A quick review of the Xbox One official stereo headset

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Sigma
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A quick review of the Xbox One official stereo headset

Post by Sigma »

I copped one of these earlier today and I'm impressed with it. It retails for £59.99/$79.99. In the box you get the headset, a headset adapter, and a USB to micro USB cable that can be used to update the controller's firmware.

A pic of the headset and controller: -

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The headset feels well made. The underside of the adjustable headband is padded with a rubber-like material. The ear cups go fully over your ears and are padded with a felt-like material. The upper part of the headband and plastic parts of the ear cups are matte black and the sides of the headband are glossy black, so it matches the look of the Xbox One nicely. There's a subtle Xbox logo on the left ear cup. Also on the left side is a fold down mic.

The adapter has 5 buttons on it: -

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The 2 on the left affect the balance between game/dashboard sounds and voice chat, so you can get the balance just right. The centre button mutes the audio and it lights up when the audio is muted. The 2 buttons on the right are the master volume controls. It feels nicely constructed and while at first I thought it was a bit of a rip-off that MS sold an adapter for headsets instead of just having a 3.5mm jack on the controller, having these 5 buttons available right there at the bottom of the controller is really handy and much better than just plugging a headset into a normal headphone jack.

Even though I'd updated the firmware in my controller already, when I turned my Xbox One on with the headset connected, I was prompted to do it again. The process is simple and takes about a minute per controller, if that.

The headphones are comfortable to wear and sound isolation is pretty good. The sound quality is good for headphones in this price range, considering you also get the adapter and USB cable in the box. Obviously, it's a huge step up on the rather crappy mono headset that's included with the console, so if stereo is all you need in a headset I'd give this one 2 thumbs up.

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