titleA few weeks ago we took a look at the Asus ROG Xonar Phoebus audio card. Asus, with its Xonar brand, has made a big name for themselves in the audio card market. When it comes to things to attach to their sound cards, they are a little less known. They really introduced a new gaming headset with built in Active Noise Canceling. When I hear about this, I couldn’t help but think about all of the times I’ve been at a LAN and wished I could cutout the hum of 100+ gaming PCs. Because of that I jumped at the chance to take a closer look. How will the active noise canceling work out in a gaming headset?

Product Name: Asus Vulcan ANC

Review Sample Provided by: Asus

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes


Specifications

Driver

Driver Diameter : 40 mm

Frequency Response

Headphone : 10 ~ 20000 Hz

Impedance

32 Ohm

Noise Cancelling Performance

Active : 
Maximum > 15 dB
85 % ambient noise cancellation
Passive : 
Maximum > 30 dB

Operation Time

Listen Time (per charge) : Up to 40 Hours

Dimensions

21 x 18 x 7 cm

Weight

325 g

Accessories

Carrying case
User Guide



Packaging

Much like other Republic of Gaming products, the Vulcan ANC came in a red and black box. On the cover you have a photo of the Vulcan ANC taking up a good portion of the packaging. You of course have the product name in large letters, but under that they have featured its most notable feature, the active noise canceling. The front opens up to a window that show the Vulcan ANC’s carrying case. Around back there are more details on the active noise canceling including a graph showing what frequency’s the ANC will remove. You also have a full specification listing on the back, this is important when comparing model to model in a retail environment.

Inside the box everything other than the warranty book and quick start guide is inside of the carrying case for you already. Beyond the headset itself you get the detachable microphone, a detachable cord, and a two prong adapter for in-flight entertainment systems on some airplanes.

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Audio Quality and Comfort

Comfort – Being a big fan of over the ear headphones I was excited to see how comfortable the Vulcan ANC’s would be. Putting them on, right away I was happy that the oval shaped ear cups fit over my ears perfectly, sometimes an oval design will be a little tight on the sides. The benefit to an oval design when it does fit correctly like the Vulcan ANC’s is that they end up being much smaller meaning less weight. That is the case this time as well, the weight of the Vulcan ANC’s isn’t bad at all considering the additional weight that the active noise canceling ads.

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Another feature of the Vulcan ANC’s that helps with their comfort level is both ear cups pivot both up and down as well as left and right. This allows each ear to have a good contact without requiring too much pressure on the ears. In fact because of the shape I had no pressure on my ears at all. My last concern with comfort had to do with the Vulcan ANC’s top band. Asus went with a solid top band over the floating spring loaded style that I prefer (a good example of this would be the Siberia from Steel Series). This doesn’t have to be a bad thing if it is implemented properly, but if not it can be uncomfortable. In the case of the Vulcan ANC I was actually very comfortable with the top band. They went with a very thick and soft design that when paired with the headsets overall weight, didn’t put much pressure on my head.

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Active Noise Canceling- Being my first experience with active noise canceling I was very curious how well it would perform in my noisy office. Believe it or not but the PC’s in the office don’t put out the better part of the noise. Our network switch has a loud fan that is constantly running next to my desk as well as actually having to run a second air conditioner due to the heat outputted by the PC’s all of the time.  On top of all of that, my office faces a busy highway as well, meaning lots of road noise, especially when it rains. I found that the second I flip the switch and turn on the ANC that all of this outside noise does go away. It’s actually very impressive, the last time it was this quiet in my office was when our power was out for almost a week after a bad storm.  As impressive as the ANC was, there was one major side effect. The ANC requires an adjustment period to get used to. As soon as you turn it on you will feel a slight pressure that for some can be uncomfortable. My wife for example couldn’t handle it for anything more than a short period of time. Adam on the other hand hardly noticed the pressure at all. So it’s obviously very dependent on the person’s threshold.

