Whether you are a late-night gamer not wanting to disturb others in your home or you want quality surround sound without disturbing the entire neighborhood, you have been searching high and low for a quality wireless headset answer to your needs as both a gamer and an audiophile.  There are so many to choose from with a wide range of features (and prices) and you just don’t know where to begin.  You might find this headset to be a best option.

Earforce X42 Headset Dolby Surround

The Turtle Beach Earforce X42 Headset for Xbox 360 puts the gamer right into the action thanks to Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound Technology.  Full 360° sound with the ability to adjust the surround sound angles allows you to fully immerse yourself in the action; hear the moans of that zombie sneaking up behind you and spin around in time to dispatch him or pinpoint exactly where those cries for help are coming from so that you can swoop in just in time to be the hero.  Thanks to the digital optical connections, you will enjoy the audio with perfect digital clarity as well, just the way the sound was intended to be delivered.

Turtle Beach Headset – Sound Performance

In addition to the Dolby Digital surround, the Earforce X42 features 50 mm speakers that offer superior sound from crisp, clear highs to rumbling bass on the low end.  This headset also features several pre-set EQs including settings for bass boost or treble boost.  Additionally, it features independent volume controls for game volume and chat volume as well as the Turtle Beach innovated feature known as Chat Boost.  Chat Boost is a very useful feature, automatically adjusting the volume of other players to compensate for increased in-game volume.  No longer will you have to concern yourself with missing a key piece of information from your teammate thanks to a loud explosion going off!

Turtle Beach Earforce  – Microphone and Chat

Speaking of chat, let’s have a look at the microphone for the Earforce X42.  The condenser microphone on this headset offers superb speech reproduction with a frequency ranging from 50Hz up to 15kHz.  In other words, no matter how high or low your voice may be, this microphone will pick it up and reproduce it perfectly.  It also has a foam cover over the microphone to act as a pop filter, an adjustable boom allowing you to position it wherever suits you best, and it is removable, which is great if you are going to be listening to music or watching movies while wearing the headset.  Finally, there is a built in microphone monitor allowing you to hear yourself so that you don’t scream at your teammates (unless you want to, of course.)

 Earforce X42 Wireless Dual Band Wireless Technology

Another feature of the Earforce X42 that you won’t find in a lot of other comparable headsets lies in the wireless transmitter itself.  It offers dual-frequency bands to select from, 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz, which gives you the ability to eliminate interference from other wireless devices, such as routers or cordless phones.

X42 Headset – Comfortable to Wear

Finally, the headset is incredibly comfortable to wear.  It features a cushioned, adjustable headband covered in breathable mesh as well as plush ear cups, also covered in mesh.  This allows for hours of comfortable use without the discomfort of hard plastic on your head and ears or the sweating caused by the padding on a lot of other headsets we have seen.

Questions & Answers

1.  Can you hook up X42 headset to TV?  Yes. Your TV will need to have an Audio Output jack which is enabled via the TV settings (not all TV’s require or even have an enable feature). For more information on TV connections look here.

Turtle Beach Earforce X42 Headset – Summary

The bottom line is that the Turtle Beach Earforce X42 Headset for Xbox 360 delivers quality sound, chat, and comfort without interference.  The only drawback we could really find was that there is a slight hiss when no audio, however the hiss disappears when audio is playing, so you do have crystal clear sound.