When it comes to headsets, just about every company you can imagine makes their own. You can find them in all different shapes and with countless features. That said I can’t honestly say that anything out on the market is the end all be all gaming headset. That is because everything about them is subjective. That said when a company like Asus puts out what they market as a high end gaming headset, I take notice. In just about everything they do they do an amazing job, especially on the audio front. So when the Asus Strix 7.1 gaming headset came in I couldn’t wait to test it out.

Product Name: Asus Strix 7.1 Gaming Headset

Review Sample Provided by: Asus

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

Amazon Link: HERE

Packaging

The packaging for the Strix 7.1 has a black background with a fade to white. On the front they did slip in a photo of the side of the headphones along with the base station as well. Both are lit up to show off the lighting. This helps set this model apart quickly from the other Asus Strix headsets. Up on the top you have the Strix logo with the Strix owl look. Down along the bottom are a few key features with small icons that represent each feature. Along the side Asus did include a full specification listing, something I would like to see other companies do.

The front of the packaging opens up to a bright orange interior with the Strix owl eyes. The headset and all of the accessories sit in a formed tray with a clear plastic covering everything. The headset sits in the top tray and then up under that tray you will find the microphone, base, wiring, and documentation.

For the documentation you get a warranty document and a user manual. For cables you get a USB power cable with a double USB end to hook the Strix 7.1 up to your computer and for power and the second cable has an HDMI end and a few audio plugs to hook the Strix 7.1 into your speakers.

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.

Audio Quality and Comfort

So for my testing I ran with the Strix 7.1 at my main PC. This is the same PC that I do a good portion of my writing on as well as all of my gaming and anything in between. This means at times I was listening to music, watching TV shows or movies, and also gaming. That gave me a good variety of ways to test out the Strix 7.1 and plenty of extended sessions to test comfort. For microphone testing I spent some time listening to it myself as well as subjective testing in the LanOC Teamspeak server with others.

So to start things off lets go over the overall usability. First off, I am a huge fan of having a volume control right on your desk rather than having to tab out and change your audio settings in windows. Add to that being able to mute your audio or your microphone quickly as well. If you hook your speakers up to the base you can also quickly flip your audio back and forth between the headset and your speakers. Basically, when using this you should almost never need to dig into your windows audio settings for anything.

Over the time I tested the Strix 7.1 I had a good chance to use them from extended gaming sessions. This is where you can really tell how comfortable a headset is, because even a small issue becomes a big issue hours later. My initial thoughts on the Strix 7.1 when I first tried them on was that they were comfortable but big, bulky, and heavy. The top suspension strap was especially concerning for me though because when it moved at all it creaked, add that to a few creaks and noises when you move the headset I wasn’t impressed with the build quality of the headset. Once you get the headset on it didn’t really move around too much, but when it did you really notice it.

While the headset was comfortable early on, the weight and size of the headset did get to me a little in extended sessions, I felt a little pressure up top and the sealed earcup design also let things get a little warm after some use. This is a problem that I run into with most headsets, typically I just pull one earcup off at a time to cool down. But the Strix 7.1 is so large that it doesn’t have any flexibility to let you pull an earcup off. This concerns me more for people who will pull an earcup off when someone is talking to them for example though. Overall the Strix 7.1 wasn’t the most comfortable headset I have used, but it is better than some. Having full sized earcups alone is enough to put it above anything with earcups that press on your ears.

For audio testing, like I mentioned before I tested the Strix 7.1 in a wide variety of situations. For gaming I had the chance to play in a few different games, especially the recently introduced GTA V. When using the Strix 7.1  in game I was impressed with the directionality and audio quality in game. Toying with the different game settings did highlight gunshots and footsteps when set to those modes. The Strix 7.1 was obviously designed for in game use and it performed well. But how about when I was out of game? Well when watching movies the directionality was helpful but the overall audio quality was a little weak. When going into music testing this became a lot more obvious. When playing a few bass intensive songs I noticed that I would get a lot of distortion. Even with the volume turned down the audio performance when listening to music was less than exciting, flat, and lacked any punch. This isn’t a huge surprise, all of the space that 7.1 and similar headsets take up take away the valuable space needed for big drivers that are needed to get the best music performance.

The microphone on the Strix 7.1 was interesting. Initially I was really concerned with it. The quality was a little iffy and the microphone was so sensitive that it would pick up my breath all of the time unless I tucked the microphone all the way under my chin. The issues were bad enough that as soon as I got in Teamspeak everyone commented on me having microphone issues. After talking with Asus they suggested I try playing with the ENC switch on the bottom of the base. Oddly enough, this is actually when I found the switch. Turning ENC mode on was a night and day difference immediately, from then on I didn’t have any issues with the microphone on the headset.

Overall and Final Verdict

So let’s take a step back and take everything in now. When it came to comfort the Strix 7.1 was good for normal periods of time but during extended gaming the large size of the headset started to weigh on me. The pressure wasn’t too bad but got a little uncomfortable over time. Beyond that I had issues with our sample creaking and making sounds when moving around and when the suspension headband moved at all.

Audio performance is very dependent on what you plan on using the Strix 7.1 for. Audio performance was lacking but in game performance made up for it. The true 7.1 speakers make it impossible to get the best music performance but is also what sets the in game performance apart. The directionality is great and the different in game audio modes that Asus included really helped footsteps and gunshots stand out. Because of that I can really only recommend the Strix 7.1 if you are only planning on using the headset for gaming. I know for me I use my headset more for voice communications and play most of my music and game sounds through my actual speakers. Not being able to kick an earcup off makes doing this hard.

The base that the Strix 7.1 comes with is what really sets the headset apart for me. Having direct control of every aspect of the headset without having to run any software is awesome. In addition to that having quick access to a volume knob right on your desk and to be able to push down on the knob and mute everything quickly is much better than having to fight with audio controls while in game. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has had a game in full screen mode and had it flip out after alt-tabbing out to change my headset or microphone setting. Then of course I can’t ignore the lighting in the earcups as well, orange is clearly the way to my heart, so going orange for the lighting is always a plus on my part.

Currently finding the Strix 7.1 for sale anywhere is really hard to come by. If you look on Amazon you can find it for a crazy price of just over $400. If you look harder you can find it available on the UK Amazon website as well. Through that, paying for international shipping you can get the headset to your door for about $246 USD. Officially Asus says they will be listed for $199 here In the states once we start to see them available. That said even at the MSRP price I think it is priced out of range of its performance. At that price range you can find similarly priced gaming headsets that are also wireless. With that in mind I wouldn’t really put the Strix 7.1 on my list of headsets that I would recommend. This might actually be the first time I have ever felt like Asus missed the mark on a product, but knowing them they will take the feedback and come back soon enough with something even better. They aren’t exactly known for leaving things alone.

Amazon Link: HERE

Author Bio

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.