By and far, one of the most underrated and underappreciated aspects of gaming is the sound. Whether it's developers thinking players won't notice second rate sound effects, or gamers thinking their TV speakers are adequate, these atrocities must end! Ears need love too.
I adopted a Turtle Beach Ear Force X41 surround headset early this year and haven't looked back since. So when asked if I wanted to check out the Turtle Beach wares at New York Comic Con, I didn't hesitate to say "hell yeah!" TB had a nice assortment of existing products on display at their large booth, allowing players to test a range of wired cans with directional sound sensitive games such as Black Ops. Call of Duty being the cash cow it is, TB had a few Modern Warfare 3 skinned versions of their current range of cans; the Z6A, PX21, PX3, and PX5, with the latter being the most impressive. The PX5 variant, called the Ear Force Delta, features such perks as an actual Army Ranger letting you know which preset you've switched to, for those of you who are truly enamored by the whole military combat thing. Infinity Ward has even lent a helping hand, designing a few MW3 specific presets that will be exclusive to the Ear Force Delta.
The preset profiles are stored in the headset and can be changed on the fly, meaning when it comes time for you to camp, you can switch to the built-in footstep focus profile to be better prepared for those sneaky sniper slayers. I was told creating your own presets could be a little complicated, but that's a caveat of having fine control over what you want to hear, and is well worth it. For the non-experimental, Turtle Beach has plenty of presets available online for you to grab and go with, as well as the high possibility of a forum area dedicated for user-created preset sharing.
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As the proud father of an X41, I cared mostly for the next generation in gaming sound; wireless surround sets. We spoke a bit about the existing PX5 and yet to be released XP500. These two headsets are mostly identical, and feature a slew of slick shit: multiple preset profiles, the ability to create and fine tune your own profiles, and dual-band radios, which means bluetooth support. A Bluetooth dongle is packed in with the XP500 - it can be purchased separately and used with the PX5 - to negate the need for any wires when chatting on your X360. Bluetooth also means effortless PS3 chat connectivity - a far cry from the X41 - in addition to pairing to your mobile phone to field calls right in the midst action. That's what I'm taking about, Turtle Beach is keeping us in the game.
The XP500 releases in about two weeks at a price of $269. For owners of the PX5 ($249), get your X360 Bluetooth chat on with the wireless dongle for $29. The Delta, Bravo, Charlie, and Foxtrot will retail for $299, $149, $129, and $99 respectively. Unfortunately, the Turtle Beach boys had their lips sealed when I asked about future products. Looks like were just gonna have to keep our ears open for news, stay tuned.
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