Need a new headset, advice welcome.

[Pob255]

Well I've just got them out of the box and tested them.

Pob mini review or the Sharkoon HS40

scores: out of 10

- Looks: 5
a mix of matt and gloss black plastic, the way the mic arm folds out and is very neatly stored when folded up into a slot is very nice
- Build quality: 5
The plastic of the overhead band is quite flexible and doesn't feel too robust, the wire is not as thick as the wire on the speedlink Ares, the wires where it splits at the jacks is thicker however and the jacks them selves are gold plated and rather quite nice.
The ear pieces are nicely padded, thin foam under cloth in the middle and about 10mm of foam under thin soft leather around the edges.
The cups them selves, while plastic, are solid, the mice arm is plastic but also feels robust.
- Speaker Sound quality: 3
This would off been 6 if both earphones worked correctly, I'm hoping it's just a fault (I shall raise an RMA)
In the left ear the sound is clear and rich, if a bit bass heavy, however in the right ear the base is weak and the overall volume is less than half that of the left side (already tested in on my pc, 901 eee pc netbook and sansa clip mp3 player)
After some fiddling with my pc sound settings I've got the two sides roughly balanced by adjusting the output to 20% left and 80% right
They are closed cups however they do leak slightly.
- Mic Sound Quality: 5.5
I was a bit worried about it as the mic arm is straight and ridged, so it's to the side of your mouth not in front, on top of that there's no foam baffle.
However it's picking up ok, sound is clean and clear but a bit quiet even with the mic set to max
- Comfort: 3
To start with they lose a big chunk of points for the cup size, these rest on the ears not around them, which I didn't want, constant pressure on the ears is not good for long term usage.
I'll admit I have an odd shaped head, being quite narrow which can cause issues with some headphones being too lose (I had to fold the strap on my speedlink Ares) however these fit well and secure, not falling off if I shake my head about.
The overhead band is padded with a 15mm chunk of cloth covered foam which works well, they are not really heavy enough to cause my top of the head pressure and I can hardly feel it across the top of my head.
- Other features / bonus points: 4
The volume control, about 35cm down the wire from the left cup, has a handy clip on the back so you can clip it to your your collar and relieve the drag weight of the control and wire, not that it weighs much to start with, it's a simple wheel control and a mic mute switch on the other side, simple yet very effective, nether are too stiff or lose.
The wire joints with the control and cup have nice hard rubber surrounds which should protect against faults occurring in the wire from flexing.
The jacks seem good too.
I like the fold up mic arm, just wish there was more bend at the end so it faced my mouth more so it could pick up sound better (after some angle testing this seems to be a big part of the mic volume issue)

All told I'm not amazingly impressed, rather disappointed with the speaker imbalance and the too small cups (although I did have my suspicions), but for £12 I wasn't expecting any thing amazing, just hoping for better.

[MattBee2k2]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158667

These are very good.

[Pob255]

Yes I did consider them, but scan didn't have them in stock at the time.

I've arranged RMA and refund on the sharkoon HS40, I was going to splash out on the corsair HS1a but they've gone up £6 since Tuesday and the speedlink medusa MX stereo has come back into stock.
So I went for the cheaper option of the medusa, they came this morning and I just had time before leaving for work to quickly test them to make sure they worked.

They look and feel good, I'll do a full mini-review tonight.

[MattBee2k2]

Yes I did consider them, but scan didn't have them in stock at the time.

I've arranged RMA and refund on the sharkoon HS40, I was going to splash out on the corsair HS1a but they've gone up £6 since Tuesday and the speedlink medusa MX stereo has come back into stock.
So I went for the cheaper option of the medusa, they came this morning and I just had time before leaving for work to quickly test them to make sure they worked.

They look and feel good, I'll do a full mini-review tonight.

Good Glad you found something good.

[Pob255]

Pob mini review or the Speedlink Medusa NX stereo headset

scores: out of 10

- Looks: 8
It's all matte black plastic and black leather, the mic does stick up from one side when folded up, nothing adventurous there.
- Build quality: 8
The overhead band is flexable, hard to know exactly what it is as it's totally covered in leather, after a bit of poking I'm pretty sure it's a flat metal strip inside.
Jacks while gold plated are basic and nothing special (although they do come with protective plastic caps.
The ear pieces are nicely padded, thin foam under cloth in the middle and about 15mm of foam around the edges, the ear facing side of the edge is velvet covered, the back side where it's held onto the cup is leather.
The cups them selves, are plastic and black metal mesh, these are an open back design, the cups are on chunky hinges that let you fold them up into the curve of the band or twist backwards to lay flat, overall very solid and robust feeling.
The mic arm is one of the flexible wire types, with a good stiffness to it, the mic on the end is in a plastic housing (I'd of preferred the foam covered housing of the Ares)
- Speaker Sound quality: 7
The sound is good and it has a nice tone control (as well as volume and mic mute) on the lead, this seem to just increase/decrease the base only, so bass control might of been a better label for it.
Overall that tone control is lovely as some people like bass heavy and some prefer a more even range of tones and you can have both with this.
However they lose points for volume, I shove all the volumes I can find up to max, stick on some nice hardcore industrial Ultraviolence(beware naughty lyrics) and I can listen to the whole song without my ears bleeding.
Ok you may now be wondering what's so bad about not being able to have the volume so high it hurts? Well it makes the volume control on the cable redundant, you just keep it at max and normally I still have to push my windows sound volume up about 30% if switching from speakers to headphones (normally I have windows around 40%)
Being an open back design they do leak sound however.
- Mic Sound Quality: 7
It's a mic, a wire arm makes it very adjustable so you can get it into the best place for sound pickup.
The lack of a baffle means it's also easy to get it into a bad position, which gives you lispy noises when you talk. (just keep the mic slightly below or the the side of your mouth not directly in front)
- Comfort: 7-9
They fit my narrow head very very well, they grip better than the Ares did.
The cups are slightly smaller than the Ares model, however are large enough to go around my ears and not rest on on them.
Not too heavy, enough weight that I can feel them across the top on my head, but the band is wide enough and padded enough to still be comfy, even after a few hours gaming.
The weight of the wire&volume control does pull slightly on the left (I wish it had a clip on the back of the volume control like the sharkoon HS40 does)
Wearing glasses under them is ok, although after a couple of hours, I did have a slight ache after taking the headset off from where it pushes my ears into the glasses arms.
Two scores because for me it's a 9 but I can see that if you had a larger/wider head they might be a bit tight across the sides (the Ares was much better for larger headed people)
- Other features / bonus points: 7
The volume control, about 35cm down the wire from the left cup, tone wheel as well as volume on a chunky control is a very nice feature,the mic mute switch is on in the middle and has a nice solid click feel
The wire joints with the control, cup and splitting point have nice hard rubber surrounds which should protect against faults occurring in the wire from flexing.
The jacks are rather basic and it also comes with a single gold plated 3.5mm to 6.5mm jack adaptor
The wire itself is a good thickness, 3m in total length, the split ends are 20cm long so you your two jack could be a foot apart without issue.
The way the ear cups can rotate is nice addition, not sure how useful it is, as if you fold the cups up into the arc of the band the mic arm sticks out the bottom and the wire is bend at the connection point of the cup.

Overall for £22 these are lovely headphones, good sound quality and comfy enough that hours of gaming is not an issue.
We'll just have to see how they hold up long term but so far I'm very happy