Everything USB Gaming Headsets

Music Performance

Most people enjoy an all-in-one solution if they can get one, so I put the HS-1200 through its paces playing music through iTunes. As far as sound quality goes, on a scale of 1 to 10, the HS-1200 is between a 7 and an 8: a serviceable workhorse with an acceptable level of sound clarity and energy. The HS-1200's 40mm Neodymium speaker drivers put a little too much emphasis on the high end of the audio spectrum for my taste, though this feature may be to work with the headset's primary function as a gaming device. The unit also doesn't do a particularly good job with low end frequencies. Creative tries to alleviate this problem with a bass management function that allows you to control the level (in dB) and frequency of the bass boost (up to 200Hz) and includes a separate multi-band EQ for additional adjustment, but the resulting adjustments aren't as convincing as they could be.

A list of equalizer settings.

Enabling X-Fi CMSS 3D - essentially a surround sound emulation mode.

There's also the surround issue. The HS-1200 includes the option of using X-Fi CMSS-3D, Creative's surround sound emulation software, which we'll discuss more below when we get to how well the HS-1200 performs with games. When it comes to music, however, CMSS-3D isn't particularly useful, not only for stereo files (which are hit or miss in any surround emulation) but for true 5.1 mixes: positioning disappears as the music focuses (oddly enough) right over the center of your forehead, even after selecting the "ideal" surround position in the Entertainment Mode Console. The same problem exists when trying to play movies.

I suspect the problem is standards compatibility: other products (including my other sound device, the Razer Barracude AC-1 sound card and the ASUS Xonar U1 I tested earlier this year) use Dolby software for surround processing, which means that they're compatible with 5.1 mixes of movies and music. The HS-1200 does not include any Dolby processing, because it's a gaming device, and games don't use the Dolby standard. Moral of the story: don't expect the HS-1200 to replace other surround options when listening to music or watching movies.

HS-1200, a PC-exclusive USB Gaming Headset.

Gaming Performance

Fortunately, the HS-1200's issues with surround don't extend to the gaming realm. I play tested the unit with three games: Battlefield 2142, which uses Creative's pet sound standard; OpenAL, Medieval II: Total War, which includes EAX X-Fi support; and Call of Duty 4, which has neither. I tested both games with X-Fi CMSS-3D enabled and disabled while running Windows XP. Tests focused on my ability to tell positioning of sounds (mainly gunfire) in the online environment both games provide, simulating the experience the average gamer would encounter using these headphones.

Not surprisingly, Battlefield 2142's OpenAL compatibility gives it an instant fit with the HS-1200 gaming headset and eliminates the need to use the X-Fi CMSS-3D emulation to simulate surround programming. While playing the game, I had no problem picking out the relative position (with about as much accuracy as I'd probably have in real life) of enemies around me and found I was able to use the aural information the game gave me to make better decisions about the best times to look and the best times to duck.

I found similar results in Medieval II: Total War. Enabling X-Fi in the control options introduced a surround environment, which became particularly immersive (a bit like a war movie, actually) when I used the camera to zoom into action while fighting battles.

Call of Duty 4, on the other hand, required the tender mercies of X-Fi CMSS-3D to achieve surround mode. The results were more than acceptable - plenty of positioning data to give a good sense of when someone's sneaking up to kill you - but overall I wasn't quite as taken with Creative's surround emulation as I was with their open audio standard. Most gamers should find that X-Fi CMSS-3D serves as a good stand in when their games don't support OpenAL, but emulated surround sound is an area where Creative can improve.

Vista Issues

Microsoft's decision to remove Direct3D Hardware from Windows Vista changed how games process sound - and gave Creative an opening to push broader acceptance of OpenAL. As a part of that acceptance, all Audigy and X-Fi soundcards support a program called ALchemy, which acts as a translator between Direct3D games and Vista, allowing the programs to use EAX. To test how well ALchemy works with the HS-1200, I installed Call of Duty 2, a Direct3D game compatible with ALchemy.

The results are fairly similar to those I found with Battlefield 2142: automatic support for surround sound, with a superior surround experience to that provided by X-Fi CMSS-3D. Although ALchemy isn't a complete solution to the surround sound problem - Call of Duty 4, for example, doesn't use Direct3D, so it's not ALchemy compatible - the program does give Creative a possible leg up as more and more gamers make Vista their operating system of choice.

Recap

• Comfortable fit
• Simple, easy to use controls
• Good battery life
• Deals well with standard amounts of interference
• Rechargeable battery

• Poor documentation
• Microphone levels are fairly low
• Master volume not designed for a headset
• Not a good general-use product
• Surround works better with OpenAL games

Overall, the HS-1200 gaming headset comes out on top: it gets the job done and does it efficiently and effectively over long hours without making you wish for an ear massage. However, Creative's wireless gaming solution - and therefore any product based on X-Fi - still needs work in a few key areas: product-specific documentation and software programming and Creative's house brand of surround emulation all need work. This product gets my recommendation, but a user who spends most of their time gaming and has Windows Vista will probably find this product the most useful.

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