Logitech USB Headset Stereo H650e (A-00057)

Pros Crisp, clear audio. Handy placement of volume controls and mute button. Lightweight and comfortable. Plug and play USB install.

Cons Inline call feature only works with two enterprise unified communication platforms. Bottom Line Meetings are pretty unavoidable in the office. Since many of us are conducting meetings online; having a lightweight, comfortable headset becomes a necessity. Logitech's USB Headset Stereo H650e fits the bill.

By Samara Lynn

The trend of online meetings and webconferencing continues to surge. As with many office workers, I increasingly attend meetings online rather than face-to-face. A good headset where you can hear clearly, be heard clearly, and is comfortable to wear is a must-have nowadays for most business and office workers. A headset can make all the difference between a productive or frustrating online meeting or business call. Logitech's USB Headset Stereo (A-00057) is an almost perfect online meeting accessory; it's lightweight, sounds great, and is a worthy Editors' Choice for business-class headsets.

Specs and Design
The headset has an overall sharp, professional black-and-silver design. It's a good fit, either looks-wise for a front reception office in a professional setting, or just as a very comfortable and efficient headset for a home office user.

The one feature I love about the H650e is that it has double ears. I've always found single ear headsets rather uncomfortable to wear for long periods. Each earpad is cushioned as is the headband—making the device a comfortable fit on the head. It's also very lightweight, weighing 4.2 ounces.Attached is a flexible microphone boom that swivels up and away from your face and is made of a rubbery material so you can move it closer to and farther from your mouth. It's a handsome design overall, but the microphone boom is so flexible that it's easy to bend it a bit out of shape permanently, detracting from the classic look of the design—my headset's microphone has a slight kink after using it quite often.

The headset connects via USB. Built onto the wire is a small panel where you press buttons for volume adjustment, microphone mute, and can place an in-line call on supported platforms. These platforms include Microsoft Lync and Cisco IP Communicator—the headset is optimized to work with both Unified Communications solutions, and the inline calling feature is supported on each.  Since this device is optimized for a Microsoft product, I was hoping to use the inline calling feature with Skype, but I could not.

Included with the headset is an attractive velvet carrying case, a quick start guide, and an information card for the two-year limited warranty.

Setup and Performance
The H650e is compatible with Windows Vista and later (32- and 64-bit), Mac OS 10.7 and higher, and Linux.  The headset did not come with any drivers. It doesn't need them. As soon as I connected the headset to a USB port on my Windows 7 laptop, the operating system recognized and installed the appropriate drivers. It's that easy.

For this review, I tested the headset for GoToMeeting, WebEx conferences, and Skype. In fact, I use it now for any online meeting, and across the board, it's about the sharpest, clearest audio I've heard. Meeting participants confirmed clarity of my voice on their end.

 I also specifically tested the noise cancellation, by Skyping a contact and placing a very noisy heater on my desk, right next to my laptop. My Skype partner confirmed that the conversation on their end was unaffected by the background noise. As one would imagine, there is quite a bit of ambient noise in the PCMag lab, and it hasn't impacted audio in any of my online meetings from my end while I've been using the headset.

The placement of the volume buttons, and in particular the mute button, is extremely handy, especially if you are about to cough during a meeting and want to do the quick mute thing.

A Must Have Business Accessory
Meetings are pretty unavoidable in the office day-to-day. Since many of us are conducting meetings online; having a lightweight, comfortable headset becomes a necessity. If you'd prefer a wireless model, check out the Plantronics Savi 440; it's considerably more expensive, but it has excellent sound quality and range, and works well with webconferencing software. Otherwise, Logitech's USB Headset Stereo H650e fits the bill and receives 4.5 out of 5 stars and an Editors' Choice for business headsets. 

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Review: Razer's Kraken 7.1 headset delivers great virtual surround sound at a reasonable price

San Francisco’s a fine city, but like any major metropolitan area the most common option for housing is a “cozy” hole in the wall with little room for furniture, much less hefty, neighbor-vexing sound systems.

