Whether it’s playing games or watching movies, sound is an integral part of many experiences on a computer. For movies, it’s all about immersion. You want to be able to experience what’s going on, as if you were there. For games immersion is also a factor, but depending on the genre of game sound can also help you win. Many 3D shooter enthusiasts swear by multi-channel surround sound setups, saying they allow them to hear their enemies coming from all corners. Many of those same enthusiasts live in environments where owning a 5.1 or 7.1 computer speaker system is a bad idea; either due to size or disturbance of the peace. That’s where the surround sound headset comes into play.
This category of PC headset has become very popular in the past few years by offering users a full surround sound environment delivered from multiple distinct speakers, and offering those around the users some peace and quiet. Today we are looking at the latest 7.1 set from ABS Computer Technologies.
A Quick Look at the Features
The product we are looking at is the FX-8 USB DTS Surround Sound gaming headset. Now I would be lying if I said I had heard of ABS before this review. They aren’t exactly a household name in my circle. However it seems they are well known enough to have quite a few reviews of their products on a few retailer sites.
Anyhow it seems ABS specializes more in OEM computer systems, and these are accessories they provide for purchase with their systems. The FX-8 does have it’s own product home page, but of course we’ll run down the important features here.
- All About Sound – Combining extra-large speaker drivers and a high-power digital amplifier, FX-8 headphones deliver super-deep bass.
- Extreme Comfort – Soft ear cushions and headband padding for extreme comfort.
- 8 Speaker system – DTS Surround Sound with 8 Precision Speakers, 4 Speakers each side, Individual speaker for front, back, centre, positions and subwoofer.
- Less noise, more music – Truly immersive sound experience by drastically reducing unwanted outside noises.
- Digital Enhance – Digital enhance USB audio for premium sound quality.
The FX-8 headset in particular carries a price tag of $89.99 USD on the ABS home page. That’s a fair chunk of change, and places the FX-8 within range of headsets from companies like Razer and Saitek. Actually for that kind of scratch, you can even get a nice Tritton headset on sale. Let’s hope you get some good value for the money.
What Else is in The Box?
Since the FX-8 headset is USB based, it doesn’t require many accessories to get things going. Included with the headset itself is the drivers disk and instructions. The drivers are compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and quite possibly Windows 7. As for the instructions, I do have a bone to pick with them. Whenever I test a product like this, I try to treat it like a normal user would.
You see, I know that with USB peripherals you want to install the drivers first and then plug in the device. This is true on 99.95% of all the USB devices I’ve ever setup. According the instructions the ABS FX-8 headset fit into that 0.05% of devices where you plugged in the device then installed the disk. That was all fine and dandy, except it didn’t work.
So I went with the proper way to install a USB device, and noticed that there was an instruction on the disk saying to installed the drivers first then plugin the device. This was the opposite of the written instructions, and if I was a normal user I’d be slightly confused. Luckily I’m not, and things started working just fine. ABS does need to run some QA on their documentation though.
Taking A Closer Look
I figured that when taking a closer look at the ABS FX-8 USB DTS Surround Sound gaming headset, the first and most obvious part was to crack open the ear cups. By “crack open” I mean “easily remove the ear pads, revealing the speaker configuration underneath.”
On first inspection it appears that the headset is short one speaker, until you look down the little hole and find the rim of the subwoofer behind the other three speakers. As for the ear cups, as I mentioned they are easily removable which should aid in cleaning down the road. ABS doesn’t include a replacement set, so if you rip these in any way you are stuck with the sock method of replacing your ear pads.
The boom mic on th FX-8 headset is permanently mounted to the right ear of the headset; no removable mic here. Still, it is fully adjustable, and can be rotated out of the way. The mic itself is rather large, and should be able to capture all but the most mousy of voices. Overall construction seems a little lacking.
The hinge the mic boom rotates on has a fairly loose, and over time seems like it may wear out. That is something that would have to be observed over time though.
The headband, though not heavily padded, is actually rather comfortable over extended periods of use. At its default size it fit my head just fine, and I have a rather big head. You can expand the headband to a rather excessive size, so if your head is the size of a watermelon you are pretty well set.
As for the fit and finish, there was also a couple problems here. The little plastic inserts on the arms holding the ear pieces keeps coming out. Generally the headset doesn’t feel as solid as it should.
