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Straight out of the box the PX22 fit comfortably and I had no issues wearing them during prolonged gaming sessions. Initially I did have some concerns about the in-line amp and the potential for a constant dragging feeling but I found it to be surprisingly light and it never got in the way.
Sadly, the PX22 do have a very plastic feel to them and the cloth surface does not feel as smooth as some of Turtle Beach's higher end offerings.
The PX22 ships with a lengthy cable which is difficult to comfortably hide away when connecting the headset to a PC. When it comes to consoles the lengthy cable does help you keep a relaxed posture without having to worry about the headset slipping off.
In order to test music playback performance I used uncompressed recordings of The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s album Electric Ladyland as well as a 192kbps recording of the eponymous album Alexisonfire by Alexisonfire.
Overall the PX22 performed admirably with clear reproduction of both the low and high registers without drowning out either.
In order to test gaming performance I used Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Battlefield 3. These games were chosen because Counter-Strike relies heavily on sound spatialization while Battlefield 3 on the PC brings together 64 players with an array of weaponry and a wide range of ambient sounds. More information about sound spatialization in Counter-Strike and some background on the sound design of Battlefield 3 can be found here and here.
We were pleasantly surprised with the PX22's in-game performance. Footsteps and players reloading were easy to discern, as were subtle audio cues such as snipers zooming in whilst playing Counter-Strike. Bass wasn't as powerful as the Ear Force XP Seven we recently reviewed, though the PX22 did help us get immersed.
The boom mic is excellent and none of our friends had any trouble hearing us clearly during intense fights. I used my phone to play some music approximately 1 meter away from me while I used the microphone but did not notice any significant background noise while listening to the microphone.
To test the surround sound capabilities of the headphones I used the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan and The Dark Knight. Saving Private Ryan’s opening scene is a perfect way to test any surround sound setup, or virtualization solution, with its mix of explosive impacts and rifles being fired in an open field. The Dark Knight on the other hand has booming, impactful bass scenes and is a great way to test a headset’s capability to accurately produce high and low tones.
Overall, the bass was slightly underwhelming but the PX22 did manage to clearly reproduce the wide range of tones during the most hectic scenes of both movies.
