So, the Astro box arrived and I was soon in aural heaven. Inside was set of A40 Mixamp M80 headphones for my Xbox One. Sixty three seconds after opening the box, I was on Forza 6 as usual, and was QUICKER.

You pay the price for this sort of quality. The headphones we have here are around the £175 mark, but wow. The quality is sensational. I saw the cheap set of headphones in the corner where they have been since they arrived and I scoffed audibly.

Astro A40 2

I want to keep these – they sounds amazing. So, how exactly are they amazing? Back to Forza 6, a game I play a lot and usually have on a room-filling speaker system, which is nice.

But, stick these on your head and suddenly all those subtle yet important sounds are there in your head. Things like the wheels spinning up, tyres just starting to object to going in to a corner too hard. The revs climbing too rapidly for traction. Like I said, a few minutes in, and my lap times started tumbling. I am no expert, and am always around 10 seconds slower than the world’s best, for some reason. But I was suddenly seven and eight seconds slower. Sounds small, but for many races I was suddenly in the top 10 per cent of all players. Nice.

Astro A40 4

And it really is all down to the sound quality in your ears. Poor quality headphones are fine when you are listening to stuff that doesn’t require adjustment. But racing is all about the sound and feel. If the sounds are off, your lap times are off.

Astro A40 5

These Astro headphones changed all that. Those of you with quality headphones will know all about this, but so far these are the best I have plonked on my head, and the quality was instantly tangible with my increased performance.

Astro A40 3

They look good too and are very comfortable. Check out the real world pictures we took. No fancy lighting or posing, but they still look amazing.

I want some.

 

Written by Chris Murphy