The Earforce P21 from Turtle Beach (MSRP $79.95) solves one of the chief problems with microphones on the PS3. Now, we all know “that guy”. The guy whose mic is turned on and during an otherwise awesome session of Call of Duty or Killzone, you have to listen to the game the way he hears it. That’s because his mic is picking up his speakers so when he hears “UAV Online!” in a faintly amusing British accent, you hear it too. Don’t even get me started about the times when junior is told to turn off the game for dinner or when some guy with about as much rhythm as a block of cheese tries to start rapping during a game. But alas, I digress; no headset (except the magical kind), can solve that problem.

The Earforce deals with Sony’s decision to route the audio out through one channel and have the mic input come in on another. While this allows for a blue tooth mic and normal speakers, it also creates the above problem. So, what Turtle Beach did was create two connectors on the Earforce P21, a set of RCA jacks which go inline with your normal audio connection (if you’re using HDMI or Optical, you’re sitll in luck, keep reading) and a USB connector which plugs into the front of your PS3. With an included USB extension cable, it all manages to work.

Before I go on, when I originally received the package from Turtle Beach, I spotted a problem right away. I have my audio going out through the HDMI port and into an amplifier to then go out to the surround sound speakers. If I wanted to use the headphones, I would have to manually switch the audio output device to the headphones and back to HDMI each time (same for optical). As such, I dawdled on writing this review and in the interim, Sony added a feature to the firmware where you can route audio out through two sources. Your surround sound drops from 7.1 to 5.1 which, given there are people who would kill for even 5.1, is not a huge sacrifice to make. Of course the headphones are only 2 channel so there’s no surround sound there but that’s the case with most headphones.

The magic for this capability is under the Audio Settings menu and is the second option, multiple channel output. So now, I keep the headphones plugged in at all times – if I want to use them, I mute the receiver. If I’m blasting the audio out the normal system, just mute the mic if not using it and no switching on the menu is necessary.

So once I had that all figured out, I fired up the headphones and mic with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Before even firing up the game, there was a noticeable hiss in the headphones which other reviews have mentioned as well. Once the game was started, this didn’t bother me at all as it’s not like you’re at the symphony or anything. The audio quality was good and the headset was quite comfortable to wear. It wasn’t too heavy and kept out outside sounds pretty well. The mic is easy to move out of the way and position and seemed to pick up my wicked trash talk just fine “Oh yeah, I’m gonna so, uhh, hurt you!!!”.

The amplifier has more switches than your average nuclear sub but that’s a good thing. You have separate audio controls for chat volume including the ability to mute your bad self, audio volume, bass boost, and something called “expander” which is supposed to make the audio sound like you’re in a bigger room. This did add a noticeable amount of hiss even during the game so I left it off and was none the worse for wear. One other cool feature is Chat Boost which will boost the volume of the chat from the game along with the game volume. This way comrade Bob’s command to go snuff the machine gun nest will not get drowned out as comrade Bill’s screams of pain resonate as his limbs are severed from his body.

Overall, I was impressed with the combo. My only complaint was the noticeable hiss but these are mid grade headphones. As such, I’d give them an 80/100.

The headset can be ordered from Amazon, Newegg, or other fine retailers.

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