If you’re like me and play a lot of games, your significant other can really get annoyed hearing game chat and game music for hours upon hours while they try and study or do whatever they need to do. This is where a pair of headphones can come into play and really improve life around the house. I checked out all the big players in the console gaming headphone market Astro Gaming, Tritton and Turtle Beach. I decided on a pair of the Astro A40 Audio System: BXR SE Edition in the red colour. I was lucky to get one of the last pairs before they sold out.
The Astro A40’s come in 3 boxes, 1 for the mixamp, and 1 for the headphones and finally a box for the speaker tags. A word of caution to my Canadian readers the total weight of the package is 7.3 pounds and close to $80.00 dollars Canadian to ship it plus you need to pay import duties on top of that. However if you are like me and have friends in the USA, I recommend you ship it to them and repackage them and then ship them to you.

These are not cheap, plain and simple these are only available online for $249.95 USD and they come with the headphones, mixamp, headphone case, speaker tags, speaker tag competition foam inserts, quick disconnect 4-pole connector cable, quick disconnect to dual-jack connector cable (plus volume control), 3.5mm to ¼ adapter, microphone, USB cable for the mixamp. There is a ton of cables in the box but for a optical cable, if you plan on using an optical cable to set these up, you’ll need to buy one. The mixamp requires for 4 double A batteries or a rechargeable battery sold separately by Astro.

Let’s talk about the headphones there stylish, adjustable, light weight, the sound is out of this world and the feature a detachable microphone. I like this option because I can take these headphones and plug them into my Iphone and listen to my podcasts. My biggest complaint of the headphones is that after 3-4 hours of use your ears and the surrounding area can become very sweaty, maybe that’s just me!. Another cool feature about the headphones are the speakertags as they are customizable. Astro has a service for 24.95 that you can design your own tags. Next up is the mixamp the essential device to you get the 5.1 Dolby Digital sound to your headphones. One of my favourite features of the mixamp is I can control the game/voice audio by turning the dial to dailor to my preferences. So If I’m playing Multiplayer, I can take 90% in game chat and 10% game audio. The mixamp also allows me to hook up my own MP3 player to the device to listen to music or podcasts while playing those games like Fight Night Round 4 were the sound track and audio just bores the hell out of me.

Let’s start with the installation and hook up of the A40 audio system, it’s fairly simple. First of all you’ll need to put the 4 double A batteries or if you purchased the rechargeable battery insert either of those into the mixamp by unscrewing the bottom cover, installing the batteries and then screwing it back up. Next hook up the mixamp to the console by plugging it into a USB slot after that hook up the optical cable by plugging one end into the mixamp and the other into the console. Next up plug in the headphones into the mixamp and the next step is optional for Xbox 360 owners. By plugging in the cable from the controller to the mixamp this allows voice chat on Xbox Live.

First thing I did after hooking them up and panicking cause no one could hear me on the voice messages I sent them, my other option was to join various Xbox live parties to see how I sounded and to ask others how I sounded. The feedback I got was incredible and instantly provided justification for blind buying these. Yes, I had never heard what the Astro’s sounded like before, so I bought them based off reviews. Next up it was time for to kill some zombies in Left 4 Dead 2 and boy zombie killing never sounded so good before. Finally it was time to fire up Uncharted 2 on the Playstation 3. I instantly heard sounds I hadn’t heard before when I played through the game. I was so impressed, I had pass the headphones to my girlfriend and she was stunned on how good they sounded.
Overall if you’re looking for a pair of 5.1 headphones, look no further. Astro provides a premium product at a good price and they also provide premium customer service which is very rare these days.

Pros:
• 5.1 surround sound
• Control the game/voice audio
• Detachable microphone
• Mixamp design
• Custom Speaker Tags
Cons:
• They are a tad on the expensive side
• Shipping to Canada is outrageous
• 4-Pole cable is to short (yes you can buy a longer one for $20!)
• The 3.5mm cable from the mixamp to the controller is too short. Yes I understand the mixamp is designed to be sat next to the player however in my living room I would prefer to keep the mixamp on the television console.

Tehflakes.ca recommends purchasing these headphones