Enter the gaming headset: a decent pair of cans will offer an appreciable aural improvement in merry-making, whether you’re taking potshots at zombies or enjoying your new Britney Spears record. Razer’s latest is the Kraken 7.1, a gorgeous piece of equipment bedecked in the peripheral maker’s trademark black and green-LED motif. A mere $99 gets you two ear pieces (one for each ear), a mic, and a lengthy USB cable to plug it into your PC or Mac.

The Kraken 7.1 is comfortable, if a little gaudy.

I kid. Like any good technology arms race, the modern headset needs to do a bit more than serve up sound to command lofty prices. The Kraken has chosen to prey on my one weakness—virtual 7.1 surround sound, a game changer (in the right games) that would otherwise require setting up more studio monitors and audio cable than my humble abode has square footage for.

Last spring I lent an ear to Razer’s Tiamat 7.1 gaming headset, and enjoyed it immensely. It’s expensive ($200) and requires a 5.1 or (ideally) 7.1 surround-sound capable sound card or motherboard to be a worthwhile purchase. When you have all that, you’ll still spend a bit of time twiddling knobs to get the audio just right. But once that’s all set, the ten drivers built into the Tiamat’s ear pieces serve up a luscious surround-soundscape that’s just about worth the price of entry, if you’re picky about something as nebulous as sense of space and aural immersion in games.

The virtual surround sound emulated by the Kraken 7.1 makes a huge difference in games that support it.

Now cut the Tiamat's price tag in half, eliminate much of the fiddling, and you’ve got a solid idea of what to expect from the Kraken 7.1. The headset employs Razer’s 7.1 virtual surround sound tech; PCWorld’s Alex Wawro checked out the standalone version of Razer Surround earlier this summer, and approved. It’s actually rather neat, though you’ll need to install Razer’s Synapse 2.0 software to tweak any settings—par for the course with most of Razer’s new wares. Synapse will let you calibrate the surround sound, a simple process that involves looking at a circular diagram that shows where sound is supposed to originate from, then shutting your eyes and tapping your arrow keys or scrolling your mouse wheel until the audio clip “lands” in the right place.

Now, you can’t simply plug in 7.1 surround sound gear and expect a world of difference. While every modern game is technically capable of spitting out environmental audio that’s cognizant of your position, you’ll get the best results from titles that are optimized with this sort of technology in mind. I’ve found that first-person shooters tend to take far more care with crafting 7.1-friendly experiences; fire up titles like Metro: Last Light, Dead Space 3 or Battlefield 3 for best results.

7.1 surround sound makes a big difference in the way you play atmospheric first-person shooters like Metro: Last Light.

These games do a heck of a job employing aural tricks to plant you in a particular place and inundating you with audio cues that tip you off to the baddies lurking around you. It's especially valuable during firefight—battles bolstered by 7.1 surround sound audio are an event unto themselves. Better players than me will take advantage of being able to hear those telltale footsteps, but even occasionally knowing a backstab is coming a second or two before I’m dead is its own little reward.

Little of this would matter if the headset sounded terrible. Thankfully, this headset does not sound terrible! The Kraken 7.1 delivers clear, rich audio in both games and music without missing a beat. Need more bass? A bass boost setting lets you tweak lower frequencies. Want to tweak your mic? A few sliders let you adjust your voice input settings and adjust the ambient noise reduction sensitivity. Tired of buzzwords and want to get down to brass tacks? Dive into the equalizer and fiddle to your hearts content. Everything sounds great, and you can make it sound greater still by mucking around in Synapse.

The tiny LED at the tip of the boom mic shuts off so you know it's been muted.

Voice input comes care of a digital boom microphone tucks neatly into the left ear cup, and sounds great. The mic sits on a flexible arm so you can adjust it to your heart’s content, and a tiny mute button sits on the end so you can chew that sandwich without disturbing your squadmates; pressing the button shuts off the LED at the tip of the mic, a brilliantly simple way of letting you know when you’re transmitting or not. The headset is also incredibly comfortable: the big, comfy ear cups wrap tightly around around my head, and while they won’t block out the outside world they will give you a cloistered audio experience—you’ll want to turn the volume down.

