Turtle Beach Ear Force X12 Xbox 360 Headset Review

Turtle beach have chosen to cover the earpads with an open-weave material instead of leatherette which means the headset doesn't get too uncomfortable during those long, sweaty gaming sessions.  The pads completely surround your ears and press lightly against your head to stay in position.

The X12 also features a padded headband which can be adjusted on either side to achieve a comfortable, secure fit.  Even though the headband may appear to be an unusual shape in the pictures, it stretches out when you put it on your head which also helps to keep it in place.

As the X12 is marketed as an Xbox 360 headset we commenced our testing procedures with some casual gaming on Xbox Live.  First of all we loaded up Call of Duty: Black Ops and engaged in some online combat.  We found the sound balance of the headset to be well suited to this type of gaming although sound panning wasn't very impressive as it's only a stereo headset.

In other game genres like Forza 3, the lack of sound directionality was less noticeable.  Engine sounds were rendered accurately and the overall experience was far superior to that created by the speakers built into our TV.  Unsurprisingly, we found the PC gaming experience to be very similar to the Xbox 360 gaming experience.

The X12 also proved reasonably capable when playing music and watching movies although it is clear that the headset has been set up for the best possible gaming performance.  The adjustable bass function is useful for tuning the headset to suit your music tastes and to make the most out of movies.

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