Psyko Audio may not be the first to release a 5.1 headset and they certainly will not be the last, but Psyko 5.1 was named one of the CES best of 2009. Does this new headset deserve such a title? Well I decided to give them a visit while I am here at CES 2010 and see how well the headphones are shaping up. I met up with James Hildebrandt, CEO and Head of Psyko Audio, and he gave me the rundown on the headset. The first thing he had me do was listen to some music from the Blue Men Group for a full two minutes as he pointed out where the music was coming from the headset indicator. The sound was amazing and you can feel where the sounds was coming from.
Next he took me where they had the headset hooked up on the PC. I put the headphones on and he saddled up to play a FPS I did not recognize. He began moving the character around so I could hear where the gun fire was coming from and how far they were from my position. I wish he would have let me have a go to experience the aural feedback from my actions.
The last stop was to the Xbox 360 where they released a version of the headset specifically for this console. It sounded pretty much the same as the headset for the PC portion of the demo. The only exception being that this time I was able to play the game, which was Modern Warfare 2.
My Take: The headset is nice, and for a product that has only been out for only 2 months, it is not a bad pair of headsets at all. My major complaint is that I noticed some static when I was listening to the music portion, but I wasn't sure if it was due to the setup they had or the headset itself. Also they have an attachment for the headset which currently has a flaw in it with it being too flimsy, but according to Hildebrandt they are re-designing the attachment so it will be more solid. The improved product will be released in March. Overall it is not a bad headset at all, but for $300 I think it is a bit overpriced as you can get better headsets for half the price. Oh, one last thing: did I mention no noise cancellation?
