Introduction
Turtle Beach are one of the hottest and biggest gaming brands around, time and time again they’ve delivered great quality headsets for a range of budgets and a wide range of formats. Their new Ear Force Recon 320 is a mid-budget headset, so it’s not completely over the top with features, but it does still promise high-end performance and build quality; not that I would expect anything else from a well-known brand such as this.
The Recon 320 may not be the most expensive headset that Turtle Beach produce, but it still packs plenty of features. It supports the latest Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound virtual processing, a pair of powerful 50mm drivers, customisable backplates, an in-line controller, detachable microphone boom and more, so I’m really looking forward to putting it through its paces to see what it can do!
The headset comes equipped with a USB connection for PC, but also a detachable 3.5mm cable that makes it perfect for mobile use, or for use with just about any device in the world with a headphone socket. Just keep in mind that the Dolby Surround features only work via the USB connection and that the headset will run in stereo mode via the 3.5mm cable.
The microphone is pretty standard, but features a flexible/positional boom and can be easily removed from the headset when not in use; perfect for those who want to use the headset as headphones.
The in-line controller is nice and compact, but has a volume dial on the side, as well as a master microphone mute switch that’ll prove handy while playing online.
The headset has a somewhat minimalist style. There’s some matte finish plastics for the bulk of the headset, but the backplates on the drivers are glossy. The back plates are held in place with magnets and can be easily removed to allow you to customize them with your own design; you can also purchase pre-customised plates directly from Turtle Beach.
Each ear cup is quite deep, this allows plenty of room for all that thick padding, as well as those large 50mm drivers; so we should get a good level of bass performance from this headset.
There’s a pair of sockets on the left ear-cup, one for the microphone, the other for the mobile/PC cable.
The headband is lightweight, yet still quite strong. There’s some really nice quality padding on both ear cups and on the headband. The headband padding may not look like much, but the headset is surprising lightweight, so comfort really shouldn’t be an issue, even after a long gaming session.
The headband can be easily adjusted to suit your personal fit.
While both ear cups can be rotated inwards so you can wear it around your neck between games, but there’s also a few degree of pivot to provide a better fit over your ears.
Overall, it’s a really cool looking headset. It has a bright red trim that some may find a little garish, but I think a welcome contrast to the dull grey plastics and I can see this design proving quite popular with gamers in general.
