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Turtle Beach Headset Has DTS Headphone:X

By - Source: Turtle Beach | B 19 comments

Turtle Beach launched what the company calls a "world's first:" a PC gaming headset with DTS Headphone:X 7.1 surround sound. Called the Ear Force Z60, this headset was first introduced during CES 2014 back in January, and it's now available at online retailers and in local stores for $119.95.

"DTS surround sound represents a new approach to audio that is sweeping across the film and gaming industries and fundamentally changing the way consumers experience sound," said Bob Picunko, chief marketing officer of Turtle Beach. "At Turtle Beach we are incorporating DTS Headphone:X into our gaming headsets to ensure players have the best possible audio experience."

According to the company, its engineers created presets so that gamers can better hear their footsteps in the snow, or shell casings that hit the ground. They accomplished this by pulling the center channel in towards the players' midsection, which supposedly makes those noises sound even more realistic.

The headset includes 60 mm speakers surrounded by "breathable," around-the-ear mesh cushions. Other features include a microphone monitor so you can hear your voice without having to shout, Dynamic Chat Boost that automatically raises the chat volume when the game volume grows louder and a high-sensitivity microphone mounted on a flexible and removable boom.

The headset also includes an inline control unit, shown above, for controlling the main and chat volumes and the surround sound modes, and it has a button for muting the microphone. This controller connects to any PC with a USB port, and it doesn't require software to set up.

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  • 4 Hide
    ratchet256 , September 19, 2014 4:55 PM
    > gaming headset
    > $120

    Get Audio Technica ATH-m40x headphones, and a mod mic 4.0. That's about $150. Infinitely better than any gaming headset could ever hope to be.
  • -2 Hide
    TeddyShotgun , September 19, 2014 5:44 PM
    I have the Ear Force Phantom for $120 two weeks ago, (improved version of the XP510) its a fantastic headset, in terms of comfort, sound, and design. On top of that it is compatible with almost all platforms. However the new generation of Turtle Beach headsets are restricted to only one or two platforms per headset, for example the newest flagship TB is restricted to PS4 and PS3 (you can use it on Xbox but without chat support). Turtle Beach needs to make another flagship model with full compatibility like the XP510.
  • -3 Hide
    TeddyShotgun , September 19, 2014 5:44 PM
    I have the Ear Force Phantom for $120 two weeks ago, (improved version of the XP510) its a fantastic headset, in terms of comfort, sound, and design. On top of that it is compatible with almost all platforms. However the new generation of Turtle Beach headsets are restricted to only one or two platforms per headset, for example the newest flagship TB is restricted to PS4 and PS3 (you can use it on Xbox but without chat support). Turtle Beach needs to make another flagship model with full compatibility like the XP510.
  • Add your comment Display all 19 comments.
  • 1 Hide
    drapacioli , September 19, 2014 8:15 PM
    No thanks, I'll stick with my Sennheiser studio headphones and Blue Yeti/Samson Go mic tandem. Much better headphone and microphone quality than any "Gaming" headset.
  • 0 Hide
    schwatzz , September 19, 2014 8:53 PM
    Correct me if I'm wrong but DTS is just a sound format and has been around for quite some time. I don't think you need specific pieces of audio equipment to get the most out of DTS. I thought Dolby Atmos is the new kid on the block in sound design, allowing for sound to be produced vertically.
  • -1 Hide
    schwatzz , September 19, 2014 8:54 PM
    Correct me if I'm wrong but DTS is just a sound format and has been around for quite some time. I don't think you need specific pieces of audio equipment to get the most out of DTS. I thought Dolby Atmos is the new kid on the block in sound design, allowing for sound to be produced vertically.
  • 0 Hide
    thee_prisoner , September 19, 2014 11:09 PM
    Quote:
    > gaming headset
    > $120

    Get Audio Technica ATH-m40x headphones, and a mod mic 4.0. That's about $150. Infinitely better than any gaming headset could ever hope to be.


