Turtle Beach are well renowned for their high quality gaming headsets and recently the have upgraded their range of headset for the Xbox 360. I have had the opportunity to try one these upgraded models and I have to say I'm very impressed.
Now the headset I have tested is the Turtle Beach X11, which is the new upgraded model of Turtle Beach's best selling headset, the X1. Now I have two Turtle Beach headsets already, the P21 for Playstation 3 and I have the X1 headset itself, both have been top quality and have served me well since I got them, so as you can guess I was really interested to give the new X11's a try and see how they fared to the P21 and the X1 in terms of quality.
Without even removing the X11 from its packaging I could say it has received a makeover from the X1. But looks can be deceiving so I was eager to get the headset set up and ready to go. Now I have set these headsets up with my TV and consoles in the past so I knew what I was doing, but if your unsure then there is a hand leaflet with he headset that explains what to do. Also you can log on to the Turtle Beach website as they have guide videos on how to set these headsets up also.
So with the headset set up, I turned on my Xbox 360 and TV to give them a try. First thing I noticed as soon as I put the X11's on was just how comfy they are. Now the P21 and X1 headsets are extremely comfy but nowhere near as comfy as the X11's. Also while my 360 was sat on the dashboard I just reeled a few random words off my tongue to test out the voice playback function that the X11 now has, something that the X1 didn't and I have to say it worked perfectly. I was able to talk away yet still hear the level of my voice clearly so I was talking too loud, this is a feature that I grew to love with it being part of the P21 headset and its great that Turtle Beach have included it with the X11.
Now lets gets to the how X11 fared with the sound quality. First thing I did was pick a friend from my Xbox Live friends list and send a random message. I recorded the message and then played it back to see how clear I was. I must say that I came through very clear on my headset, on with adjustable chat volume I was able to come through clearer if I cranked it up. But sending a message isn't a good way to gauge how well the chat sound is so I invited a friend into an Xbox Live chat party. After a few minutes of chatter in which my friend came through very clearly, I told him that I was using my new X11 headset and asked him how clear I sounded to him, to which he replied “You actually sound a lot clearer than you usually do”.
So from here I decided to fire up a game and see how the gaming audio was. I played the game which was sitting in my 360 which at the time was Blur. I took the time during the start up menus to tweak the gaming audio to a sound level that was quite comfortable and then decided to test it out during a few online races. Maybe 20 – 30 seconds into the first race and I was sold, the X11 sounds fantastic, I could hear every little detail of audio, something I'm already used with both the P21 and X1 but hearing the game sound for the first time through the X11 was a really great moment.
Unfortunately not a lot of people were talking while I was playing Blur and I really wanted to test both game and chat audio at the same time so I decided to try an old faithful and put Modern Warfare 2 into the disc tray. Again the game audio blew me away with this one, it really was excellent. And thankfully people were chatting away so I got to test both audio sets out. It was only here that I encountered a really small problem and that was tweaking the chat volume and chat volume dials just until you find that balance so that you can hear both clearly without one drowning out the other. Thankfully this only took me only a matter of seconds and before I knew it my full concentration was back at the game, feeling really immersed in the action thanks to the X11.
I also wanted to test the headset with a single player game because this wasn't something I have done with my P21 and X1 headsets, so I decided to play some Alpha Protocol. I was actually more impressed with this headset in a single player game that I was with an online one. I felt really immersed in the game thanks to the game sound and it made playing a single player game more enjoyable. I will definitely from now play most of my single player games using one of Turtle Beach headsets if possible, the X11 really did make it a more enjoyable experience.
So Overall I'm really impressed with the X11 headset just I have been impressed with the P21 and X1 headsets in the past. Its great to see the X1 upgraded with some new features and just that little bit of extra quality on all fronts. The only downsides being the X11 is wired and of course that tweaking I had to do to get a good balance between chat and game volume, the latter being a problem that the P21 doesn't have as it comes with a chat boost function which increases the chat volume to suit the game audio. But these were two very minor problems, to be fair the fact the headset is wired doesn't bother me at all but it may bother others but I guess if the wire does bother you then you can always purchase either the X31 or X41 headset for your Xbox 360 which are both wireless. Unfortunately there isn't a wireless Turtle Beach headset for Playstation 3 at the moment.
If you have an Xbox 360 and you want a quality and reasonably priced gaming headset then I really cant recommend the X11 's enough, they really are top quality and I for one will be using them every chance I get.
A very solid 9/10 from me.
