Review: Arctic Sound P531 Headphones

Headsets are important, especially during multiplayer gameplay and podcasting. But which one out of all are better than the others? Are the newbies any better than the top brands out there like Logitech and Sennhesier? techgeek.com.au’s Tom Solari takes the Arctic Sound P531 headset for a spin.

This is one of the first headsets I have seen from Arctic Sound so I presume that they are relatively new to the sound market, though you wouldn’t be able to pick that from the quality of them. This headset is aimed at those gamers among us who don’t want to alert half the street/apartment block/whenever you live to the fact that you are playing a game.

When I first listened to a song using the P531’s, I was stunned at the quality of the sound reproduction that they manage especially after using my $30 bargain basement headset. The bass is very clear and strong, even at times making the headset itself shake. The mid to high range is very crisp and clear and actually showed up the quality of my music collection.

The headset connects to the computer via USB and actually has its own sound card which means you don’t get the interference that you would when using the traditional headphone jack. (Just make sure that you install the driver off the bundled CD otherwise you will not get the 5.1 sound just 2.0.) The only problem with having an independent sound card is that it will most likely be sitting on your desk next to your mobile phone which gives you that annoying interference beeping.

The P531’s have 4 drivers per ear; Center; Front; Surround and Sub woofer. These join together to deliver 5.1 channel sound to your ears. On the volume control you can also change the levels of each one, so you can get the balance between the difference drivers just right. It also has a microphone on/off switch which obviously turns the microphone on or off.

The P531 has quite a nice microphone, reproducing voice quite clearly. I have been using it for the techgeek.com.au podcasts as well as the techgeek.com.au Tips that I did last week. While you may think that my voice wasn’t that clear, I didn’t realise that I had put the microphone right in-front of my mouth and not to forget that my internet would have throttled the quality as well. I tested the microphone recording straight onto the computer and the quality of my voice was quite a lot clearer.

The quality of the headset itself is quite high though I did find it a bit bulking and the ears would turn in every which way when held in a certain way. One other annoyance that I noted is the fact the volume control flashes every time it receives audio which can be quite a distraction especially when watching a movie or playing a game. This are about the only complaints I have and are not very serious at all and would not stop me from going out and buying a set of these headphones.

You can buy these headphones at Arctic Sound’s Online Store