Let me start this review by saying that I use my Xbox 360 A LOT...be it playing games, watching videos or keeping in touch with friends. Part of the reason I use it so much though is because I work shifts on a 24/7 rota and therefore I'm up at weird times of the day and off when everyone else is hard at work.

I first decided to buy a gaming headset when I was playing quite late one night and my girlfriend asked me to turn the TV down as it was keeping her awake. Obviously that wasn't fair on her, so I turned it down, but the game I was playing then lost it's atmosphere and I felt detached from the experience.

Queue a quick trip to my local Tesco where I picked up a pair of Turtle Beach Ear Force X11 for the princely sum of £39.99. On the shelf you could see they were decent quality due to the branding and packaging, so I handed over the money and went on my merry way.

Back home I hacked into the plastic blister packaging with the excitement of a 5 year old at Christmas (I was 27 when I bought these! lol)...true to form I managed to slice my finger on the plastic when doing so, which leads nicely onto my first bit of advice, take care when opening the packaging as it's pretty sharp.

With the finger cleaned up I set about getting my new headset connected up.

Immediately alarm bells were ringing in my head when I saw the 16ft length of cable, I have a very bad habit of letting cables get knotted up. My concern was alleviated somewhat when I saw the velcro cable tie as this enabled me to work out how much cable I needed and then neatly and securely keep the other length out of the way.

The headset is powered by USB so make sure you have one free before considering buying this, I suspect most people will have, but it's worthy of note as you'll not be able to use them without it!

As the headset is also PC compatible it's worth reading through the instructions supplied when connecting them up as there are a couple of ways of doing so and in true 'man' fashion I ignored the instructions until I made a mistake and then went back and made use of them.

It's worth noting that there is an Xbox 360 HDMI Audio adaptor that is supposedly required in order to use HDMI and a headset like these, but this isn't actually correct. Great news considering the official Xbox one is almost £15! Guides can easily found by searching on Google and YouTube for detailed instruction, but in my case I was able to keep my composite cable in my Xbox and still manage to fit the HDMI lead in...however, this may not be the case for everyone!

So, I'm all set up and on goes the Xbox - BOOM - the sound is incredible! I'm sure serious audiophiles will speculate over the sound quality, but when you've gone from standard TV/PC speakers to this headset you will be pleasantly surprised.

After about 15 minutes use I felt like I'd been missing out for months. Games I'd once played and enjoyed were suddenly enhanced, taken to an amazing new level of realism and you start to appreciate the effort developers put into the audio, effort that a large amount of gamers will never really appreciate unless they buy a headset.

That night I was on my Xbox for a good six hours and can honestly say these are very comfortable to wear. After about four hours they did become a little uncomfortable, but to be fair, playing for four hours solid isn't really wise anyway. Take regular breaks and I don't think there'll be too many people complaining about comfort.

Where this headset really shows it's worth is when playing online. Firstly the in-line amplifier enables you to separately adjust the volume of 'chat' and 'game'. Other headsets without this feature apparently make it difficult to get a good balance of sound, either leading to the in game sound drowning out the 'voice chat' or vice versa, thus compromising the overall experience. Another function on the in-line amplifier is the ability to mute the microphone, imperative if, like me, you occasionally have a coughing fit when playing...not something everyone else wants bellowing in their ear.

I've used the Turtle Beach Ear Force X11 for 9 months now and can happily report that the cables aren't knotted, the sound quality hasn't deteriorated and my friends can still hear me clearly when I'm talking on the microphone.

Although I paid £39.99 for mine, this was a competitive price at the time and I don't regret paying that for them. If you're considering buying these now then shop around as there are some great deals about. I recently saw them online for just £22.99 which is an absolute bargain.

For those of you who are adverse to wires, there are wireless options such as the Turtle Beach Ear Force X31 which retail around £65.

So in summary, a great headset for a reasonable price and one which keeps the peace at home. Value for money, without a doubt!

Open up the true experience of your games by buying this headset...I VERY much doubt you'll regret it.