World of Warcraft Wireless headset review 3 comments Subscribe Subscribe

Manufacturer: Creative Labs
Platform: Windows PC, MAC

Minimum System Requirements

OS: WinXP, Vista, 7, or Mac OS X 10.5
Processor: Pentium 4 1.66 Ghz or faster
Memory: 512MB
USB: 1.1 or 2.0

Recommended:
Processor: Core 2 Duo
Memory:1 GB

The Creative Labs World of Warcraft Wireless headset delivers some of the best audio and comfort you can experience in a PC gaming headset, topped off with wireless freedom and a little WoW-themed ‘bling’ in a near-perfect package.

The package

Creative’s WoW headset comes with a 2.4GHz Wireless USB sound device, a detachable microphone, and a host of extras: a micro USB charging cable, 2 extra ear cup lenses for the glowing LED ear cups, and a small flathead screwdriver for switching out the lenses. A soft leather travel bag for the headset is also included.

Installation

Installation is fairly straightforward, although before you can do much of anything you’ll need to charge the headset (with the included micro-USB cable) for 8 hours. While the headset is charging, however, you can download the drivers from Creative Labs Web site and install them on your computer. Future charging sessions should take no more than 4 hours for a maximum charge.

Once the headset is charged and the drivers are installed, you just need to insert the included 2.4 GHz wireless USB sound device into a USB 1.1 or 2.0 port on your PC. The sound device is about half again as long as the average thumb drive (about 3 inches long).

After the USB device is connected, you can power on the headset, and then press and hold a ‘connect’ button for about 3 seconds to pair the headset with the USB device, and you’re good to go. Almost.

Configuration

After you install the headset, to get the most out of the THX surround sound you’ll want to run the Creative Audio Control Panel. For some odd reason, all of the special audio effects that help the headset deliver its outstanding audio default to OFF when the headset is first installed.

You may also need to run your Sound applet from the Windows Control Panel, and set the headset as your default audio device. Unfortunately, Creative’s software doesn’t offer any elegant, single-click method for doing this—something worth considering in a software update.

Features

The Creative Labs World of Warcraft Wireless headset features glowing, pulsating, customizable LED ear cups. which can be adjusted from the WoW-themed audio control panel.

The headset includes 2 sets of lenses: Horde and Alliance. The audio control panel allows you to specify virtually any LED color, or even make the headset LEDs cycle through a range of colors. It’s neat for the ‘bling’ factor, but useless otherwise.

Similar to the Logitech G35 USB headset, the Creative WoW headset offers voice-masking/altering technology. The WoW headset offers a range of WoW-inspired voice options, including male and female variants for human, orc, gnome, blood elf, and others. Tauren, for some reason, are strangely absent, but Creative said they plan to offer more voices in the future—so we’ll probably see Cataclysm’s Worgen and Goblins represented at some point too.
Creative’s Wireless WoW headset also includes a few software goodies, including an audio file converter, and Creative’s ALchemy, a program to enable EAX effects in DirectSound games when run under Windows Vista.

Audio Quality

Despite some minor foibles of installation and configuration, the Creative’s WoW headset offers truly outstanding, thundering, crystal clear audio. Although initially a little skeptical that a wireless system could deliver great audio, that skepticism quickly disappeared.

Even thought the headset is targeted at World of Warcraft players, I prefer to test out surround sound headsets in Left 4 Dead 2, a game in which directional surround sound is actually useful. Sure enough, I was able to clearly and accurately discern the general direction or location of hiding boomers, crying witches, and other infected. (You have to almost feel sorry for PC gamers still playing with a standard stereo headset.)

The WoW headset sounds fantastic and offers some of the best PC gaming audio I’ve experienced. Whether you’re listening to tunes, a game, or watching a movie, this headset can make the little hairs on the back of your neck stand up and send shivers down your spine. (That’s a good thing.)

In addition, the comfortable, soft leather-lined ear cups do an excellent job of suppressing external noise from ruining the experience.

Ergonomics

The overall ergonomics and design of the WoW headset are good, but there is room for improvement. Comfort is generally excellent, courtesy of its soft, thick leather-lined ear cups and a similarly cushioned headband. The ear cups also swivel left and right, and can extend a couple inches to accommodate different head sizes.

The controls, on the other hand, aren’t as good as they could be. Large volume control buttons are located on the outer portion of the left ear cup, but they aren’t easily distinguished by touch, making it easy to turn the volume up instead of down, or vice-versa. A blue-glowing power button sits behind the detachable Microphone, and a mute button sits in front of the microphone.

The mute button glows red when the microphone is muted, but you can’t see the glowing red light, so you have take the headset off and look at it. Creative could learn from Logitech’s G35 headset—its microphone tip glows red so you can see when it’s muted. I also like the SteelSeries Siberia V2′s retractable microphone. Both the G35 and the Siberia V2 offer better microphone solutions, and don’t put you at risk for losing the microphone.

Overall

Although Creative’s World of Warcraft Wireless USB headset could use a few minor improvements in its driver software and ergonomics, the headset offers some of the best sound available in a PC gaming headset. Add to that outstanding comfort and wireless freedom, and you’ve got an easy recommendation.

All of that audio quality and Warcraft ‘bling’, however, comes at a relatively steep $160 (compared to the Logitech G35 at $110, and the Siberia V2 at around $90). If you want to save a little money, you can also buy a wired, USB version of the World of Warcraft headset for $120. But if you’ve got the money for the Wireless version, you won’t be disappointed.

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[All images by Creative Labs. Headset provided by Creative Labs.]