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Turtle Beach Ear Force X3 Wireless Headphones


Labeled With  ear force x3 xbox360 turtle beach
Written by DM on Tuesday, October 09 2007

On the transmitter itself there is a volume adjustment dial, and a switch to toggle the stereo surround expander feature on and off. I recommend you leave this feature turned on. As for the actual sound quality of the headphones, I have to say, it varies. Once you have the volume on the transmitter and the volume on the actual phones set correctly, the sound quality is fairly good for a set of wireless phones. The bass, treble, and midrange all came through fairly clearly, although the sound can run together with static at times (a lot) of high sound activity. Turtle Beach also warns that if you are too close to the transmitter, the sound will suffer, so try to stay at least 5-6 feet away.

The one issue I do have with the Ear Force X3 lies with its microphone. There is a new feature included in the Ear Force X3 called the Dynamic Talkback Expander. This is a feature of the phones which automatically increases the volume of Xbox Live Chat during loud moments in the game. Keep in mind, this all requires the connection of the Xbox Live headphone/mic “puck,” which runs, via the included wire, from the Xbox360 pad mic jack to the left ear cup of the Ear Force X3. Now, if you were to turn down the game sound volume all the way with the dial on the actual headphones, then the DTE would do nothing during loud moments of the game because there is no game sound for the chat voices to complete with. On the other hand, if you had the game sound volume turned way up on the actual phones, during loud explosions and the like, the Ear Force X3 would automatically boost the volume of the chat coming from the Xbox360 pad so that you can still hear your teammates or enemies, no matter how loud the game gets. This sounds great, in principle, but unfortunately, it does not work exactly as advertised. While it works when the game gets loud gradually, sudden bursts of volume do not seem to register with the Ear Force, and there is no sensitivity adjustment for the DTE, unfortunately.




Turtle Beach has made it so that you can hear yourself speaking into your own microphone, as long as the headphones are turned on. The instructions claim this is so you can tell if the phones have automatically shut down to save power or not, but it really ends up being a pain most times because during gaming, the mic picks up outside sounds and plays them in the phones, even if you are not chatting on Xbox Live. There should have been an included mic mute button on the headphones themselves, in order to combat this issue. I ended up putting a piece of scotch tape over the mic hole in order to drown out some of the feedback sound I got when playing non-Xbox Live games.

The Turtle Beach Ear Force X3 is a fantastic choice for those who need to wirelessly game or watch movies/television. The price is right, and the sound quality you get for that price is well worth it. Unfortunately, the mic itself can be used in-game as long as you tweak the volumes and use the mute switch on the “puck” liberally. There should have been a headphone-based mic mute button included, as well as a Dynamic Talkback Expander sensitivity dial and on-off switch, but these are minor issues which I am sure Turtle Beach, the quality company that they are, will address if it becomes a major issue. I can certainly recommend the Ear Force X3 for anyone who wants to game with headphones, and freely wander without being tethered to a console or A/V receiver.

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Turtle Beach Ear Force X3


 
 
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