Psyko 5.1 PC Gaming Headset Review @ [H]

Earl, if you want to hear those AD700's really shine, hook them up to something with dolby headphone. i run an astro mixamp to my xfi to get DH (make sure you set up ddl encoding) and they areally sing for gaming.

thanks for a solid review.
 
I was looking at these, but bought the Wow wireless instead. Looks like I made the right decision.
 
I've got a pair of ER4P's, Grados, and sennheiser HD280's, 5.1 sound headphones are gimmics.
 
Interesting and kind of surprising to see that there was basically NO redeeming quality about this product. I'm wondering how the hell they think they can charge this much for something that pretty much requires a decent sound card as well. I liked that with that WoW headset you didn't even need to spend more money on an X-Fi card since it's pretty much built in to the product already.
 
I really appreciate your honest and unbiased review. This was a very informative read that explained eaxctly what a consumer would like to know. This is what gets people to always come back.
 
I was waiting for a group I respected to do a review of these before I bought them. Well... guess I won't be buying them now. What a real shame... I had such high hopes for these headphones. Thanks for saving me $300 guys... much appreciated. Keep up the awesome or should I say [H] work!
 
jeverson said:
I was waiting for a group I respected to do a review of these before I bought them. Well... guess I won't be buying them now. What a real shame... I had such high hopes for these headphones. Thanks for saving me $300 guys... much appreciated. Keep up the awesome or should I say [H] work!
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I'm not sure how anyone could have high hopes for them unless you are an idiot that believes all the marketing bullshit and artificial hype.
 
Good God you should have known these headphones were crap from the moment they hid the specs from prospective buyers. I would never buy a product that doesn't tell me what the hardware specs are.

"Because they know all they solda ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That's all it is. Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time."

That quote basically sums up the 15 day return no questions asked. ;)
 
I have the 5.1 Roccat Kave for the last 6 months or so (self bought for birthday) and I have to say they are amazing. I can get position of enemies in l4d/2, for example, so much better and the bass is unbelievable for a headset. A properly placed 5.1 is better, naturally, but this headset comes damn close.

Maybe the [H] boys would like to check those out? For me a review is not necessary since I already have them, but other people may be interested.

The kit is basically 6 speakers and 2 bass enhancing units (so 3 + 1 per ear). The headset itself is not that expensive, ~80 euro, but I hear they are going up in price here.

To all 5.1 headset naysayers: Check out the roccats, can't say about others though, they may actually be gimmics but I would not know.

Edit: Forgot to mention the downsides: to me they are a bit heavy at ~400 grams and the microphone works, but it's probably the weakest part of the headset.
 
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love it when the reviews are so negative - all that time and effort into manufacturing something and they could even give you some specs? Oh, and the product is an overpriced POS!
 
tanker27 said:
Nothing beats a good pair of High End cans and the Zalman clip on mic. I cannot stress this enough.

I bet my 2 yr old Sennheisers sound 100 times better.
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Used the same setup for a VERY long time..completely agree. :) Especially when the little zalman mic costs like $8
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
Thanks [H] you just saved me $300 :|

I was really looking forward to this review, I had read one that said it was good in games, but sucked for movies and music, but it seems you guys were not happy with either :) made my choice easier.
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This pretty much mirrors my feelings exactly. Looks like my only options left are either the Sharkoon X-Tatic Digital 5.1 or ROCCAT Kave, which I hope to see reviewed here sometime, headsets for a replacement to my Barracuda HP-1's. -_-

Really is a bummer on these since the idea behind them really is interesting just I guess not in practice. :(
 
Not sure why the hang-up on impedance ... you'll also need the magnet gauss, the number of coil windings, the wire gauge, the coil gap, and the cone size and max throw ... and effective baffling and enclosure order number ...

The headphones are matched to the amp. You could measure the effective impedance independently.

I wonder what they sound like when all 4 are driven in parallel with the same signal ...
 
Where's the [H] fail logo when you need it? This product is definitely deserving of it.:D
specifically the one you use on the PSU reviews...


Thanks again for the no bullshit review. You guys are always looking out for your core audience.
 
I was thinking about buying some until I read the review. This is what I dislike about the media, all of the hype surround disappointing products just to trick buyer into paying for overpriced products with poor performance.
 
Psyko Rep: "These headphones aren't balanced for music"

Sounds like something we've heard before....

