I have been playing games for decades, and most of it has been on consoles. For about the last 10 years I have been playing a lot of 1st person shooters online. This means that I use a headset to listen to enemy movements and communicate with my team. I have been through several different sets, wired and wireless, from different companies over the years. The newest one I tried was from Trash Talk Gaming.
I saw an ad on Facebook to apply to become an ambassador for a new company, Trash Talk Gaming. If accepted, you would receive one of their $130 branded headsets for just the cost of shipping. They also state that they will help promote your stream. I was intrigued, so I filled out the paperwork and waited. Within 24 hours I was accepted and sent a link to the shop and a code for a free headset. After I entered the code, I was brought to the shipping page. I had the choice of paying $17 for regular shipping or almost $25 for express. I decided to go with the express shipping so I could try them out on an upcoming trip.
I was unable to use them on my trip because it took over 2 weeks for them to actually be received – so much for express shipping. When they did arrive, they did so in a plastic mailer. I was more than a bit shocked that there was not a box, or even padding. I opened the mailer and there was a small set of headphones in a plastic bag. Once I removed them the first thing I noticed was there was no “Trash Talk” logo on the head band.
I tried them on and not only were they tight, even after adjusting them, but the ear cups dug into my ears. I have several ear piercings and my current and past headsets have been large enough to account for these, but not the new ones. My ear lobes don’t even fit comfortably within them. The next test of course was to see how the sound quality was, because face it, you want your headphones to sound good.
I hooked the headset into my XB1 Elite Series 2 controller and fired up Gems of War. It is a simple match 3 game, but it has several layers of music and sound. At first, I though the headset was defective because I didn’t hear anything. I adjusted the volume from about ½ to full and I could actually hear the game sound effects, but the background music was totally lost. Even the sound effects sounded a bit muffled, like you were listening through a wall.
The true test would be to see how they performed while playing Call of Duty. The first thing I noticed was that the sound was still muffled. I could hear the menu music, but it was faint and sounded very distant. Once in game, gun shots and in game audio were fairly easy to make out, but still very quiet. One of the most important things in Call of Duty is knowing when your enemy is coming, and you can normally hear their footsteps, unless they are using an ability to remove them. But through most of the game I was unable to hear enemies, or even my own footsteps.
The Trash Talk Gaming headset is in no way worth $130, or even just the shipping costs. They are small, quiet, and not very clear. Compared to my Corsair Void Pro, Turtle Beach, and even Microsoft headsets, the Trash Talk set seems to only be at about ¼ to ½ volume when the dial is set to max. Also doing a search on Amazon I was able to find the exact same headset for $2 and $9 shipping – a total of $6 cheaper than just paying shipping for the Trash Talk headset. I would recommend going to your local gaming or electronics shop and trying out different sets that fit your needs and budget.
