@ About @

I bought this headset with my Xbox 360 console, it lets me talk to friends when online except for the times when it's not working. Since my purchase, i have bought another because the first one simply broke down. I had it for one year, then it died and at £6 per headset they aren't cheap to replace.

The good thing is the comfort of the headset, very lightweight and if you wear glasses like me, it doesn't get in the way or trap between your glasses and your head. The speaker has a small grey circular foam pad on it, and the microphone does too. Both come off incredibly easy so if you have small children, do watch out.

@ Sound Quality and Volume @

The first problem here is the actual volume of the microphones. The headset has a rolling piece of plastic at the end which slides to increase or decrease volume. For the first few centimetres you have to have super sonic hearing to hear what's being said and then towards the end the speaker gets louder, but then you can't increase the volume any more. I normally have the volume turned up full, and still can't hear some of my friends who don't have their microphone close up against their mouth.

The speaker has a very low quality sound and voices can sometimes sound muffled. Playing music down the microphone sounds very distorted and crackly, and shouting is even worse.

@ Microphone @

The microphone is a small ole on the end of a rubber stalk. The rubber stalk can be bent and moulded into any position you like, but be careful not to do this too often or the wire inside becomes weak, and that's what finally killed my first headset. The microphone can be switched onto either side of the headset depending on which side you prefer. For me I prefer left. To do this you just lift the microphone stalk up, turn it around and flip it back down. No clips or locks.

The microphone quality is good at close range but at far range it won't pick up your voice. The microphone has a complete mute which you can turn on and off to avoid talking to other players when someone in the room is being spoken to (handy) but the microphone mutes itself when it doesn't detect voice, and then unmutes itself when it does. This can be annoying for people with their microphones far away, or with a quiet voice.

@ Wear and Tear / Build Quality @

Over a year my first headset got use for at least 2 hours over week. May not seem like much but that adds up over time. During this time the wire that travels down from the headset to the controller started showing the silver metal inside, and soon after the microphone wire started to become weak and flimsy. Both sound and voice would cut out at the most inconvenient times. This was just because of the flexing from the wires through general day to day use.

@ Overall @

Not very well built headset, and for a bit extra money you can get some turtle beach headphones, or some mad cats ones which are better quality for sound, durability, and even two sides to the headset. And yes, my current headset is on its way out too, it's started making a buzzing noise from time to time.