;)
 
Sometimes computer companies make a really nice product, like backpacks for laptops (i.e. Targus) that are a better value than say The North Face (and maybe better, subjectively).

Other times they make pretty lame products, much of it with audio, that show the superiority of Sennheiser and other dedicated companies, while those companies do offer "gaming" lines, in-ear, etc. or I don't need a $70 surge protector when the "plain" ones for powertools, etc. are $10.
 
Good review, and I very much enjoyed the frank comments--a good dose of which every review needs but sadly most don't supply.

Your description of what you heard and what you missed hearing in the games you tested seems to indicate that possibly the only thing you were actually able to hear was the "woofers" inside the ear cups--which makes sense to me, anyway. Seems like those would easily drown out any sound coming from the speakers in the headband, and that spatially, even if you could hear the sound from those speakers, they were too close to your ears for your brain to make sense of sound location and process the sound properly.

The idea of "surround sound" head phones has never made a lot of sense to me, especially when you consider that they all feature two ear cups--you could cram a ton of speakers inside each cup and still not get the kind of surround sound you get with a 5.1 speaker set, and that's because your brain is always going to tell you that the sound is coming from l/r or the middle with just two speaker locations.

When I'm using my speaker set, and I hear a sound from behind me, it's my brain processing the sound location because the speaker is physically located behind my ears, so my brain informs me that the sound came from behind me. Likewise, left, right, center and front. With this kind of two-cup 5.1 headphone design, this simple phenomenon doesn't seem possible.

I think that to do 5.1 sound properly a "headphone set" would have to resemble a large, closed flight helmet, with speakers actually physically placed to the left, right, center, front, and behind the ears, just like the placement of the speakers in a 5.1 speaker set. The thing is that even if you can hear a given sound, if that sound doesn't come from some physical location that your brain can spatially process as "from behind" or "traveling from front to back," etc., there's no amount of electrical processing that can be accomplished inside a two-cup headset that will ever be able to "fool" the brain into thinking the sound came from somewhere other than l/r or middle. IMO, of course...;)
 
I've owned the following:
Razer Barracuda (Full 5.1) ($100-130)
Razer Carcharias (Stereo) ($80)
Logitech G35 (Virtual 7.1) ($100-130)
Steel Series 5HV2 (Stereo) ($75-100)
Steel Series Siberia (music at work) ($20 woot)
A variety of lower end Logitech (Stereo)
Plantronics GameCon 777 (Virtual 5.1) ($130)

I game about 1-3 hours a day (I don't sleep) and with that amount of use, I expect them to not last forever.. Out of all of those headsets, the Razer Barracuda fit the best by a landslide... VERY comfortable. The sound in-game was amazing for surround, sorry to those that think it isn't possible but these rock. Out of game, the quality is so so. Not the best for music or movies. The main problem with the Barracudas is the build quality. They last me about a year. I've gone through a couple pair and Woot had some refurbs for $30 a few months ago so I picked up 3 more pair... I'm set for now.

The ones I just can't stand are the virtual (USB) surround. They all sound like crap. You are better off just turning off the surround all together.

I am curious about the Sennheiser 350's... May have to check those out.

For speakers, I bought the Razer Mako 2.1 set.. WOW... just WOW....
 
MrLonghair said:
If you spend $100-$200 on a sound card I hope it's not marked up monopolized junk with bad DACs, but rather a real quality item that actually delivers high quality sound.

And I expected the headset to end up like this. How were the old 5.1 headphones that had the extra speakers in the cans themselves?
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My Razer Barracudas are amazing... love them for gaming.. not so much for Music/Video...
 
I wonder is there some kind of qualiy control issue during production with these headphones? Because reviews that I have read from owners and websites seem to vary a lot.
 
For the price they are selling those for you could get a real decent pair of Sennheiser headphones. Actually if you have that kind of money to get good headphones why wouldn't you go Sennheiser?
 
I feel better about my $200 Turtle Beach x41 investment now. I like them because they will work with any optical dolby digital source. Sound isn't BAD either, although I'm definitely not impressed either. I think the drivers are just too small.
 
I bought a pair of Tritton Technologies AX180's
My main reason for buying this headset was to use on my PS3.
I got fed up with always having to charge my bluetooth headset, and the fact that using a bluetooth headset was only good for voice communication, as the PS3 wont output anything but voice over bluetooth, so game sounds can only come out of TV/Home theater.
With the AX180's i am able to get both voice and game sound out of the headset, and use its usb mic for voice communication.

