Astro's slick new A40 gaming audio headset
By Nilay Patel 
posted December 8th 2007 7:16AM
posted December 8th 2007 7:16AM
Gamers always seem to get the hottest gear, and the A40 gaming headphone system from Astro is no exception. Sold as a complete kit with a headset and matching mixer, the $249 package lets you mix 5.1 game audio and communications audio independently to your liking, all without waking up your roommates. The daisy-chainable Dolby Digital processor / mixer also enables some other interesting features, like private comm channels for in-person Xbox 360 teams, and outboard surround processing from a PC. The headset itself features an adjustable boom mic and interchangeable faceplates. Each is also available separately: the A40 headset is $199, while the mixer is $129, and it's all available on the 17th.
that actually sounds pretty sweet. If it's comfortable, reduce the price to $100 and I'll buy a pair :)
looks awesome.
this isn't wireless? bummer.
i dont see anywhere in the specs that say wireless, and for 250+ i was expecting it...
well its a gaming headset, most wireless devices generally don't go over very well in the gaming community.. just read what the "pro" gamer kiddies say on gotfrag.com, which this headset is targeted at. the wireless is generally useless unless your playing on xbox. i'm guessing they only included that capability because of their partnership with MLG which has a number of console games at their events and even then the wireless doesnt really benefit the attendees as theyre playing a pretty confined space.
i see, thanks, i'm not at all into the whole pc gaming experience, thats why i have my xbox 360 so i wanted to go to for something wireless, and those turtle beach headphones are pretty cheap compared to these, yet still not real wireless features when playing on xbox live. But i would see how wireless wouldnt be needed if your pc is only about a foot away haha
hmmmmmmmm if this is not wireless how do you use volume control dont tell me i have to get up for 250 to do that thank you i ll pass
They should have named it the Glide.
Wireless seems to be a niche that's unfulfilled. I have been wanting a nice wireless headset for some time but the only ones I can seem to find are prohibitively expensive and designed for office situations. You'd think that someone would get a clue and target this area of the market...
One look at that volume knob and I suddenly have the urge to play Arkanoid.
Razer Barracuda's --> Eat your drivers out.
This may be a more polished/refined version of the concept, but it certainly isn't new. I've been using a pair of Turtle Beach's X51 5.1 gaming headset for almost 2 years now, and I still wouldn't trade them for anything else. The sound quality is superlative, and I paid 80 bucks for them at the time. As for the wireless element, I could take it or leave it since they have a 6' cord that is far longer than the reach of my other peripherals...so that might be a benefit for console gamers but not any use for me, and I suspect the drawbacks could easily outweigh the benefits from an engineering standpoint
Very nice, but THE MIC IS ON THE WRONG SIDE.
Why does (almost)EVERYONE do that?
I want the mic (and the cord) on the ******* right.
you can use the boom mic on either side. Yay!
These 5.1 headsets always have atleast 1 major breaking point. The Barracuda's have a shitty mic that makes it impossible for anyone to hear you. The turtle beach's have terrible sound. The Triton's are a bit much and somewhat poorly constructed. All in all, if you want what the "pro"'s use (someone aboves verbage, not mine) get a good pair of Sennheisers, and a boom mic. The Sennheisers will have a little thing called Soundstage (basically as close a thing to "Surround Sound" as you are going to get from a magnet sitting centimeters from your head) and the seperately bought mic will have much better sound (Or you could get a Sennheiser headset. Or a headset from another high end headphone company). I tried the Trittons, the Razer's and the Turtle Beach's, but in the end, I went right back to a combination of my Beyerdynamic DT770 headphones and a logitech mic. For 250 you can have a DAMN good pair of headphones from Sennheiser/Beyer/AKG/Grado etc. Don't blow it on a headset from a company noone has ever heard of
Read another article here:
A US design company that goes under the name of Astro Studios who claims that they've helped design the Xbox 360 and some of the Alienware systems among its projects, has launched its own retail brand, Astro Pro Gaming Equipment and their first product is a high-end headset..
The headset itself isn't that remarkable to be fair, but the A40 as it is known as looks like a very comfortable and stylishly designed piece of kit. It has a removable boom mic which can be attached to either side and a wide range of high-end featuers when it comes to the speakers and cabling. The sides of the earphones are also removable and apparently you can swap these for other designs.
But what really makes this product stand out is the A40 Mixamp, which is either available as a bundle with the headset or on its own. This is a fully integrated Dolby Digital and Dolby Headphone amplifier with optical and coaxial S/PDIF input, as wel as analog RCA inputs and a 3.5mm jack for your MP3 player. It also has a jack for mic input from a PC.
But the features doesn't stop thre, as if you're attending a LAN part and your friends also own an A40 Mixamp, then you can connect them up together for team based chat. This might sound really odd and we're not sure how many people would really consider this and besides, you'd have to site quite close to your mates for this to work.
The A40 headset will be available for US$199.95 on its own, with the Mixamp at $129.95 or a bundle of the two for $249.95 from the 17th of December. You can find out more here
I don't know for certain, but given the specs (On-board Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby Headphone) and the write-up in the FAQ (Q: How does Dolby Headphone work?
Dolby Headphone is Dolby's solution for delivering 5.1 surround sound in any two-channel headphone. It's a way to get surround sound in a headphone without having to sacrifice sound quality by cramming 4 or 5 tiny speakers into one little headphone can), it would seem to me that this differs from what a lot of folks think of when they hear "5.1 headphones" in that it doesn't have a bunch of tinny-sounding little elements, but rather has Dolby Headphone processing built into the unit for surround sound effects.
There aren't many standalone Dolby Headphone processors out there for programs (like most computer games) that don't already have Dolby Headphone support built in (JVC makes the most widely available one that I've seen, the SU-DH1, and it runs around $100), so having that processing included makes the cost a lot easier to stomach.
Read more about Dolby Headphone here. You need a good amp when using it to keep the sound loud enough at times (again, already included with the $249 set), but it's pretty impressive how it widens the sound field in any normal pair of headphones: http://www.dolby.com/consumer/technology/headphone.html
I had my wife watch some fight scenes in The Matrix this weekend on my crappy $30 Koss headphones in stereo and then in Dolby Headphone. With no amp, she said the dialogue levels were a bit too low at times, but otherwise, there was no way she'd watch an action movie over headphones in stereo after hearing it in Dolby Headphone (this was using Cyberlink PowerDVD's built-in Dolby Headphone processing).
I was planning on buying some Sennheiser HD-280 Pro's, the JVC SU-DH1 dolby processing unit, and a decent amp, but now I might have to give these some thought.