Turtle Beach Titanfall Ear Force Atlas headset

1. Introduction and Unboxing2. Packaging & Accessories3. Turtle Beach Titanfall Atlas Ear Force Headset4. Testing the headset5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

If you find yourself jumping from rooftop to rooftop, wallrunning your way between kills and blasting away at 30ft tall metal behemoths on a regular basis you are either playing Titanfall or need to reduce your meds. Either way though, you will probably appreciate the style of Turtle Beach's latest headset, the Titanfall Ear Force Atlas headset. It's compatible with the Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC, with adapters, cables and connectors galore – but does it sound good? That's what's important and that's what we are here to find out.

Features

• Designed for Xbox One  –  Headphones are tuned to provide the highest quality audio from the Xbox One Audio Adapter.
• Customize Your Audio – Personalize game & chat mix volume, plus mic mute right at your fingertips.
• Be Heard Loud and Clear – High-Quality removable mic for chat on Xbox One, Skype, and Xbox Live.
• Comfortable, Twist-Cup Design – Breathable mesh cushions on ear cups rotate-to-flat for wearing around your neck.
• Bass Boost – Built-in Bass Boost adds more depth and punch to the game audio (Xbox 360 & PC only).
• Mic Monitor – Hear own voice in the headset to avoid shouting.
• For Your Entertainment – Ear Force Atlas isn't just great for Titanfall.  Enjoy your favorite movies and TV shows with superior quality sound.  Then crank up your tunes from music services like Xbox Music or Skype with friends!
• Mobile Gaming – Perfect for gaming on your mobile phone, tablet or portable game devices.

Seeing as this is quite a premium headset, with a price tag that's north of £100 wherever you buy it, it's no surprise that the packaging is premium too. The finish is a mix of matt and glossy cardboard, highlighting the titan and its pilot, along with the headset and logo imagery.

As you would expect, much of the box is covered in a variety of mulch-lingual features with a couple of pictures on the side showing off the Xbox One and PC audio adapter/amps.

This is easily the most accessory filled headset box we have seen. There are three separate boxes inside the main one, containing the Xbox One adapter, the in-line volume control and a bunch of documentation. You also get a detachable boom mic and a quick set up guide.

There's also come extra cabling, including a 3.5mm to twin-phono (red and white) cable, a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable for Xbox controller connections and a USB to micro-USB converter cable.

There is so much paperwork with this headset. There is a set up guide for the Xbox One adapter, a warranty leaflet, a leaflet encouraging you to use Turtle Beach support, a large Titanfall sticker and a quick start guide that is thicker than most full manuals.

The inline volume control is only needed if you are using this headset with your PC or Xbox 360, but features a volume control for both microphone audio and game audio, as well as a mic-mute button and an input for an Xbox controller.

You input to it from the headset 3.5mm cable and it outputs to a single 3.5mm for the audio and a USB for the mic.

It is difficult to decide if this is a good looking headset or not! It is quite colourful, despite incorporating a grey/beige plastic shell. There is blue accenting across the earcups and the headband and though they look like stickers, it is almost like blue plastic has been used.

The red Turtle Beach logo on each headphone is a sticker and can be peeled off quite easily. Don't try it.

The overall build material of the headset is a hard plastic that seems very durable – it is almost as if Turtle Beach have taken into consideration the temper tantrums of shooter gamers. In-fact the entire frame feels very solid, though it doesn't have that quality feel that some headsets have.

The styling continues up the headband, which again is made of that brick-hard plastic. It has a bit of flex to it, but not much.

The headband, which is covered in a leather coated foam, can extend quite a lot to incorporate larger heads like mine, though it's worth noting that the build's natural position is quite tight, so wearing it for the first few hours is a little less comfortable than the later ones, as the mechanism holding it all in place relaxes slightly.

The earphones are padded with foam and have fabric coverings – no alternatives are included and they can't be removed. There is some more Titanfall iconography in the inside of the cup, which is an over-the-ear design.

