Gadgetory

excellent hello everyone welcome back to Pauls hardware today I'm going to be doing an unboxing and overview of this wireless gaming headset from astro this is the a 50 it's designed for use with the Xbox Playstation 3 or of course PC alright guys so here is a closer look at the Astro 850 Wireless and let me say about this one this is a very popular headset this is only the successor to be very popular 840 which has been out for a while and astro makes some really high quality headsets they're very popular for use with gaming of course this one is set up for xbox ps3 and pc use 5.8 gigahertz Wireless band also Dolby Pro Logic - yes no I always forget it I can never tell that's 2x or 11x and every time I'm not sure I look it up and then I immediately forget anyway I'll leave it at that for now here's a look at the back of the box we can see pro quality audio with EQ modes superior fit and finish this is an over the ear headset it also includes a precision microphone and it's tuned with astro audio again 5.8 gigahertz wireless technology and built-in mix amp 5.8 so here's kind of a layout of everything that comes in the box headset stand item number 3 there which is of course your MX mix amp TX transmitter it's actually the newer txd includes EQ modes accessible via the side of the Year Cup you also have a volume wheel also on the side of that your cup game and voice balance which you can essentially do by actually accessing the right side of the ear cap your cup so I'll show you guys that in just a moment also lovely 7.1 channel compatible so you can actually do multiple channel audio and this has become more popular for gaming in particular because positional audio can often be a boon to those folks who especially playing like first-person shooter type games you also have an auxiliary inputs that's on the actual trans transmitter transmitter / receiver then you also have an optical pass-through so if you're using a gaming system that has optical well you can pass through it and that way you can still access your audio even if you're for instance switching it over from using the headset to home theater for example here's the specs trans do these are open air so bear that in mind they are not going to be blocking very much outside noise but that can often be good frequency response of twenty to twenty thousand kilohertz I heard two kilohertz I should say also nominal impedance of forty eight ohms the weight without the cable is 0.8 pounds it is a little bit heavier than the eight forty you also have 108 decibels signal-to-noise ratio you're coupling is over the ear distortion of less than one percent connectors a 2.5 millimeter xbox live chat port as well as a mini USB I also the mic which is unidirectional and noise cancelling you also have that in other languages USB power 5.8 gigahertz optical in ox in some more details also the contents of the Box listed right there which I'm going to be pulling out in just a moment there support information for the Astra website let's go ahead and pop this out of the box and take a closer look we have a sleeve and it simply opens like that alright the first item that we have here is the mix amp TX transmitter as you can see it's got the Astra logo on the top sort of a semi-gloss finish you have power button right there as well as the Dolby button right there that you can activate look around to the back you can see this is the mixing up to TX D which is like slightly newer revision and it's got it does have some rubber here on the bottom as well so that wherever you're setting it down it's not going to shift around too much and then here's a look at the back so we have an auxilary input previously-mentioned USB so it does get power directly from the USB these are some Toslink connectors right there that are currently covered up so you have the optical Toslink out as well as input and then you also have a USB port right there next up the head football side so here's a look at the a 50 headset I should say not just headphones headsets so how does this work ah let's just push this so now this is basically your balance you can adjust your balance for voice or for the game audio and it's got a nice little detent there so you can tell when you're pushing one way or another before I talk about the ear cups and the rest of the construction I did want to point to the other on the left ear cup we have a connector there so if you're going to use Xbox Live you connect a cable from here down to your Xbox controller and then you can actually do the Xbox Live voice you also have a USB port right there and that is to charge this headset since it does have an integrated rechargeable battery over on this side you have volume knob so some nice detents in that as well as you're returning it so you can tell that you're moving it one way or another the volume knob and then over here we have a small power button so this is a set up for power to power it on as well as to pair it with the mix amp TX over here and the same function goes for that power button on that one and you also have this several position item right here and I think this changes between several different modes however I'm not positive since this is my first look at this particular headset so before I sort of give us a second look at this I'm actually going to go through the rest of the item is in the box which might shed some light on some of that other stuff all right oops alright so this is a little card welcoming you to the Astro family and encouraging you to register your your headset so you get support from them and then here's a look at the included instruction manual as you can see it's pretty well laid out indicating of course all that stuff I've just told you aha so here's where we can sell for the EQ modes these are different built in it's got a built-in equalizer in the ear cup so medium mode core mode and pro mode I'm not sure what exactly differentiates those but you switch between them via that handy switch xbox live USB charging port microphone gaming voice bounce here's information on pairing up the device using the power button and different blinking lights to indicate they've paired up and then here's more information on that mix amp so the USB port is actually for power to the mix amp and then USB power right there I'm sorry the USB port right there's for charging the headset and then this one is actually for power into the mix amp you also notice here they are indicating that's oh this is actually a pretty cool feature so the included boom mic right here when it's down it's on if you got to mute it simply flip it up like that so you flip it up that automatically meets the mic here the included cables which I haven't even shown you yet but this will show you different configurations you can do so if you're using Xbox for example you connect the mix amp be an optical cable in a USB power cable and then you go ahead and plug your xbox live cable into your xbox controller for PlayStation 3 pretty much the same optical cable and USB power cable however that will give you a game audio as well and you don't need the extra cable going over to your controller then finally for PC again optical or USB power cable or if you don't happen to have an optical on your computer that's it I think most computers do have it integrated one way or another but if you don't you can of course plug in straight via that aux inputs which is in standard eight inch jack here's the stand doesn't come with an included stand that's about it for the manual alright moving on to included cables so here this is the Xbox cable tiny little plugs right there so you can connect it to your Xbox for Xbox audio and headset use here's your USB cable there so standard USB to mini-usb we have another standard USB to mini-usb so you can use one of these again to plug in the Astro for power just run it over to a USB plug on your computer or your Xbox or your PlayStation 4 power and then the other end of course goes into here like so sobbing all right now let's take a look at the stand which I've heard kind of snaps together oh look there's one more hidden cable here all right so this is an actual Toslink cable there's your optical cable as well which they've also included and again kind of need that to get up and running so that is also nice of them let me assemble the stand for you guys really quick and then we'll take a look so here's a stand set up it simply snaps together and I'm just going to go ahead and set the heads in art there you have it pretty simple it keeps it up and off of the ground and a little bit more protected then finally one last look at the headset itself we've already talked about the boom mic this is permanently attached which is something of an issue for some folks but if you're okay with having it on the left side you should be fine got the embroidered Astro logo up on the top it's a nice padding here headrest of course really nice cushioning here in the cuff and ear cups and you can of course twist these any which way you please and then we also have these really sturdy metal adjustment brackets here on the side you can see the coil kind of where the cord kind of coils up inside there the rest of it is mostly constructed of some pretty sturdy plastic but that keeps it nice and light the movement points here are still nice and sturdy though and trying these on I can say they're very comfortable and I haven't given them much of a play test yet but it does feel like you could wear these for hours on end and that's gonna wrap it up for my unboxing of the Astro a50 wireless gaming sound system including the a 50 headset as well as the mix amp t XD you've been watching Paul's Harbor if you'd like to see more tech videos and unboxings you can find them on my Paul's Hardware YouTube channel don't forget to subscribe toss alike my way if you enjoyed the video and we'll see you all next time