    Everybody knows that regular headphones have better overall quality. I have high quality headphones. The point of these headsets and ones like it, is they can do 7.1 and with the DTS Headphone X can offer 11.1 simulated surround for gaming. Really the point is the surround sound processor Z60 amp. I'm sure the Technica doesn't
    include a surround processor amp.

    Schwatzz, DTS offers sound to be produced vertically like Dolby Atom.

    At least in terms of music and movies, I prefer DTS but with games, the audio quality is average anyways so DTS or Dolby will work well.

    Happy surround, the Prisoner...

  • 0 Hide
    TheMentalist , September 20, 2014 12:06 AM
    2 words: too expensive
  • 1 Hide
    thee_prisoner , September 20, 2014 12:25 AM
    Quote:
    2 words: too expensive


    Compared to the Astro's, great value...

  • 2 Hide
    Drejeck , September 20, 2014 2:40 AM
    It's kinda sad that people spend money on audio equipment because of "cheap plastics looking cool" and boasting "gamer" on the box. I would stick to some audiophile brand. Discrete mics are 99% of the time better than those integrated.
    Sennheiser PC360 has very good performance and a superior mic.
  • 1 Hide
    ratchet256 , September 20, 2014 3:32 AM
    Quote:
    Everybody knows that regular headphones have better overall quality. I have high quality headphones. The point of these headsets and ones like it, is they can do 7.1 and with the DTS Headphone X can offer 11.1 simulated surround for gaming. Really the point is the surround sound processor Z60 amp. I'm sure the Technica doesn't
    include a surround processor amp.


    Stereo can do surround just fine. Besides, you can just download this surround sound program from Razer if you really care about that kind of thing.

    http://www.razerzone.com/surround

    But every time I have heard "virtual surround" it made everything sound like it was being played through tin cans. So I don't know why that is desirable.
  • 0 Hide
    EasyLover , September 20, 2014 1:05 PM
    Any headset which is good for games and music as well?
  • 0 Hide
    thee_prisoner , September 20, 2014 2:32 PM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Everybody knows that regular headphones have better overall quality. I have high quality headphones. The point of these headsets and ones like it, is they can do 7.1 and with the DTS Headphone X can offer 11.1 simulated surround for gaming. Really the point is the surround sound processor Z60 amp. I'm sure the Technica doesn't
    include a surround processor amp.


    Stereo can do surround just fine. Besides, you can just download this surround sound program from Razer if you really care about that kind of thing.

    http://www.razerzone.com/surround

    But every time I have heard "virtual surround" it made everything sound like it was being played through tin cans. So I don't know why that is desirable.


    I haven't checked lately about the Razer surround program. Last time I checked you had to have a Razer device to use it. From what I've heard it works ok, better then Realtek sound chip but not as good as the Dolby or DTS solutions.

    For gaming I use a 5.1 analog headset run through a surround processor but mostly use home speakers( I have a high quality setup) for 5.1/7.1 gaming, movies and music which sound better than most headsets or headphones anyways. Having said that, virtual surround has gone leaps and bounds in the quality of sound and it's spatial clues.

    To answer Easylover: The Sennheiser PC360 for a headset is great but over priced imho at 300.00 plus. It's too bad the mic keeps breaking on them. What you really have to do is check out some different ones and find one that suits your music and gaming. Generally, music for vocals, acoustic, classical and jazz, you want a good headphone. Rock, rap and etc an average quality headphone or headset will probably be fine.

    Happy listening, the Prisoner...

  • 0 Hide
    TheMentalist , September 20, 2014 2:49 PM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    2 words: too expensive


    Compared to the Astro's, great value...



