Yesterday, Team-Dignitas.org reviewed the coL Edition Creative Sound Blaster Arena Surround USB Headset. The headset, which earns an average of 8.5/10 by the reviewer, is “the perfect Christmas present to get if you care about your sound in-game.” This is one of the most in-depth reviews for this headset to date, and is a must read if you are interested in purchasing a headset of any kind. Below is an excerpt:
Comfort:
‘Woah’ was my first reaction when putting it on. This is most likely the most comfortable headset I have ever owned. The padding, which is also in charge for blocking out background noises, is very soft and sets itself to your head straight away, no sore ears from the tension that you some times get with new headsets.The padding blocks out all environmental noise which is really important for any gamer. When you are at LAN I believe this headset could really handle blocking out all the surrounding noise so you can focus on your game. This is something many gaming headsets claim to do but as we all know only a few manage to actually live up to its promises, the Sound Blaster Arena is one of the latter.
Sound:
I can’t possibly say anything bad about the sound quality as it is just awesome. I started listening to one of my favorite songs and I immediately noticed the many new sounds that I can pick up with this headset, they were always there but I just couldn’t notice them as they were lost in the rest of the sound. Using the X-Fi Crystalizer option in the driver menu you can increase the sound dynamic to give the song more ‘power’, I noticed the difference straight away.I tried out the Bass Boost which was quite overwhelming I must say, which I’m sure many Drum N Bass or House Music fans will love to hear! Luckily you can adjust pretty much every sound volume control, allowing you to tweak the headset just the way you like it.
The Arena Headset offers two sound modes, a standard Stereo Setup and a X-Fi CMSS 3D Setup, which quickly turns your headset into an 8-speaker modus. Again you are able to set up the balance between Stereo and complete Surround just the way you like it.
This last option makes the difference between an average Gaming Headset and the Arena USB Surround as it really helps me to locate my opponents during a match. Instead of just hearing an opponent on my left I can now make the difference between front-left, rear-left and anything inbetween that. I personally play games such as Quake Live, Counter-Strike and Call of Duty and I was able to hear my opponent pick up weapons or move around and locate him much easier than with my old headset in all of these games.