These AX180's are only 2.1, they also make a higher end 5.1 set, however it cost more then i was willing to pay for a PS3 headset.( would be interesting to read a H review on their 5.1 set)
This headset also works on PC, Xbox, Wii, Stereo, TV, and pretty much everything, however i only use it strictly on my PS3.

So far I can say that the AX180's work pretty well, and have decent sound quality given the price, the built in control module has independent voice and mic volumes, and you can disconnect your headset right at the control module, thus allowing you to keep the module always plugged in.

Overall i would recommend the AX180's to anyone looking for a decent PS3 headset, not that there is much out there that work with PS3 to choose from, other then maybe ones made by Turtle Beach.
 
I bought a Medusa 5.1 headset with Mic several years ago. Never used them for music, movies sound great. They have great positional accuracy in games. I play L4d(2) nowadays and frequently make blind kills based on sound.

They are heavy and get hot, but otherwise work great.
 
I have a JVC HA-RX700 ( $40 ) which when combined with the X-Fi CMSS 3D, I can tell where most things are coming from in movies and games... and I combined it with the Zalman clip-on mic, and I have a decent headset for everyday use!
 
Ooch! What an awful review. The product is not as bad as stated. Yes, I too could not believe how bad the sound was when I first place them on my head. But I followed the directions and turned "OFF" all sound enhancements and that made the world of difference. I then turned on the EQ and turned down the high end frequencies. I also own the Medusa 5.1 and just last week received the Psyko 5.1s. The Medusa is more versatile and the better for music. But for directional sound, Psyko has it beat. By the way, I too am using a Creative Labs’ X-Fi Titanium Platinum sound card. Just because I use a sound equalizer, does that make my Bose 901s bad speakers? Hell NO! The same holds true for these Psyko 5.1s. Just an awful reviewer with limited imagination......shameful!
 
The amplifier has bass control which they recommend turning down to improve directionality. People spend hours on hours tweaking an entire system to gain a few meaningless fps, but can't spend a few minutes to digest the dynamics behind the OEM's recommendations and attempt to tweak these headphones. Does that sound like a fair review? Fortunately, you can google and find other reviews.
 
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Thanks for another tell-it-like-it-is review, [H].

Quite dissapointing to see the Psyko 5.1 PC Gaming Headset perform so badly. Although there are instructions to improve the sound quality, a user shouldn't have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get a headphone set to work properly.
 
tanker27 said:
Nothing beats a good pair of High End cans and the Zalman clip on mic. I cannot stress this enough.
I bet my 2 yr old Sennheisers sound 100 times better.
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I bet my 15 year old shot Sony MDC999 cans sound 100 times better than the Psyko cans here. Mmmmmmmmmmmstudio flatness. No better sound than having it nice and even. (Unfortunately, I need to turn it way up to get volume.)

Majority of the people who use cans (and not just regular headphones, but actual cans where you need power just to hear what's coming through them, ie an amp) can get by with one simple thing: an Altoids tin Cmoy amp. Amplification with a nice bit of warmth to it on top of it. I sold my 8 channel field amp and mixer after I got the Cmoy amp. It did the job that well for both my power hungry cans and non-powered speakers.

http://myworld.ebay.com/juice2214/ is one guy who makes them and who I got mine from. You can easily build them, too, for those who want to find part lists for it. Most of the time, this is all people need to be able to use their cans on the PC. Reason I bring this up is because of the amp included with this headset. Immediately reminded me of a Cmoy style pocket amp. Quite useful and worth getting one just to have it handy.

$300 for a pair of cans is a complete waste nowadays. Even $150 seems a bit much for those would consider themselves audiophiles. After all, the source *is* still the PC and whatever quality (if not WAV) the compression was used on the samples, effects and music. The Sennheister HD280's are a good example of a pair of cans that can do a great job for many different purposes. (Approx $85 and I consider that pricey but still in the range of worth it)

Never been the type to buy headset combos, so the zalman clip-on IMHO is really all you need. I went cheaper than that, a $2.99 standing mic on Newegg. More than good enough for voice. (People said I sounded better over that than I did with a Shure SM58 hooked up directly to the sound card. Then again, lack of phantom power will do that...)
 
