Astro A50 Wireless Headset + Base Station (Hardware)
Official GBAtemp Review
Product Information:
Sometimes it seems like a never-ending hunt to find the best over-ear headset in terms of functionality, style, and price. Today, I’m continuing the mission to find the best of the best and this time I want to inform you all about the Astro A50 Wireless Headset. As you might expect, this isn’t ASTRO’s first rodeo as Astro Gaming has been around since 2006, developing some of the best gaming headsets to be found. Before starting reviews, I always like to look at what the company has to say about itself. Astro Gaming’s website provides the following:
“For years ASTRO Gaming has been involved in the design of many forms of the video gaming arena. And now that video gaming has become a leading form of entertainment, with "gaming lifestyle" quickly taking root, we decided to leverage our experience and give people an authentic gaming brand to rally around at the heart of this culture. Our products are specifically designed for the underserved hardcore gaming professionals and core gaming enthusiasts. Our overarching commitment is to improve the sport of video gaming.
ASTRO Gaming is part of the multi-brand company of Logitech. For more information about Logitech, please check out https://www.logitech.com.”
Unlike many manufacturers who focus on only one or two products, Astro Gaming’s focus is on gaming as a whole: from headsets, to mixamps, to controllers, to accessories, and more. Luckily, it doesn’t seem that Astro has spread itself too thin because the A50 headphones and base station is a high quality package.
The headset
The A50 is a lightweight, wireless headset, and this version comes with a USB base station so you can sit and charge your headphones upright on your desk in style. The base station has magnets in the dock so you can mindlessly place the A50 in there when not in use and it seats perfectly…most of the time. Unfortunately, I’ve been finding that sometimes when I place the A50 in the dock, it won’t charge right away unless I jiggle it around a bit, even with the magnets putting it in place. Charging it with a USB cable is easy enough but that essentially defeats the purpose of the dock. Ultimately, this isn’t that big of an issue and only happens when I lazily throw the headset in the dock.
As you can see from the pictures, the A50 is very stylish, appealing to the types of gamers who prefer some flair to their headphones. They come in two different models, the Black and Grey model for PS4 and the Black and Gold model for Xbox One. I’m testing the model for the PS4 but the differences between the two models aren’t staggering. These are some clunky headphones that are designed to appeal to the gamer aesthetic and certainly aren’t something that you will want to wear all the time in a business setting, but that is exactly what Astro is going for in these headphones. If you want a more versatile pair of headphones that you can wear anywhere, then these may not be the headphones for you.
The plastic chassis is strong but just barely misses the mark of passing off as being metal. I doubt you will be able to convince anyone that this is metal, but it is still designed very well for the style that Astro was going for. However, this design is offset by its versatility. There are so many features on this headset that you almost need a strategy guide to find them all.
The downside to all of these features is that many of them aren’t intuitive for the casual person who just wants the headset to work perfectly without tinkering around with settings. I can’t recommend these headphones to those with a plug-and-play mentality, but I can recommend them to those who are willing to put in the extra effort to unlock all the premium features.
The right earcup of the headset itself has three buttons and a slider on it. The top button is for power, the second to alternate between Windows Sonic and Dolby Atmos on Xbox One and PC, the third to cycle through EQ modes, and the volume slider. The headset is tuned with Astro Audio A2 which promises crisp highs, controlled mids, and distortion-free bass. From my experience listening to music and playing DBZ Kakarot, CoD: MW Remastered, and Kingdom Hearts III with this headset, I have to say that the audio quality is as fantastic as marketed. I also like that the device can tell when you are using the microphone or not simply by flipping the microphone up and down. When the microphone is up, it’s muted, and it’s down, it’s working. This is very useful in situations where you have to be absolutely silent, as just flicking the microphone is easier than having to search for a button to press. I know some headphones, such as the Lucid Sound LS41, lets you simply press the earcup to mute the microphone, so I wish that was also an option here.
The headset is advertised as being able to hold a battery life of over 15 hours, but I haven’t ever found myself close to hitting the 15 hour mark as it is very convenient to just throw the headset in the charging station to fill it back up in between gaming sessions.
The dock
Unlike earlier A50 revisions, this model sports a smaller dock with many features. This means that the dock takes up less real estate on your desk. Unfortunately, like the headsets themselves, the dock is exclusive to the PS4 or the Xbox One. This is pretty infuriating to me because it seems to be a symptom of the console wars that gamers are still going on about to this day. When spending $300 on a pair of headphones with a wireless dock, one would think that the dock would work properly on more than one system. Astro’s solution? Just pick up a dock for the other system for an extra $100.
However, the dock is very convenient. Jiggling the headset aside, I appreciate the fact that I can just throw the headset in the dock whenever I’m not using it so I’m never even close to running out of battery. When thrown in the dock, the headset goes into rest mode so you don’t have to worry about wasted energy and popping it back out is all that you need to do to wake it up. This is very convenient for people like me who often forget to manually turn off their devices. There is also a switch on the dock that makes it easy to switch between console (whether it is PS4 or Xbox One) and PC profiles.
Those who really want to get into the nitty gritty and edit the sound however they want can link the A50 with the Astro command center software and mess with the settings to their heart's content. The command center has many presets that you can choose and customize to make the sound output truly yours.
As expected by Astro, this is a very good headset that works great on its own and even better when tweaked with. For those who prefer something plug-and-play or want a headset that works perfectly on all consoles and PCs, I unfortunately have to say that this isn’t the headset for you. I also cannot recommend it to people on a budget as $300 can get you most of the way towards a next-gen console as opposed to a pair of headphones. However, for those who have the money to spend and the technical knowhow to customize the headset in the perfect way, this is a great headset to go with.
Technical Specifications
Verdict
- The smaller dock size takes up less real estate on your desk
- The command center has many audio presets that you can customize to make the sound output truly yours
- The headset sits in the dock very well and charges quickly, you’ll never need to worry about battery power
- The microphone can be muted just by flipping it up
- The sound quality is awesome with crisp highs, controlled mids, and distortion-free bass
- Sometimes you need to jiggle the headset around in the base station to get it to charge
- The base station profiles make you choose between Xbox One and PS4, requiring you to purchase a second station if you want to game on both
- $300 is a hefty price to pay
