Life is hard for married gamers. Play too little and you begin to get the shakes, but play too much and you can subtract the 'married' from the equation. Jumping onto Live as soon as your starts counting sheep is never quite as easy as it sounds. Games at their best with the sound cranked up, but keeping your wife awake with the sound of shotgun shells will often leave you with an angry spouse that makes bloodthirsty Locusts seem tame. Vibras' new Five.One Headset is the official Xbox 360 solution for all your late-night gaming woes. The headset is the married gamer's dream come true, providing the ability to play games as loudly as you want in full 5.1 Dolby Surround while your spouse sleeps soundly; so long as you can keep your excitement in check.
Most importantly, the sound is fantastic and rich. With five speakers aimed at each ear, it certainly should be. The headset delivers impressively deep and accurate audio, allowing you to quickly and easily discern where enemies are coming from. In fact, the sound may be a bit too good for games with artificially creepy ambiences. Left 4 Dead, for example, dishes out stock zombie groans all around you, regardless of whether or not there are any actual zombies there. The headset does show off how well the game handles the in-game voice work from characters, making it easy to tell where Zoey is when she starts complaining about her latest injury. The directions of the special infected's groans are easy to pick out among the gunshots and chatter, giving you a decided advantage. Testing the headset with various games both online and off, it performed beautifully. Hearing a locust attempting to flank you, or the direction of gunfire in Halo, will make you a better gamer. The separate levels for center and subwoofer volume allow you to compensate for overly bass-heavy soundtracks and titles that are more atmospheric alike.
The system is easy to set up, but the wired setup will definitely leave its mark on your room. A single optical wire connects from the back of the 360 to the sound decoder box, which is about the size of a small paperback book. From there, things get a little hairy. A separate cord plugs powers the box, while a three-channel wire goes from the bottom of the box to your headset. Those looking to chat online get another cord, still; with a mic that clips onto the left side of the headset and connects to your controller. The good news is that the cords are sufficiently long, giving you plenty of space to kick back far enough from your console and TV. If the cords sound unwieldy, they are. When it is all set up, the box and its sprawling cords like a daddy long legs stretched to its limits. Leaving the headset plugged into the wall and your console when not in use can be a hazard to your wife, and your marriage, with plenty of cords strewn about to trip over. Still, the sound quality and functionality makes up for the clunky setup. The headset design is solid, holding perfectly without being too snug or uncomfortable, despite the lack of a cushioned crossbar and standard foam covers for the speakers.
For gaming over Live, the headset shows a few drawbacks. Firstly, the separate mic attachment uses two AAA batteries, even though it plugs into the 360 controller. The mic itself is rather stubby, barely making it to the side of your cheek; though it is more of a cosmetic issue, since it picks up your voice fine. Though the game sound is non-existent for your sleeping beauty in the next room, talking over the headset takes a little getting used to. The in-game sound is so full in your ears that you have trouble recognizing how loudly you need to speak, since you cannot hear yourself through the speakers. The largest problem with the mic attachment is the placement of the mute and volume controls. Those used to quickly flicking the mute with their thumb may find its placement several inches away the controller a deal breaker, but they are at least closer than the similarly designed chat-pad mic. It does take a few games to set the separate chat and game volumes at acceptable levels, for those used to having only gamer voices in their ear, but the headset does a nice job with both sets of audio. Gamers with additional systems will be pleased to find that that headset works just fine with a PS3, or any other device with an optical output. The lack of chat for other systems is not a very large issue, given the general lack of mics for other online services.
In the end, Vibras' Five.One Headset performs well enough to forgive how ugly it is when stretched across your living room. The $199 price tag is a bit high for a wired system, but if you have gift cards saved up, or can find it on sale, it is worth the extra full-volume gaming time it will grant you.
Final Score: 8.6/10
Check out more information on the Vibras Five.One headset by heading over to the official website.
