favorite xbox 360 mic/headset?

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chronic9

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Aug 18, 2004
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been playing REACH with my buddy and the standard mic that came with my xbox sounds like shit, i hear him, but the quality of audio is very crappy, almost like making a long distance phone 10 years ago...

we are both on good broadband connections, so i am wondering if I should try out a different headset for better quality?
 
Do not buy a new headset, new audio codecs are on the way. Here are the facts.

A newer headset isn't going to do much in terms of fixing the audio quality. That is all due in part to the audio codec Microsoft uses. This is all going to be resolved in November of this year.

The gist of it is that when Live was first implemented in 2003, minimum standards had to be set in order for things to work for all users. Broadband was a requirement for Live and the minimum bandwith required for Live was set at 64Kb. At the time it was low, and is extremely low by todays standards. Due to this limitation, protocols used over the Live network were required to each add up to but not exceed that 64Kb pipe. The audio codec used for Live today, is the same as it was in 2003.. and thats because of infrastructure standards and supporting users universally around the globe on multiple platforms (and generations).

A few months ago Microsoft decommissioned the entire legacy Live infrastructure/services associated with the original Xbox. You may have seen this in the news highlighting that Halo 2 was no longer able to have online play. Bad right? Wrong. Decommissioning that legacy environment now meant Microsoft could set new standards and minimum requirements for Live today and going forward. Things like larger friends lists, digital content size requirements, a ton of other things and yes... minimum required bandwith, which includes the audio codec.

On August 27th, 2010... Microsoft announced its first step forward will be to increase the protocol limits and improve the audio quality used for Live voice communications. When the new dashboard update comes the first week of November (Kinect launch), it will include a revamped audio codec, instantly improved voice quality and bringing it up to standards used on PC programs like Ventrilo, and Mumble.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/27/microsoft-set-to-up-bit-rate-on-xbox-live-voice-comms-pwners-ev

In addition to a new Kinect interface, the standard 360 dashboard is getting (another) new look. It has been optmized to greatly increase speed as well and there are rumors of other upgrades coming in terms of newer Live minimum standards. You can see the new dashboard here...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLUOwYX9Ne0

Do not buy a new headset, wait 2 months for the new audio codec to come out and rejoice!
 
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Ya, I have a wireless Turtle Beach headset and the audio is still weak. Can't wait for the codec update!
 
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