Page 5 - Gaming and Video

Gaming

So, the big advantage to using headphones for gaming is that you can hear important game sounds much better with headphones than with speakers. This is because you can play your headphones much louder than you can with your Z-680s say, and not bother your downstairs neighbor (Bob, WWII veteran, still kicks my ass at Counterstrike) playing game at 2am.

The second reason is that with headphones you also can achieve much more accurate surround sound (or even 2-channel) than you can with your average computer speaker setup. Basically, the better you can hear audio cues, the better the immersive experience. The better the immersive experience, the more you become involved in the game. The more involved you become in the game, the better your chances to defeat the game. And ultimately, the more fun youll have.

The gaming rig is a rather crusty and old AMD X2-3800, 2GB RAM, nVidia 7900GT, 120GB HDD, and the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude.  In our review of the Prelude, we found it produced the best surround sound, so it was natural to use it to test the HPA2 with games.

Bioshock

Bioshock is a really pretty game, although, in my opinion, it has the best sound so far I heard in a FPS.  Everything from the evironment sounds and music, which you'll note are actually provided in the game and not as a soundtrack, movie style, are very well done.  Now, because your ears are different than mine, you may have a better surround experience with the HPA2's, or you may have a worse one.  I had an OK experience with the HPA2's.  There were a few occassions where I was fooled into thinking that some creepy sound was indeed just over my left shoulder.  While not stellar, it was great.  Usually, I'm not fooled at all.

WoW

Now, I kinda know what you're thinking.  Yes, I was playing WoW instead of working.  No, no, no, it would be that World of Warcraft isn't exactly a sonic tour de force.  Well, you'd be fairly right-on, but frighteningly enough, WoW does have a surround sound mode.  And it did pretty well with the HPA2's, I must admit.  There were several occassions where environment sounds indeed we coming from where they were supposed to.  For a die-hard stereo guy, this is impressive.  I must note that I did use the HPA2's for nearly 8 hours consecutively, and they remained comfortable.

Sound and Video

While I rarely game all night anymore, I do on occasion listen to music until the wee hours of the morning. For this, the two highest qualities I look for in a pair of cans are the pure audio fidelity and then the comfort.  If it sounds good, then I won't notice so much the pain.  This compared to a pair of Grado SR-125 headphones, which are about the same in price, and have a well earned reputation for being 'difficult' in the comfort department.

For long listening sessions with the HPA2's, I did feel a little fatigue, but they were better than the Everglide s500 Gaming Headphones I reviewed a while back in terms of sheer comfort.

In terms of audio fidelity, the HPA2s did some great things, and did some strange things. The principle is the same with the HPA2s and 3-way speakers, you can separate the spectrum of frequencies to dedicated drivers that, we hope, can do their job better than a single driver. The HPA2s do succeed in bass and high frequencies, but the middle frequencies where vocals, guitars, etc. reside, sounded a little dark and recessed.  In surround mode, playing 2-channel music, you'll very clearly hear mush.  This is from the amplifier delaying the rear channels slightly so you essentially have two echoed songs playing.  Mush.  Follow Turtle-Beach's recommendation and play stereo music in 2-channel mode.

Video-DVD

For DVD sound, I chose Star Wars Episode III.  I am surprised.  Not quite blown away, but really surprised at the HPA2's.  I set the volume controls on the amplifier to 3.5 for front, 4 for surround, 4 for center, and 9 for subwoofer.  In the introduction scene, Battle of Coruscant, the HPA2's portreyed a pretty convincing surround sound experience.  I had the rumble quite high, and I think Turtle Beach did it just right, they rumble and shake like a real subwoofer.  Well, like two subwoofers strapped to the head, they mostly shake the vertibrae in your neck.  But they do not intrude on normal music or speech, which is excellent.

For dialog intelligibility, the center channel worked well enough that I actually got the stupid joke the two jedi say in the elevator scene.  That's all I will say about it.