The Kraken 7.1 isn’t perfect. I always complain about wires, and this is a wired headset. But there’s a slight difference here. Many newer headsets bundle some sort of volume control gadget—the Plantronics Rig and Razer Tiamat both come equipped with a volume puck or brick that the headset plugs into. This leaves you with quite a bit of slack as you’ll only need to negotiate the distance between headset and puck, which will be within arms reach. The Kraken 7.1 needs to be plugged directly into your PC, which can be a hassle. In my case, that’s behind some monitors, around the back of my fairly large desk, and into the rear of my PC. If you’re gaming on a laptop, you’ll be fine. In my case I still had a fair amount of slack, but less than I’d like.

On a related note: mayhaps I’m spoiled, but it’s been years since I’ve used a headset that didn’t feature some kind of on-the-fly volume control, something the Kraken 7.1 is sorely lacking. The audio shortcut keys on my keyboard work in a pinch, but we don’t all have keyboards with loads of extra buttons on them.

I also ran into two technical issues. One was my own fault: my teammates complained that my voice sounded buzzy, as if I were transmitting from inside a hornet nest. I took a quick trip to the rear of my computer, switched USB ports and the problem was solved. The second issue was a bit odder—my review unit’s right earpiece is decidedly louder than the left. A quick trip to Windows’ volume mixer fixed the balance issue, but I’m still troubleshooting what the cause could be and lamenting that Razer’s Synapse serves up all sorts of bells and whistles, but doesn’t offer a simple Left-to-Right audio balance toggle.

So what are you paying for exactly? Truth be told, the Kraken 7.1 feels a lot like the original Kraken Pro ($80) with Razer’s surround sound technology baked into its configurator. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing—Razer Surround will start to cost $20 next year, so the Kraken 7.1 is essentially taking an updated version of existing hardware and bundling the software into the price.

Is the Kraken 7.1 worth $100? Sure. But if you already own a pair of stereo headsets you’re in love with, grab Razer’s Surround software instead. If you loathe wires, I’ve been rather smitten by the Creative Sound Blaster Tactic3D Rage ($90) for some time now, though it admittedly isn’t as comfortable. And if you’ve got even more cash to spend—as well as a sound card—get the Razer Tiamat, which is awesome. But if you’re right in the middle—demanding comfort, don’t mind wires, and want a solid 7.1 surround sound experience without spend beaucoup bucks—the Kraken 7.1 headset is an excellent choice.

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Plantronics' new Rig gaming headset lets you take phone calls without pausing the action

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Skullcandy PLYR 1 Gaming Headset

Pros Excellent sound quality. Strong bass. Optical audio passthrough. Charging base doubles as a stand for the headset when not in use.

Cons Can't offer true surround sound. Headset can feel slightly cheap compared to more high-end gaming headsets. Bottom Line The Skullcandy PLYR 1 gaming headset combines wireless performance, simulated surround sound, and flexible connectivity into a single attractive package.

By Will Greenwald

You can't get true surround sound in headphones. This makes designing gaming headsets tricky, when directionality can offer an edge. Fortunately, while true surround sound isn't possible in a headset, you can get a passable facsimile with stereo drivers and sophisticated audio processing. The Skullcandy PLYR 1 is the high-end upgrade to the mediocre PLYR 2 headset, sharing its design but adding 7.1-channel surround sound processing, optical passthrough, and a very handy charging base and receiver that doubles as a stand. While the surround effect can't be seen as "genuine," it comes close enough to make it compare favorably to the Razer Tiamat 7.1, last year's Editors' Choice wired headset. At $179.99 (direct) it costs as much as the Tiamat 7.1, but is completely wireless with a handful of tricks and design elements from the $300 Editors' Choice Astro Gaming A50. Astro Gaming and Skullcandy are the same company, and while the Skullcandy PLYR headsets don't quite have the same brand recognition among dedicated gamers, the PLYR 2 proves that Skullcandy is heading in the right direction while balancing affordability.

