Medusa 5.1 headphone owners.....log in here :)

[Tifosi]

We've now removed them from sale.. We've now had 1 customer with 2 bad ones and another with 1. These 3 retuerns mean that we are at a loss on all the sales. Most have been fine but there is no consistancy in the build quality. The good ones are very very good but there are just to many bad ones.

What do you mean by bad?

I bought a pair from PLAY and all the speakers work but dialog in films is ridiculously quiet I wasn't sure if they were faulty. All the speaker work however. I'm still not sure whether they are faulty, my surround sound system has no problems.

[Zak33]

what a shame

I got lucky then

[Legin76]

Bad as in 1 or 2 channels not working..

[Tifosi]

Bad as in 1 or 2 channels not working..

thanks makes me feel a lot better,

tbh they absolutely rock in games I've actually not used my Logitech Z-680's (which are awesome) since I got my medusa's. The surround element is amazing especially in battlefield 1942 and there even pretty amazing in counterstrike although not sure if that has surround sound. They are really comfortable and the seperation is great although I'm finding them a nightmare in films for dialog.

[Legin76]

I htink its just a matter of adjusting the levels untill it sounds right

[Tifosi]

I htink its just a matter of adjusting the levels untill it sounds right

even with the centre channel whacked up to full and the other channels turned down its still quiet. The only thing I have got to work is to use and equilizer and increase the vocal frequency's volume but then when things like gun shots go off they are really loud.

[Zak33]

centre is not very good....how can it be....its either side of you head. The only way it can be good is if the SOUND CARD can make it sound good.

Its ace on my Revolution 7.1 .... IN GAMES......but its CACK in films.

dont forget these headphones are only as good as the source you feed into them. IF the source (ie soundcard) can "fake" a centre channel on headphones, it'll work. But even then, their is NO speaker in front of you, so theres only so much trickery they can do

[Tifosi]

centre is not very good....how can it be....its either side of you head. The only way it can be good is if the SOUND CARD can make it sound good.

Its ace on my Revolution 7.1 .... IN GAMES......but its CACK in films.

dont forget these headphones are only as good as the source you feed into them. IF the source (ie soundcard) can "fake" a centre channel on headphones, it'll work. But even then, their is NO speaker in front of you, so theres only so much trickery they can do

Whilst I appreciate your comment it's not really the centre channel its the dialog which is the problem (although centre channel is primarily dialog). Other centre channel sounds work fine and are strong it just the dialog is weak. I run it off an Nforce2 Soundstorm so i don't think thats an issue.

At least its cack for you in films too, I was beginning to think it was me!

[Agent]

Bad as in 1 or 2 channels not working..

The ones ive just returned to play had 4 channels not working !
I need some decent headphones (with a mic) for uni + online gaming now ive asked them to refund them. Will be looking around your site, but any ones you'd recomend ?

[Dolus]

I thought I would add my tuppence worth

I only found out about the Medus'a just over a week ago and thought they looked interesting. I did a search for any reviews/feedback which was mostly positive, even though none of them were by an audiophile site, so being a Hi-Fi buff (or nut) I was expecting the sound quality to be below par.

I ordered a pair from Ebay (well it was a double pair for £58.00). Two for the price of what everyone else was selling one for.

To start with I tried them on my PC which has a 5.1 soundcard. No matter what I did I could only get stereo on both pairs. As I only had two speakers I reinstalled the soundcard drivers and chose the 5.1 configuration. Hey presto 5.1 surround sound. watching DVD's the sound quality was amazing for what in Hi-Fi terms is relatively cheap and there was back to front sound placement and uncannily people speaking did appear to be in front of me as opposed to inside my head with normal phones.

The next step was to try them on my AV amp. This is where I encountered a problem. The phone are connected to the preouts on the amp but if I mute/turn the speakers off, the preouts are also turned off, so I can only listen to the Medusa's with the speakers on (which kinda defeats the object.)

Still I attached them to the analogue outputs on the DVD player and it worked fine. I have sat through three complete films using these phones and they really are impressive. I could hear so much more detail (all the little things that would be missed with speakers). I am also amazed at the ammount of bass these headphone appear to generate plus the vibrating gizmo that adds that extras sparkle to bombs going off. I also found wearing them for extended periods very comfortable, which is unusual for me as I am not very good at having things on my head.

This afternoon I have fitted switches to all my speaker cables so I can turn the speakers off and connect the Medusa's to my AV amp. At last I can give them a whirl on the Xbox. At first they did not seem to be working. All I seemed to get was the subwoofer, then I discovered that the phones volume controls were turned down, but still no centre. This was because the game on the Xbox had no centre sound on the menu just stereo music. Once I started to play proper it was all there. I have just taken Burnout 3 for a spin and through the Medusa's the whole thing was a lot more intense. I can't say much about the surround sound I was just too involved in the game but it felt more like I was actually in the car and really in the middle of the pile ups.

The bottom line is that I am more than impressed and think I have got a lot of bang for my bucks. Saying that I am aware with all the settings and drivers to configure on a soundcard or AV amp plus the connections and volume controls on the phones it a lot to think about. If you do have access to an AV amp you can use the test tones to establish that each channel works, then if you cannot get it to work on the PC you need to mess with the soundcard settings/ drivers

Dolus

[Dolus]

Just a thought for the people having trouble with the centre channel/dialogue on films.

I believe that not all sound cards have the centre/bass output wired the same. Some are reversed. If this is so then the dialogue would come from the bass units. On my soundcard to reverse the bass/centre channel a jumper has to be changed on the soundcard itself which means opening the computer.

Dolus

[Zak33]

The next step was to try them on my AV amp. This is where I encountered a problem. The phone are connected to the preouts on the amp but if I mute/turn the speakers off, the preouts are also turned off, so I can only listen to the Medusa's with the speakers on (which kinda defeats the object.)

Its supposed to go in between the source and the amp...the amp is LAST in the chain. Cos then you can turn it off.

The Medusa box can be OFF and the pass through still works

[Dolus]

The pass through is if you want to take the signal from the analogue outputs of the DVD player and then pass the signal through to the amp for normal listening.

If you want use the Medusa's with an Xbox then the preouts on the amp have to be used as the Xbox only has an optical output for 5.1. All this is on the back of the box and in the instruction book. As far as I know all my previous amps had a signal at the preouts with the speakers turned off. It seems that on my amp, Sherwood have decided that the preouts are only for people who want to use powered speakers and have left all the preamp functions aviailable at the preouts.

Dolus

[Zak33]

oh....thats weird. Cheers for point it out tho