Astro A40's 2012 Review

[Tommer]

I thought I'd write a quick point by point review of my thoughts on the 2012 A40's, incase anybody is in the market for these and needs some honest thoughts about them. No hype here just honesty.

I'm not covering the mix-amp addon as I did not opt to purchase it

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Build Quality

+ The headphones are flexible enough to fit around most people's heads.
+The adjustment system looks well designed and will most likely last quite some time compared to other cheaper headsets.

+The headphones themselves are quite chunky as they are an 'around ear' design, however they're fairly light and after several hours of use they have not given me any discomfort

+ The cables are rubber coated and are far from flimsy. They do not look like they're about to break anytime soon

+ There are lots of cable options

+/- These headsets can go partially 'wireless' in that, you'll still have wires, but there will be a gap in between 2 wires and 2 large boxes, which is just awkward to be honest.

+ The microphone is detachable and if you buy a spare plate without a microphone hole nobody would know the better if you can rock a pair of chunky headphones

- The 'plates' on the sides of the headphones are that kind of shiny plastic that is a fingerprint and dirt magnet

- Same goes for the microphone mute control

- Big minus These are very definately not 'headphones'. They are more like speakers on your ears. If you are buying these to grant those around you peace and quiet, do not buy! What you hear in the headphones, everyone around you hears about 70% of it. They leak sound like heck even at low volume.

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Soundscape

I tried this headphones with my PC's regular audio jack, and also from a premium THX USB soundcard that had previously been in use with a pair of Creative Soundblaster's. These are the conclusions I am drawing;

+ Reasonable Soundscape for comfort hearing.

+ Bass response is good in 'simple' music

- Sometimes sounds did not sound as 'defined' or 'crisp' as other headphones do, and this was a let-down (I tried with all kinds of EQ settings and none at all)

- Does not handle multiple sounds well. EG. Playing dubstep or 'complex' music with lots of different tones at once, you lose a lot of the definition rendering that kind of music un-enjoyable. 'easy listening' music is unaffected.

- Sometimes the treble is more dull than you expect, leading to disappointment.

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Microphone

I tested the quality and loudness of my microphone at a comfortable distance from my face using windows sound recorder;

The microphone is reasonable, however I experienced some static noise with both the USB and normal microphone jack on my PC. What was strange was, when plugged into the usb jack, the microhpone became much more quiet.

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Overall;

I brought this headset manufacture refurbished so I got it cheap for £70 . For what I paid, it's reasonable but still somewhat disapointing. Generally I would not recommend purchasing these at retail price as in my opinion they are disappointing compared to some of my previous headphones and headsets.

That's my honest view. Hope it helps

[◄Chuck►]

Is that a dish-washer?

[Savy]

(2013-03-15 13:00)Chuck Wrote:  Is that a dish-washer?

I think it could be a microwave, still waiting for pics though

[Tommer]

This review was more aimed at people who are already looking at buying them. They're quite high profile amongst gamers. If you didn't manage to guess without 'pretty pictures' the actual type of item is given away under 'build quality' about 5 lines in for those with inatentive tendencies and the inability to skim read

[Savy]

Using a image like this would make your review much better imo

[ChrisM]

LOL'd so hard. Savy's review just made my day