whether you get an
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additional sound card that has an external power as well as as an amped
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headphone outport so thank you for checking out my unboxing and overview of
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the Vulcan ANC active noise cancelling headset from ASUS I'd say this is a very
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very satisfactory first attempt for Aus for a headset and I'm really looking
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forward to seeing what they have coming in the future don't forget to subscribe
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