Photos and Features
Really the only way to take in everything about the Strix 7.1 is to break split things up. First I’m going to take a look at the base station that the headset hooks up too. This is the headsets audio card and also how you control all of your audio settings.
Asus went with an oddly shaped hexagon design for the base station. Three of the six sides are shorter and have the rubber/plastic legs that wrap around from the bottom up to the top. They leave a small gap between the side of the base but touch on the top and bottom. For connections we have three, on the right side there is a USB and then an HDMI and on the left a second HDMI. The USB connection gets both power and a data connection to your PC via a special USB cable with two standard USB plugs on the end. The choice to go with HDMI for the audio connections is interesting though. The right side HDMI plug lets you hook the Strix 7.1 up to whatever you use for speakers on your PC. Then on the left side, that HDMI plug is for the headset itself. This way you can run all of your audio through the Strix 7.1 but then flip it to your speakers any time you want with the push of a button.
On the bottom we can see that the three legs have rubber pads on each to help keep the base from moving around on your desk. Here we also have all of the requires certification logos as well as the model number and serial numbers. What I didn’t originally see until very late in my testing was the tiny switch in the indented area. This turns on and off Asus’s ENC or environmental noise cancellation. In other words it uses a microphone on the base and then tunes out noise that is picked up from your room or office so when you use your microphone it only picks up your voice, not just your new mechanical keyboard.
The top and front of the base is where most of the action is though. Here we have two knobs, on top is a large knob and then on the front one about half the size of the top. On the front the knob is labeled with all of the different 7.1 speakers like front, rear, side, ect. You will also find options like the microphone, spectrum, and lighting. Depending on what mode the front knob is set to the top knob functions differently. So for all of the different 7.1 speakers you can turn that individual speaker set up or down or if you press the top knob in it will turn it off all together. Then of course the main volume works the same way as well as the microphone option. It’s really the lighting and spectrum options that are a little weird. With the lighting there are just the two options (breathing and all on) that you can select other than pressing the knob in and turning the lighting completely off. For the spectrum, here you can flip through a few different gaming audio modes. You have one that highlights gunfire in game or another that highlights footsteps. Then you have an action/RPG mode and a racing mode.
To get the headset connected to the base, like I mentioned before the cord uses an HDMI connection at the end. The cord itself isn’t super long because they expect you to have the base sitting on your desk near you. The cord does have a sleeving on it to add a little extra protection as well.
It wasn’t until I sat the trix 7.1 down that I noticed the actual headset shape was deigned to look like their owl Strix logo. Especially the eyes inside of the clear side panels. That said the shape isn’t far off from standard headsets, but I should say that this headset is large. This is most likely due to having to fit a proper 7.1 setup inside, but right away I could tell that people with smaller heads might have issues with the Strix 7.1.
Each of the earcups has its tinted side panel that lets you peak inside and see the 40mm sub driver as well as one other magnet. The window has the Strix branding on it as well. The whole point with the window though is to be able to see the orange lighting inside the earcups.
On the bottom edge of the left earcup, near where the audio cable comes in, it a plug for the detachable microphone. The microphone plug is slightly side of the headset and has a rectangle shape so that when you plug it in it stays plugged in and can’t spin around and pop out. I have seen this with past headsets that go with a detachable microphone, so it is good to see that Asus is keeping that in mind. The microphone itself is flexible to help get it into the right position though.
In the areas that actually make contact with you when you wear the Strix 7.1 Asus has gone with leather and a nice padding. The top strap is suspended with the rest of the top arch being plastic. You can hardly see it but the top of the suspended strap actually has the Strix logo on it as well. The pads on the top strap are a little thin, but hopefully they aren’t needed at all, some suspension headsets are able to get away with no padding at all on the strap but the size and weight of the Strix 7.1 might make that harder to do. For the earcups you get a nice wide cup that should go around anyone’s ear and a thick padding to keep things up off your ear from the inside. Then for a little styling the inside of the earcup is covered in an orange fabric to match the orange lighting of the headset.
