ASTRO A10 Multi-Format Gaming Headset Review

A Closer Look and Performance

Straight away, you can see this is a fantastic looking headset. It’s not a “nice” as say, the ASTRO A40, but for a headset in this price range, it’s looking pretty slick. The black finish is plastic, but they’ve very nicely finished with a mixture of matte and gloss surfaces. Of course, you also have the red highlights, but there are green and blue highlight versions available too.

Down the left side, you’ll find a huge microphone boom. It is hard fixed, so you can’t remove it, but it does fold up out-of-the-way when not in use. One nice feature is that the microphone is self-muting. When you don’t want to be heard, simply fold it up and out-of-the-way and it’ll turn its self off.

The boom is also positional. You simply bend it towards or away from you and you can easily find the optimal speaking position.

Tucked into the bottom of the left ear cup, you’ll find the 3.5mm jack. It’s nicely recessed, and located nearer the back of the driver, so it doesn’t hang down in the way of your arms while you’re gaming.

On the right ear cup, there’s a small and stylish A10 logo, but otherwise, the design has been left fairly minimal. I like the design, it’s not as loud and garish as many of the gaming headsets in this price range.

The ear cups are fixed, in that they can’t be rotated inwards like the more expensive ASTRO headsets. However, they do feature extra deep padding and soft covers that ensure long-term comfort while gaming.

Of course, the headset isn’t completely lacking adjustment. The drivers can be moved down on a friction slider, allowing them to fit both younger gamers as well as adults.

Performance

Without a doubt, this headset has some big shoes to fill. The ASTRO series is well-known for flawless high-end performance. Does the A10 live up to that standard? Short answer, no. It was never going to in all fairness, it is around £100 cheaper than its big brothers, and to expect that level of performance would be crazy. However, it’s far from disappointing. At £60 it’s going up against some strong competition, but it’s as good or better sounding than anything else in this price range.

Dynamic

The drivers are pretty powerful, at maximum volume they’re more than loud enough to give you that wow factor while gaming, listening to music, or movies. The bass is powerful, but not over-driven and comes through nice and clear. Explosions sound great, but they’re not going to leave you feeling fatigued. The mid range does sound a little lacking, although that’s something that’s true of almost every gaming headset, even more so in this price range. A little tinker with the EQ on your audio device to give a small boost does help bring out more detail though. The treble is bright and clear, with lots of details. Overall, everything sounds fantastic, and for gaming, it’s a real winner.

Microphone

The ASTRO microphone I use daily is fantastic and crystal clear. I’m happy to say that this one is every bit as good. I think it is lower spec, but that doesn’t seem to hurt performance. It picks up a good frequency range, delivering natural sounding voices and it doesn’t pick up too much ambient noise. Of course, I also love that you can mute it by folding it up out of the way.