Review on Turtle Beach XC1 Gaming Headset - Xbox 360 (Discontinued by Manufacturer) by Johnnie Bowlan

AT A GLANCE: A quality, reliable XBox Live wired headset with an adjustable microphone. Perfect for those looking to upgrade from a standard wired 360 device. A few minor issues prevent it from earning a full five stars. LONG REVIEW: When I was looking for a new wired headset for XBox Live (I have surround sound, so I don't need a kit with built-in speakers), the Turtle Beach brand and a pretty reasonable price caught my eye. Then I started reading the reviews. Apparently 33% to 50% of buyers of these headsets said they stopped working within days or weeks. I decided to try my luck (I mean, everything breaks eventually) and resort to a one-year warranty that covers all electronics. A full month later I can say with certainty that the XC1 is still fighting for a just cause. I had no problems with that. The headset itself is quite nice. The headrest is durable and flexible, with a leatherette pad to keep the top of your head from hurting and a grippy foam pad on the non-speaker side to keep it from falling off your head. The pinna is quite large and will fit ears of all ages unless you are an elephant; I particularly like the padding of the cups, which is made of fabric and not imitation leather. Sound quality is decent, an improvement over Microsoft's base model. A really nice feature is the adjustable microphone, which takes any shape you want and pivots to a variety of positions, including backwards to make it left or right ear when needed. The cable is a decent length, has standard volume, and has a mute on/off switch covered by a connector that fits a 360 controller, with or without a text box mount. So what's keeping me from five stars? Three little things. 1.) Volume: While I don't want my ears to hurt from chatting, I was surprised that the XC1 isn't noticeably louder than Microsoft's base model, even at "maximum" volume. 2.) Mute/On Toggle: Since it's dangling from both your line of sight and the controller, you may lose a precious second here or there trying to make sure the mic is on or off. If you're the kind of gamer who keeps your mic on all the time so other gamers can hear you cough and breathe, this shouldn't be a problem. in ". I'm not sure if it's my ears or my head size, but any ear I cover won't get anywhere near the same volume from my speakers as my bare ear. After the session, there is one noticeable difference between the ears and the volume of ambient noise The culprit is the speaker cushion which is large and raised so there may be holes in the cup but your ear is covered by the speaker All in all a good upgrade over the standard 360 -Kit I'll leave you to know if (and when) the XC1 decide to stop working, but so far so good.