Creative Sound Blaster Arena Gaming Headset Review

Visually speaking, the first impressions offered by SB Arena Surround Headset are much like those famous words spoken by Hollywood's police force, "nothing to see here, move along". That's not not so much of a bad thing if you consider the gaudy appearance of Creative's newer World of Warcraft headset, but don't expect the simple black and white design to turn any heads in the same way that a pair of bulky or professional-looking headphones would. Of course, understated appearances can often be deceiving, which is exactly why I'm reviewing these cans in the first place!

It's been stated countless times online that this headset's construction is of cheap quality, and for the most part I'd agree since the build is mostly thin plastic and the wishbone joints are especially vulnerable. That said, the SBAS is much more flexible than competing USB headsets, and coupled with the headband's wire-like design, the headset is incredibly lightweight. I'd estimate them to be maybe 40% lighter than Logitech's G35 by comparison. The thin headband does have a significant disadvantage to it though that it doesn't distribute the weight of the headset very well, creating a pressure point that can become irritating over time. I found I could compensate for this by over-extending the headband slightly and occasionally repositioning the headband a few degrees forward or backward so I could continue gaming for hours on end, but it was nonetheless a minor nuisance.

The circumaural earcups are nothing less than superb, forming a tight seal around the ears to filter ambient noise, yet exerting so little pressure on the sides of my head that they were comfortable even with glasses on. They're not quite as comfortable as the Razer Megalodon, but much more so than the Logitech G35. As an added bonus the cans will swivel flat, making them suitable for transport to LAN parties. Since the leatherette earpads are so adept at filtering noise however, don't count on hearing your comrades at a LAN unless you happen to use Ventrillo or play with only one earcup.

On the left earcup is a standard 3.5mm jack for Creative's detachable noise-canceling microphone, embedded in a ring design that locks the microphone in place so it won't fall out. Motion of the microphone is restricted from chin level to approximately 45º behind the headband. While I applaud the microphone for being flexible for optimal pickup and noise canceling, I found it to be a much too springy, bouncing in place if I quickly snapped my head left or right and occasionally hitting me.

The Sound Blaster Arena Surround gaming headset features an in-line remote with basic controls for muting the microphone and adjusting the volume. A speaker mute button is notably absent from the bunch, but at least the digital volume rocker is clicky. A small clip exists on the backside for clipping onto a shirt, though sadly it cannot be clipped onto a belt loop since there's only 19 inches of cable between the pod and the headset.

Driver Issues
Creative's been known for their (lack of) quality drivers in recent years, so honestly it didn't surprise me when I ran into trouble upgrading from what's included on the CD-ROM to the newer drivers intended for Windows 7 via auto-update. Sure, the software detected and downloaded the updated drivers correctly, but when it came time to install the new packages, I ran into this little error.

Apparently after extracting to C:\Windows\Temp\, InstallShield will detect the presence of the existing outdated software and then attempt to delete it, deleting its own setup files in the process! This happened for both the ALchemy compatibility layer and the headset drivers themselves. To work around this bug I used a freeware extraction tool called 7-Zip to extract the contents of the .EXE to a new folder, and then ran Setup.exe from there. This issue doesn't occur if you skip the drivers on the CD and only install the ones on Creative's support site dated Jan/Feb 2010, so do yourself a favor and don't make the same mistake that I did.

Installation woes aside, the latest Sound Blaster Arena Surround gaming headset drivers seemed to be cleanly laid out and much more importantly, stable. Creative's Entertainment Console, the main interface for configuring the various sound adjustments, is made to resemble a home theater receiver and uses plenty of white space to achieve the effect. As much as I like the aesthetics of this design, the unfortunate downside is that without simple tabs for navigation, configuration can be slow with the need to repeatedly click the Back button before tweaking a different setting.

Below you'll find all of the different configuration screens to be found in the Entertainment Console with the Sound Blaster Arena Surround Gaming Headset. Not pictured here is ALchemy, the other important cornerstone of Creative's X-Fi package which I'll be covering later on in the Gaming section of this review.

Thankfully the two functions I found most frequently adjusted on the headset, the Crystalizer and CMSS-3D, can quickly be enabled or disabled by right-clicking the Creative Volume Panel icon in the notification area of the Windows taskbar. While not as convenient as the single switch on Logitech's G35 for enabling and disabling Dolby effects, this little menu made switching from gaming (CMSS-3D) to music (Crystalizer) easy enough.