It is difficult to see in this picture, but hidden behind the earcup is a small rubber spacer. It sits on the earphone and prevents the plastic rubbing. It is a nice little touch that will stop the headset from degrading as quickly over time and highlights attention to detail.

 

The outer shell of the earcups are made up of a mix of the beige/grey plastic from the headband, with matt black plastic on the underside. Again it feels strong and sturdy, almost like a tool or piece of work equipment instead of a luxury item. This feeling extends to the whole product, giving it a bit of a workhorse vibe.

It is difficult to explain, but some headsets have a clear message with the design and this is one of them. The Ear Force Atlas is a headset that Titanfall pilots would wear inside their titans. I imagine that is what Turtle Beach was aiming for with the design and therefore they have succeeded. It is worth bearing in mind if you like to feel like your head is cushioned by air while you are gaming.

As in the picture above, the cups on the Ear Force Atlas turn sideways if you want it — designed to make them more comfortable to wear around your neck mid-game. Also the braided cable is always nice to see. It certainly has more of a quality feel than a standard rubber one and is more durable too, as my rodent pets can attest to.

Analysing a headset is a little less complicated than some of the other tests we have here at KitGuru. It generally involves the reviewer playing games, listening to music and watching movies over a couple of weeks – it's hardly strenuous stuff. While this does mean we get a relatively easy time of things, it also means that there's little in the way of hard numbers to back up our opinions. Just bear that in mind when it comes to making your own purchase – peripheral choice can be a very subjective thing.

That does not mean we do not put headsets through their paces though and this one is no different. Over an extended period of time – including usage at the Multiplay i51 LAN, I played a lot of games with the Ear Force Atlas. From modern shooters like the namesake Titanfall, to retro classics like Seven Kingdoms and haunting indie-masterpieces such as The Banner Saga.

I also listened to a variety of music from multiple genres and watched a few key scenes from some favourite movies to see how good this headset really is.

NB. The testing today was restricted to the PC.

In games, the Titanfall Atlas headset performs nicely. It's got great bass, so explosions and gunfire from heavy artillery sound fantastic. It's stereo panning is also solid, so you'll have plenty of warning if someone is sneaking up on you.

In slightly more melodic games, I did find that the sound could get a little muddy, like the headset was perhaps geared a bit too much towards the bass end of the spectrum.

Tweaking the EQ cleaned things up a bit, but I wouldn't have said the sound you get from the Atlas is bright and ‘crisp'. It has lots of power and certainly sounds good in plenty of scenarios – but it is not the cleanest of sounds.

As an aside, I used the Titanfall headset in a few Oculus Rift titles, since those tend to do situational audio very well, and I have to give this a double thumbs up for Rift compatibility. Not just because it sounds good, but because of the solid plastic frame – it doesn't creak at all when you move your head around.

This is something that most manufacturers don't take into consideration because you're staring straight ahead the whole time, but with a Rift game, where you're looking around, it's hugely important. Nothing breaks immersion quite like hearing the horrible creak of plastic as you try and dodge a fireball.

As with gaming, the same sort of feeling was present with music. Very melodic sounds were a little muted, as if the notes were rounded off. However, that tended to be most notable with classical tracks, or those with a lot of high frequencies. If you go to something a bit more thumping, a bit of dubstep or drum and bass and the Atlas really comes into its own, pumping out the low end frequencies with a satisfying kick and rumbling away at the bottom of the frequency range nicely. For a gaming oriented headset, the bass is excellent.

With movies, the Atlas did great. Dialogue comes through without issue and explosions and heartwarming sections feel just as powerful. While many of you might be thinking that you prefer to watch a movie through a speaker set instead – in general I'd agree with you – if you travel regularly, having a good set of headphones to watch a movie with is a must.

While audibly the Atlas is a pretty all round product, I wasn't quite as pleased with the comfort. The first time you put it on, it sits on your head surprisingly solidly – just like its plastic build. It's tight and doesn't move much if you shake your head. This is in contrast to a lot of other premium headsets, which gently rest against your skull without much pressure.