The fit and finish issues continued with the inline control. They work, but the button movement feels hollow and fragile. Sometimes button pushes won’t register.
The three indicator LEDs are small and buried well below the holes that are supposed to project their light. This makes all but the brightest blue one on the bottom hard to see. To add insult to injury, after a long period of time the inline control gets rather hot. Hopefully this headset has a stellar performance in our tests, because the overall build quality is a little lacking.
The Software
As I noted earlier, the ABS FX-8 headset is like any other USB device and should have its drivers disk installed fully before plugging things in. Though the instructions can’t make up their mind on this, I would recommend doing it this way.
Once everything was setup, I was greeting with a control panel applet that looks remarkably similar to the one shown in our review of the Saitek Cyborg 5.1 gaming headset. The main tab let’s you configure both analogue and digital audio options, and the additional tabs provide mixer and equalizer settings. Strangely there wasn’t any type of speaker test present. Guess we’ll just have to do our own testing.
To Start the Testing
To start testing, I hooked up the ABS FX-8 headset to my test rig and compared it against the onboard audio, as well as the audio produced from my Asus Xonar D2X with an analogue Tritton AX51 Pro headset connected. Upon plugging in the FX-8 headset I instantly found a problem; the SNR on the USB controller for these headphones must be horrible. All I could hear in the silence was an unending hiss, like what you would hear from poor onboard audio. ABS provides no detailed audio measurement ratings on the product home page, but I’d imagine it’s in the same range as the aforementioned motherboard-bound audio.
As for actually playback of something, I turned to my MP3 collection and specifically my old high fidelity bass tests. The main impetus behind getting a headset for most people is to shield the people around them from bass, as well as other stray frequencies. With some tweaking I was able to get decent bass response out of the FX-8 headset, but it still managed to burp or distort on some particularly low on long sequences. Other frequencies were OK.
Games Galore
Gaming is the one usage profile where positional audio can make a difference, in both immersion in and success of playing the game. The FX-8 did manage to reproduce good positional audio, with only a few minor glitches. I don’t have any incredible examples of how it saved my virtual life, but the audio did work well enough. Still the audio was missing that punch, with explosions sounding muddy and gunshots sounding flat. The mic also was just OK, with a little scratchiness present, most likely due to the SNR issue.
Settle In For A Nice Movie
When watching a movie, the FX-8 did manage to redeem itself a litte bit. It was nice have the option of digital output built right in, as that eliminated any horsing around with analogue channels. The bass response was a little better in our test movies, but still fell a little flat in some scenes. Positional audio did work well, surrounding me in the sound of cars passing or bullets flying.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
The ABS FX-8 USB DTS Surround Sound Gaming Headset is definitely a mixed bag of features and capabilities. Here we have a 7.1 channel headset in the same price range as many current 5.1 channel headsets. It offers 8 distinct speakers, 4 per ear piece, and an extendable mic. The headband is quite adjustable, and fairly comfortable to boot. It’s also USB so digital audio in is fully supported. On the surface it looks like a good product.
When you start prodding just below that surface, things get a little murky and the product turns to simply being ok. First there’s the overall build quality of the headset, which for its price isn’t that good. Some parts feel cheap and hollow, while some parts are literally coming off. The inline remote feels chintzy, and gets rather hot after long periods of time. This headset doesn’t seem like it’ll last, which isn’t very comforting when you spend what’s being touted as the MSRP by ABS ($89.99 USD). Audio quality was merely OK, and that’s the best it gets. High and mid range frequencies were OK if a little tinny, but the bass response was flat and muddy.
In the end, the only thing I can say about this headset is that if you absolutely need 7.1 audio on the cheap (relatively speaking) this is your product. Otherwise I think you’d be better off waiting for a sale on a Tritton 5.1 headset or checking out some of the headsets we’ve reviewed in the past. The ABS FX-8 has been spotted for about half the MSRP at some outlets, but I’d still rather pay upfront for quality.
Pros
- 7.1 channel audio on the cheap
- Easy to install
- Comfortable to use
- Digital audio supported
Cons
- Middling audio performance
- Some iffy build issues
- Poor SNR
- Documentation confusing for newbies
Overall Rating: 6.5 / 10.0
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