Ear Force X12 Gaming Headset and Amplified Stereo Sound

I was in the market for a new headset for my PC, and was very impressed with the demos of the Turtle Beach products I found at a gaming convention. Since I got a very good first impression I decided to try out the X12 since it was reasonably priced and still sounded great out of the ones I demo'd.

The pros of this are easy. It's a very comfortable headset (for my small head at least). Nowhere does it pinch or squeeze awkwardly - the padding on the headband and ear cups makes this great to wear for long periods of time. I was also happy with the way the ear cups are shaped. Turtle Beach really takes into consideration the actual shape of your ear, hence the "no squeezing" I experienced that I have with other headsets.

As for sound, I admit I'm not terribly picky as long as the product doesn't sound like it's coming from a tin can and can put out decent base. This meets that and then some. I hear a lot more clarity from both my games and my music.

Another minor thing but is also nice is the length of the cord. Some headsets I had to get extensions for to run them through the back of my desk to keep cords out of the way, but you will not have that problem here at all.

The big con, and Turtle Beach does not tell you this on their product page, is that the microphone monitoring absolutely cannot be disabled or turned off on the X12 unless you mute the mic which of course renders you unable to speak in voice chat. I tried their solution for the PC to try and resolve this but to no avail. The solution they offer will not work, at least on Windows 7.

I wish I knew their "solution" would fail miserably beforehand, because I absolutely despise hearing myself speak and being forced to listen to other sounds that pop up in my computer room. For me this is actually very distracting, so much so that I am returning this and knocking off two stars. There should be a function on ALL of their headsets, not just a select few, that enable you to turn off this "feature." This could have been an amazing product for my needs, but that microphone monitoring completely killed the deal.

Edit: Customer service with Turtle beach has been quite... interesting. When providing feedback that all their headsets should have the option to disable the microphone monitoring, the response I got back was basically "Well we have it on these OTHER (very much out of my price range) headsets! So there!" Very unhelpful, TB. Very unhelpful.

I'm pretty sure that there are better headsets for the xbox out there - but not at this price, and especially not if you get it on sale.

I had been using an earlier Turtle Beach headset - I think it was the X1, and this is am improvement in several ways from that model, and I only paid slightly more for it years later. (I paid $30 for the X1 about 4 years back, and $40 for the X12, both on sale)

Compared to the X1: significantly better audio with better range and less hiss, larger earcups (the smaller earcups of the X1 were a problem for me before, as I'm adult with a large head and large ears), nicer styling, more comfortable headband, pass-through audio so I can actually hear myself speak normally without unconsciously raising my voice, and the plug that goes into the controller is fully detachable and no longer has that ridiculous 'puck' that previously contained chat audio dial (it's now wit the other in-line controls). This last thing means one could use any 3.5mm male/male audio cable as a replacement without concern for losing volume control.

There are a few downsides:

One is that it doesn't seem to play nice with my Razer Onza tournament controller (wired) - as vibrations from the rumble seem to create a lot of unpleasant noise for my XBL friends.

Another, related thing is that the microphone seems to be hyper-sensitive, with no way to adjust it. I can turn down audio input, but not my output.

As with all Turtle Beach wired headsets (and most of the competition, AFAIK), there is a mess of wires that can't be avoided. This is not really the fault of any company but Microsoft, as they opted to not allow for a simple system like the Sony wireless stereo headset employs, or even Bluetooth or USB audio compatibility. There should be a way for chat audio to not be so dependent on being routed via the controllers, as it places a burden on the controllers that must be alleviated by a secondary power source when it comes to a larger stereo headset like this. I've long found it ironic that Sony makes superior hardware, but has horrible software design and a lousy social network (this software design issues has really hurt many major Japanese companies), while Xbox has the superior social networking (though you pay for it) but significantly inferior hardware IMO. There is no one console that does both well.

Great Mic For PC & Amazing Sound!
The Mic Is Also Not TO Bad On Xbox 360 Which Is My Main Use For It