What do you do when you want to enjoy a true 5.1 experience, but you don’t have the room to set up all those speakers in your tiny bachelor suite? What if you’re rocking a laptop and it would be just too cumbersome to have a 5.1 surround sound stereo system pouring out of that portable computer? What if you’re going to a fragging LAN party and want the added advantage of actually hearing where your opponents are coming from? Stereo sound just doesn’t cut it, right?

Saitek is an established leader in the area of PC gaming accessories and their latest line of products — the Cyborg line — is absolutely top-notch. In addition to things like gaming keyboards and mice, they’ve also got the Saitek Cyborg 5.1 headset. This certainly isn’t the first set of headphones to offer the 5.1 experience, but I must say, these are some of the best headphones I’ve used in quite some time.

Taking A Look In and Out of the Box

Before we get down to the actual headset itself, let’s have a look-see at the packaging and the contents.

The retail packaging is predominantly black and purple with the front of the box offering you a glimpse at the Cyborg headset. Around the back, you get the spec sheet in five different languages as well as a prominently featured Cyborg logo near the bottom. For some reason, the logo makes me think of Universal Soldier. You know, the movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme? Oh, never mind.

Pulling the product out of the box — for some reason, pulling from the bottom was a lot easier than from the top — you see that the headset has been placed into a bowl-like container. In this container, you’ll find the headset itself, along with the inline controls and the detachable mic. As it turns out, this “bowl” is really one half of the carrying case. The top half is located just beneath this, containing the user manual and installation CD. Yes, this headset needs software.

The carrying case is a hard shell with red felt lining the inside. This is a great bonus, especially if you plan on bringing the Cyborg 5.1 headset to a LAN party. Plant the carrying case next to your professional gaming mouse and you’ll look like a pro! My only complaint is that the zipper is a little finicky. I almost would have preferred if the case opened like a book rather than coming apart into two pieces.

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