    Compared to stereo headsets(which can simulate surround perfectly), not so great value. Never liked surround on headsets, they're not the real deal on headsets, know what I mean.
  • 0 Hide
    shahrooz , September 21, 2014 2:30 AM
    I thought you have used an emoji at the end of the title, LOL :D 
  • 0 Hide
    beoir , September 21, 2014 7:02 PM
    Turtle Beach has a long and sordid history with the build quality of their headsets. I invite you to go to NewEgg and look at some of their earlier models. I myself made two attempts with them. Each time my headsets literally fell to pieces in less than 5 months each time.
    I would strongly recommend not buying from them.
  • -1 Hide
    husker , September 22, 2014 9:33 AM
    Does it include the new U2 album?
  • 0 Hide
    RedJaron , September 22, 2014 5:18 PM
    Quote:
    Correct me if I'm wrong but DTS is just a sound format and has been around for quite some time. I don't think you need specific pieces of audio equipment to get the most out of DTS. I thought Dolby Atmos is the new kid on the block in sound design, allowing for sound to be produced vertically.

    Well, sorta wrong / sorta right. Yes, DTS has had many formats around for a while, but this is DTS Headphone:X, a new format for emulating 11.1 channels.

    Remember that DTS signals require licensing fees ( sometimes, ) and special hardware/software to encode/decode it in real-time ( same goes for Dolby. ) Note that decoding it usually isn't an issue since that's handled on the speaker or receiver side. Real-time encoding isn't as common. Most game devs don't want to pay DTS or Dolby licensing fees and relatively few mboards have the hardware to do it in any case. So most the surround sound in games right now is just uncompressed audio across the 3.5mm multi-channel jacks.

    If you plug into the S/PDIF port on the mboard, you're only getting stereo in games, not 5.1 digital audio. If you play movies on your PC, you'll get 5.1 over the S/PDIF because the encoded DTS or Dolby audio track was already stored on the DVD or embedded in the movie file, so it's being fed straight to the S/PDIF with no encoding necessary.

    To get real-time DTS and Dolby, you need DTS-Connect and Dobly Digital Live capabilities. The PS3 and X360 both had hardware to run the reat-time encoding. Most add-in sound cards for PC do this too ( though DDL seems to be more common than DTS-C. ) Some newer LGA 1150 mboards have DTS-Connect as well ( but not DDL that I know of. ) In the case of these headphones, audio data bypasses the mboard and is sent over USB to be processed by the headphones ( or more accurately by the DSP in the remote block on the cord. ) That DSP sends a virtual surround stereo signal to the cans.

    As far as Dolby Atmos, that requires special hardware too. It's just a different form of sound processing for layering and positioning audio.
  • 0 Hide
    EasyLover , September 22, 2014 7:45 PM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Everybody knows that regular headphones have better overall quality. I have high quality headphones. The point of these headsets and ones like it, is they can do 7.1 and with the DTS Headphone X can offer 11.1 simulated surround for gaming. Really the point is the surround sound processor Z60 amp. I'm sure the Technica doesn't
    include a surround processor amp.


    Stereo can do surround just fine. Besides, you can just download this surround sound program from Razer if you really care about that kind of thing.

    http://www.razerzone.com/surround

    But every time I have heard "virtual surround" it made everything sound like it was being played through tin cans. So I don't know why that is desirable.


    I haven't checked lately about the Razer surround program. Last time I checked you had to have a Razer device to use it. From what I've heard it works ok, better then Realtek sound chip but not as good as the Dolby or DTS solutions.

    For gaming I use a 5.1 analog headset run through a surround processor but mostly use home speakers( I have a high quality setup) for 5.1/7.1 gaming, movies and music which sound better than most headsets or headphones anyways. Having said that, virtual surround has gone leaps and bounds in the quality of sound and it's spatial clues.

    To answer Easylover: The Sennheiser PC360 for a headset is great but over priced imho at 300.00 plus. It's too bad the mic keeps breaking on them. What you really have to do is check out some different ones and find one that suits your music and gaming. Generally, music for vocals, acoustic, classical and jazz, you want a good headphone. Rock, rap and etc an average quality headphone or headset will probably be fine.

    Happy listening, the Prisoner...



    What about Kingston HyperX Pro or Cloud Gaming headset. I've head so much praise for these headsets. Are they really that good?
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