The Hardware of Gamescom 2014

Turtle Beach

Turtle Beach is of course known for its gaming headsets and for its position on the heads of professional gamers all around the world, so it was no surprise to see Turtle Beach out with a vast selection of headsets for consoles and PC.

Turtle Beach was first pimping its Call of Duty Advanced Warfare headset, the Call of Duty Ear Force Sentinel Task Force, for both PS4 and Xbox One. Branded products are very successful for Turtle Beach, so these products shocked nobody. The Xbox One version is wireless while the PS4 connects via USB. Both have 50mm drivers, variable microphone monitoring, adjustable bass levels and volume and chat controls. The ear cushions are made of synthetic leather and the headband is padded too.


For the PS4, Turtle Beach also had the all singing, all dancing Ear Force Elite 800, with DTS Headphone:X 7.1 true surround technology and active noise cancellation, both of which are firsts for console headsets, and the less premium Ear Force Stealth 400, a fully wireless stereo headset with 50mm drivers and up to 15 hours battery life.


Then there was the Ear Force Stealth 500X for Xbox One, again with DTS Headphone:X 7.1 technology, multiple presets and a 15 hour battery life. The lower end Ear Force XO One was also showcased. It's a wired headset with 50mm drivers, bass boost, microphone monitoring and a flex microphone.


Turtle Beach's dominance in the console headset market is clear and has been for years, but in the PC space it's a different story. The company knows this, and it's an area it's looking to focus on more heavily, especially upcoming devices like the Alienware Alpha and other Steam Machines looking to bring the console experience to PC users.

This is good news for us, as it's the PC market we're most interested in. Turtle Beach was showing off three main products, the Ear Force Z60, Ear Force Recon 100 and Ear Force 320. The Z60 is the first PC headset with DTS Headphone:X 7.1 technology (see a pattern here?) - we're keen to see if this is as good as Turtle Beach says it is. It also has massive 60mm drivers - there are no bigger drivers available in PC headsets currently. It has separate game and chat volume control, and requires no software to run.


The Recon 320 has standard Dolby 7.1 Surround support, a circumaural earcup design and can be connected via USB or audio jack. The audio jack is mostly for mobile devices, and there will be a dedicated cable with mobile controls like answer, pause, skip song etc. Finally, the Recon 100, an EU exclusive, will be a more basic stereo headset with 50mm drivers and swappable speaker plates.

We're in touch with Turtle Beach and are looking forward to getting review samples of the PC headsets in for review. Pricing and availability were not announced, although we have seen one e-tailer selling the Z60 here for £130 – hopefully the surround sound technology is really worth it!