Insomniak said:
I've owned the following:
Razer Barracuda (Full 5.1) ($100-130)
Razer Carcharias (Stereo) ($80)
Logitech G35 (Virtual 7.1) ($100-130)
Steel Series 5HV2 (Stereo) ($75-100)
Steel Series Siberia (music at work) ($20 woot)
A variety of lower end Logitech (Stereo)
Plantronics GameCon 777 (Virtual 5.1) ($130)

For speakers, I bought the Razer Mako 2.1 set.. WOW... just WOW....
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So much money wasted on mediocre gear and I don't even see a pair of AD700's listed

Warmonger101 said:
The amplifier has bass control which they recommend turning down to improve directionality. People spend hours on hours tweaking an entire system to gain a few meaningless fps, but can't spend a few minutes to digest the dynamics behind the OEM's recommendations and attempt to tweak these headphones. Does that sound like a fair review? Fortunately, you can google and find other reviews.
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Maybe you should actually read the review first before criticising and that way you don't look like a dumbass when you are proven wrong.

hardocp.com said:
According to the Psyko's product manual, a user should lower the bass knob on the headset amplifier to increase the distinction of positional audio heard therein. After doing this, nothing about Bioshock or any Call of Duty game sounded natural or real, I just heard random events punctuated with shrill and scratchy gun fire. Tanks and Big Daddies no longer rumbled, they rattled along. I perceived game sounds as dull and drab, except high frequency ones; those were amplified and shot through my ears like needles.
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I too use Audio-Technica 2D headsets, but play in wonderful 3D sound for some games! I use the Creative X-Fi card.

I love playing in COD4, I can really tell were the foot steps are coming from (See me as Foo almost nightly in OFAW servers).

I feel I have the best of both worlds, with great a 2D headset which works in 3D.

The Creative drivers were hampered somewhat by Vista/Windows 7, but you can still get 3D working with their alchemy product (free download), but you can't really demo it except in a game, and doesn't work with all games. Damn progress!

In XP no problems, and you could demo the 3D sound of a helicopter going around your head though their menu.

I'm with you I gave up on the 5.1 headsets!
 
Warmonger101 said:
Ooch! What an awful review. The product is not as bad as stated. Yes, I too could not believe how bad the sound was when I first place them on my head. But I followed the directions and turned "OFF" all sound enhancements and that made the world of difference. I then turned on the EQ and turned down the high end frequencies. I also own the Medusa 5.1 and just last week received the Psyko 5.1s. The Medusa is more versatile and the better for music. But for directional sound, Psyko has it beat. By the way, I too am using a Creative Labs’ X-Fi Titanium Platinum sound card. Just because I use a sound equalizer, does that make my Bose 901s bad speakers? Hell NO! The same holds true for these Psyko 5.1s. Just an awful reviewer with limited imagination......shameful!
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Yes, both Earl and I did RTFM and follow the installation to the T. Not that difficult at all, a moron could do it. These can's sound quality SUCKS.


If you could please tell me what about his reviewing skills are "awful" we will certainly take a look at that. As for imagination, I think we will leave that for your posts. ;)
 
Warmonger101 said:
Ooch! What an awful review. The product is not as bad as stated. Yes, I too could not believe how bad the sound was when I first place them on my head. But I followed the directions and turned "OFF" all sound enhancements and that made the world of difference. I then turned on the EQ and turned down the high end frequencies. I also own the Medusa 5.1 and just last week received the Psyko 5.1s. The Medusa is more versatile and the better for music. But for directional sound, Psyko has it beat. By the way, I too am using a Creative Labs’ X-Fi Titanium Platinum sound card. Just because I use a sound equalizer, does that make my Bose 901s bad speakers? Hell NO! The same holds true for these Psyko 5.1s. Just an awful reviewer with limited imagination......shameful!
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Yes, you can get ID speakers for 1/5 the price that will BLOSE those 901's away. :D
 
There is no beating a good pair of audiophile headphones. I had the AD700s and I absolutely loved them. The unfortunate thing was the right driver stopped working and it was out of warranty. My buddy luckily just gave me a pair of HD555s that he only used once (I opened them up and took out the dampening foam which makes it basically a HD595). While i preferred the audiotechnicas i cant complain with free headphones.

If i absolutely had to pick up a headset with attached mic I would only use the beyerdynamic MX 300 or the sennheiser pc360 (the open version of the pc350)
 
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