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Ludwig van Beethoven - Für Elise – This is an extremely quiet song in the first place. I was curious how the active noise canceling would work with it due to that. I found that the Vulcan’s sounded good and in line with the Corsair Vengence 2000’s with a little less bass. When I flipped the switch and kicked on the active noise canceling all of the background noise in the song went away. I don’t mean what is around in the room, but also the background noise due to this being a very old recording. This took away some of the songs flavor, but at the same time made it easier to listen to as well due to its quiet nature.

Bone Thugs N' Harmony - Tha Crossroads – With this songs massive lows I was curious how the Vulcans would handle it, specifically the active noise canceling. Without the ANC the bass was rattling with the volume turned up. Flipping the switch cut out that head rattling bass for a cleaner output. If all you heard was the ANC version you would love it, but flipping between the two the difference is huge. With any song like this I doubt I would run the ANC unless I needed it due to being on a flight or something similar.

Eric Clapton - Rush (Soundtrack) - 10 - Tears In Heaven – Much like the previous song we tested with. Turning on the Vulcan’s Active Noise Canceling cut out a noticeable amount of the bass in the song. Just like before, the song sounded amazing, but having experienced the additional bass of the non-ANC, I would drop the ANC when listening to my Clapton. Beyond that, the mids and highs sounded amazing the entire time!

Nat King Cole & Natalie – Unforgetable – Much like Für Elise, Unforgetable lost the pop and crackle and noise from the original recordings when I turned on the active noise canceling. In this case, I preferred the active noise canceling over the original. There was a little less bass, but the song seemed to benefit from it in this case.

Star Trek 2009 – I was really worried when going into this test after experiencing the lack of bass in the previous tests with the active noise canceling on. This movie has a lot of bone rattling moments, especially in the first section of the movie. Shockingly with and without the ANC the Vulcans sounded amazing. This time around we didn’t lose the bass that makes the audio on this movie so amazing. I would run the ANC for movies like this, simply to cut out the noise from my office in the background.

In Game – Much like the movie testing, the in game testing didn’t give me any loss of bass while testing. The active noise canceling cut out the background noise that sometimes can pull your focus out of game. I’m confident now that I could easily game through any less important situations like a zombie apocalypse or a fire. Thank god for that really, I have a lot of gaming to catch up on!

The Microphone – The last thing you think of when looking into a new headset is its microphone. Out of sight out of mind right? It’s important that you be able to adjust your microphone to get it into a position that works well for you and you need for your teammates to be able to head you correctly. I was a little iffy about the Vulcan’s microphone for adjustment. You do get some adjustment and you can even remove it, but I have become used to having the ability to put your microphone away when you aren’t using it and in this case, without removing it all together, you are stuck. As for microphone audio quality, I did have to do a little adjusting at first; my output with this microphone was a little low in vent. But once adjusted the quality was on par with everything else on the market.

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Overall and FV

I really had no idea what to expect when we got the Vulcan ANC in. Of the countless headsets we have tested, none of them have had active noise canceling like the Vulcan ANC. Because of that, testing was interesting. As a normal headset, the Vulcan was amazing in just about every regard. It is very comfortable and sounds amazing. My only complaint there was with the microphone not being able to tuck away without having to remove it all together. With the active noise canceling turned on we did run into a few issues. In some cases, specifically the songs we tested with. There was a noticeable difference in bass levels with and without the ANC. This is a gaming headset, so this isn’t a deal breaker, but for those of you looking at it, it is something to keep in mind. The active noise canceling was also a little uncomfortable for some people, but not all people. If you haven’t used ANC before, you may want to test it out in a store if you can.

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The active noise canceling did an amazing job cutting out the background noise here in our noisy office. That is even with the semi-truck noise in the background, very impressive! As I said in our in game testing, I felt like I could easily game through the apocalypse without anything pulling my focus out of game. For some this alone is a perfect reason to pick these up. I can only imagine how much nicer it would be to put these to use when your sister or daughter is having friends over for a sleepover for example.

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Asus really did something different with the Vulcan ANC. You really have to give them credit for stepping out of the normal comfort zone and creating a product that sets itself out in an already very crowded market.

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Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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garfi3ld replied the topic: #28154 03 Oct 2012 15:39
Asus's Vulcan ANC headset with Active Noise Canceling

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