Astro Gaming A50 Wireless Headset & Base Station Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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Astro Gaming A50 Wireless Headset & Base Station Review

As wireless gaming headsets go, the Astro Gaming A50 comes in at the very high end when it comes to price. These will cost you $300, which is a pretty penny when it comes to upping your gaming experience. We wanted to give the Astro A50 a go and see if it is in any way worth the asking price. We were pleasantly surprised, and let down.

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Well that sucks. Was really into the results as I am looking for something decent like these, but then tragedy at the end.

As a fellow fat header, I await a gold awarded headset worthy of my cranium.
 
Sad to see a great headset get knocked out of award status because of a serious issue not being addressed.

I have the wired version of these for my Xbox One with the Mixamp, and I absolutely love them. I actually like them over my Razer Kraken's. Might be time to start using the Astro's full time on my PC, since the foam padding on my Kraken are pretty much done.
 
Rather HD599's and a Modmic, less money and i'm willing to bet better sound across the board and certainly no defects like that (As applicable obviously due to wireless and not.) Maybe I'm too snob for this stuff, dunno. But I love my AKg K612 Pros and my Audio Technica AT2020 on boom, still paid less lol.
 
Hmmm, not that they're super important, but is anyone else having issues loading the pictures? I'm on mobile, and I'm getting errors for all of the pics in the review.
 
Great review. I hope the hard reset issue gets tackled properly at some point.

I've owned the wired A40s for a long time but eventually switched to the LucidSound LS40s. They sound just as good over Dolby but I found the issue that the transceiver actually overheats (needs a constant movement of air while in use). It would seem that every "quality" wireless gaming headset has issues.
 
Thank you for the review Kyle. I've wondered about these Headsets for some time.


I'd never recommend anything for the PS4 other than the new Sony Golds, not sure what to recommend for Xbox.

Sony Golds are the official headset for PS4, great sound, mic works fine, decent build, fits pretty much all head sizes( Hat size for me is 7 5/8, and plenty of room for more), dedicated app for PS4 to set equalizer, doesn't require a bunch of cables to fully utlitize it and it's a 3rd of the price than those Astros.
 
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I've always felt the Astro headsets are among the most comfortable for extended use.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
Great review. I hope the hard reset issue gets tackled properly at some point.

I've owned the wired A40s for a long time but eventually switched to the LucidSound LS40s. They sound just as good over Dolby but I found the issue that the transceiver actually overheats (needs a constant movement of air while in use). It would seem that every "quality" wireless gaming headset has issues.
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Which I don't understand. You would think, with gaming as it is, there would be a market for a good premium wireless gaming headset. Every single one fails to check a major tick box of mine meaning i'm stuck with a wired solution.
 
I love the A50s and have gotten 2 pairs. Eventually the problem of not being able to replace the battery drove me back to wired. (Have the Arctis Pro + GameDAC now). I may consider the Arctis Pro Wireless at well at some point.
 
I've always thought Astro's were overpriced. Several friends have bought A40's and A50's and seem to always wind up replacing them long before i have to replace whatever cheap headset I buy.
 
I've been using the A50s for about a year myself and had the issue pop up within the first month of having them. After the hard reset, I haven't had an issue with them. Not to say it won't happen again but honestly, I think it's the best $300 I've ever spent in any kind of audio gear. I also got the Mod Kit and I find the sound gets just a little bit better with the faux leather ear cups without ever getting hot...which was surprising. Playing PUBG in squads, I'm consistently alerting my teammates of someone sneaking up off screen while spectating, and I don't use the 3D sound feature. I have a hard time not recommending them, it's a shame that [H] didn't award them but at the same time, you can't ignore the potential time bomb.
 
At least you can hard reset the new ones. I had one of the older A50s. With the old ones, you have to drain the battery over about 24 hours when it gets hung up. This is an old issue. I liked the headphones but the repeated outages while the battery drained were too much. It got relegated to the closet.
 
I have to agree with you on this one Kyle. I've had my A50 for over a year myself and I've had the power on issue happen twice (most recently last weekend). One other oddball issue I've had is that sometimes you can't hear anything even though the base and the headphones are on. In cases like that I have to unplug the USB cable, wait a few seconds, and then plug it back in. At that point it usually just works.

One irritating issue I've had is that the headphones sometimes won't charge when placed into the base. The reason for that is because the headphones need to be in perfect alignment with the pins on the base (ear cups perfectly parallel and the head band retracted). Sometimes even then it won't charge unless you drop them into the dock a few times. Although I love the idea of cordless charging in this manner, it's irritating enough that sometimes I just plug in a USB cable to charge the headset.

Even with those issues I still love my A50. In my case I use the USB mic input for Discord and use the optical input to pipe in all other audio from my motherboard's audio card (Supreme FX). It sounds great and I can change the mix between Discord and the game audio at will with the ear cup rocker button.
 
Fifth Horseman said:
I have to agree with you on this one Kyle. I've had my A50 for over a year myself and I've had the power on issue happen twice (most recently last weekend). One other oddball issue I've had is that sometimes you can't hear anything even though the base and the headphones are on. In cases like that I have to unplug the USB cable, wait a few seconds, and then plug it back in. At that point it usually just works.

One irritating issue I've had is that the headphones sometimes won't charge when placed into the base. The reason for that is because the headphones need to be in perfect alignment with the pins on the base (ear cups perfectly parallel and the head band retracted). Sometimes even then it won't charge unless you drop them into the dock a few times. Although I love the idea of cordless charging in this manner, it's irritating enough that sometimes I just plug in a USB cable to charge the headset.

Even with those issues I still love my A50. In my case I use the USB mic input for Discord and use the optical input to pipe in all other audio from my motherboard's audio card (Supreme FX). It sounds great and I can change the mix between Discord and the game audio at will with the ear cup rocker button.
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I would have kept these if I had been assured that I was not going to be left with a A50 that would not hard reset after 1 year. I read enough threads were people ran into this exact issue. The A50 is stellar in terms of gaming audio, but that is a lot of cash to drop for such a little warranty. If these had the two year warranty, like they do in Europe, I would have kept them assuredly.
 
Astro actually developed the Skullcandy PLYR series of headphones. I've had a pair of these headphones for 4 or 5 years now, and they are actually incredibly well built. No bugs with PCs, excellent range, very good sound quality, very good mic, and much much cheaper than Astro's A50s. They're becoming harder to find as Skullcandy no longer supports them, but if you can get a pair I recommend them.

https://www.amazon.com/Skullcandy-S...18-mtdE5uL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch&th=1
 
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Anyone know how the updated version compares to the prior versions in terms of sound quality, etc?
 
Wound up getting the A50 Wireless. The sound is amazing while playing AC Odyssey & Far Cry 4. My last headset seems cheap comparatively.
 
I bought a 2nd gen Astro a50 refurb off a slick deals deal for like $60 last month. Had to bite at that price. They don't have near the punch or range of my portable audio rig (Cayin C5, JVC SZ2000's, Sybasonic S21A tone controller) but pretty impressed at the sound coming out of them. I'd also like to know if they sound different for each rev. If they hit again @ $60 I'm going to buy a couple more sets.
 
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