Fortunately you don't notice the solid grip for too long and I did find the Atlas pretty comfortable over long periods, but again it feels more like a workhorse tool rather than a premium product. I can understand if that's what Turtle Beach was going for, but when I spend £120 on a headset, I want it to have a bit more of a quality feel and I'd rather my head was cushioned with something a little softer. The head band in particular could do with a little extra padding – especially for those of us without much hair.

However, that solid build and thick, if a little heavy-handed, padding, did a good job of cancelling out noises around me. It's not perfect, but for an over the ear set it does very well and you can expect to hear pretty much nothing outside of your game when you're playing at a reasonable volume.

A detachable boom mic is always a welcome addition to a headset, as it means you can strip it off when you want to eat or speak to someone other than your online pals. It's clear Turtle Beach has put some real effort into this one too, as the quality is superb, easily one of the clearest I've heard from any gaming headset.

It did pick up some background noise which was a shame, but as long as you don't have someone shouting next to you it shouldn't be much of a problem, especially if you're using software that can filter out background noise.

If you don't adjust the sound settings, the volume dials will be back to front

There were a couple of minor, incidental problems that I should mention and they both relate to my particular add-in soundcard, the Auzentech Prelude. These issues weren't present in an external soundcard I tried and neither did they crop up when I tried the headset on my phone, but I'd be remiss if I ignored them. When plugging in the headset, Windows 7 defaulted to using the USB for audio in and the 3.5mm cable for mic-out. While that's fine, it did mean my soundcard was bypassed and the volume controller dials were reversed. This is easily fixed through the audio settings menu.

The other minor issue specific to my soundcard, was what sounded like a minor capacitor whine which came through the headphones whenever the 3.5mm cable was plugged in. Again, this didn't crop up in any other tests.
The Turtle Beach Titanfall Ear Force Atlas headset isn't the best looking headset I've ever used, nor is it the best sounding or the most comfortable (though it does have perhaps the best microphone) but it combines good performance in all of those areas to produce a solid all round headset … with a few excellent features.

The bass response is excellent and when cranked the headset can handle an impressive range of frequencies. Mid range response is also commendable, although it can struggle a little to deal with complex music, such as the classical genre. We wouldn't imagine this would matter to the projected target audience.

A large audience considering this headset are doing so because they want to play Titanfall with it, and it scores well in this regard. Explosions sound great, as does the Titan's rockets as they spiral towards the enemy. Enjoying movies on this headset is easy and though I wasn't a huge fan of the padding on the headband, the earphones are comfortable enough that you will be able to wear it for a few hours without difficulty. That said it does feel like more of a workman's headset than the price tag suggests, so bare that in mind when considering your purchase.

The overall build quality of the headset is excellent. It will be able to withstand modest abuse over many months. All of the joints are clearly designed to deal with rough handling and we are confident that this isn't one of those products that will break easily over a short period of time.

Overall, we feel this is a high quality headset that is perhaps a little overpriced, even though it does bundle the Xbox One adapter and a lot of extra cables and accessories. It sounds very good in most scenarios and has a great microphone for chatting with your  buddies mid-slaughter. The Atlas isn't my favourite headset, but it does a good enough job that I wouldn't have trouble recommending it to the right person.

This headset can be found at Zavvi for £115. This seems a little pricey for what you get, but if you regularly switch between Xbox One and PC, it might be worth considering. Bear in mind too, there are alternative Turtle Beach headsets with similar specifications and the Xbox One adapter can be found separately on Amazon for £20.

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Pros

• Excellent bass.
• Doesn't creak during head movement making it great for the Oculus Rift.
• Fantastic quality microphone.
• Compatible with Xbox One, Xbox 360 and most mobile phones.
• Lots of bundled cables and accessories.
• Solid build quality makes it very durable.

Cons

• Not the crispest of sounds.
• Feels like a workman's tool rather than a premium headset.
• Bit too expensive for what you get.
• Headphone earcups are a bit tight.
• Headband needs more padding.

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