Design
The PLYR 1 headset itself is nearly identical to the PLYR 2's headset, but made with seemingly better materials. Instead of the glossy, smooth plastic covering the earcups and headband, the PLYR 1 uses a sturdier-feeling matte plastic that doesn't feel quite as cheap. A flip-down boom mic that can bend left or right sits on the left earcup. A four-direction switch that can adjust volume and balance between game and voice audio with a round power button next to it sit on the right earcup, and a small switch for choosing between Bass Mode (bass emphasis), Supreme Mode (flat balance), and Precision Mode (mid-high emphasis) sit on the edge of the cup. The headset feels very comfortable, fitting my large head well and covering my ears without crushing them.

The wireless receiver is no longer a simple plastic puck with only a few ports. Instead, it is a full headset stand with much more connectivity built into the neck and base. In addition to a mini-USB port for connecting to a computer, a USB port for connecting to the headset (it comes with two USB-to-mini-USB cables of different lengths for connecting both), and a 3.5mm audio port, the receiver features optical audio input and output so you can pass audio through to a soundbar or another device. The stand is very handy, since you can hang the headset against the receiver while it's charging and not in use. The optical audio connections are some of the biggest upgrades over the PLYR 2, since they allow a much higher fidelity audio connection to your computer or game system through one cable, can pass the audio through to your speakers so you don't have to juggle audio connections, and lets the receiver decode Dolby Digital 7.1-channel surround sound.

Surround Sound-Like
Like nearly all headphones that claim to offer surround sound, the PLYR 1 uses clever signal routing with its two drivers (one in each ear) to produce the impression of surround based on Dolby Digital 7.1 surround sound. It also uses Dolby Pro Logic IIx audio processing for non-digital sound (through the 3.5mm connection) to produce a similar surround-like impression, albeit from a stereo source. While this can produce a decent general sense of imaging and make the sound seem bigger and wider than the headphones appear to allow, they can't produce a true sense of directionality provided by a dedicated surround system.

Even for headsets that have discrete drivers for each surround channel, there simply isn't enough room in the earcups for surround sound to acoustically function, so you're left with a simulated version of surround regardless of what surround-equipped headset you use. The 7.1-channel decoding and headphone drivers can produce decent left, right, and center directionality with the PLYR 1, but you won't get a sense of anything "behind" you beyond some clever mixing to give that impression.

Performance
I played a few rounds of Team Fortress 2 with the PLYR 1, and it performed admirably. While the surround sound effect wasn't "genuine," it provided the slightest illusion that the Heavy firing his mini-gun behind me was actually behind me, thanks to a clever volume balancing effect that mixed the mini-gun sound more softly into the action of the front channels (produced by both cups firing simultaneously). The action was clear, loud, and powerful, and my grenades as a Demoman and rockets as a Soldier both had a satisfying thump to their explosions.

Gaming headsets aren't designed with music in mind. But they should be able to handle non-game audio at least somewhat capably, and the PLYR 1 satisfies on that account. With our bass test track, The Knife's "Silent Shout," the low synth notes got very loud without distorting, to the point that my ears began to vibrate uncomfortably at maximum volume without any noticeable crackle. The headset also worked very well for listening to television through my computer, and the latest episode of Dexter delivered crystal-clear dialogue through the PLYR 1, not to mention the visceral, creepy sound effects of the opening sequence I've come to appreciate.

The Skullcandy PLYR 1 headset is the significant performance and connectivity upgrade the PLYR 2 headset needed. It shares the same design, but it sounds better, supports optical audio passthrough, and even offers a passable faux-surround sound processing effect. Its $180 price tag is a bit hefty, but considering how much closer it comes to the Editors' Choice Astro A50 (made by the same company) in form and features at less than two-thirds the price, it stands as a great gaming headset if you're willing to spend the cash. If you don't want to pay nearly as much and can forego the wireless features in favor of a direct computer connection (and no console support), the Razer Kraken Pro is a much more economical choice.

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