Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven Headset Review

Overview

 

The Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven will be the first Turtle Beach headset that I have ever tested, and at £230 it’s also the most expensive headset I’ve ever tested. This should be interesting…

Rather suprisingly the Ear Force Z Seven headset connects to your PC via USB; it’s a stereo headset featuring 50mm Drivers and Virtual Surround Sound via the supplied Audio Control Unit (ACU).

 

 

The headset comes beautifully packaged in plain black box with an embossed Turtle Beach logo, this box is then sleeved with an outer sleeve, showing the headset itself (see above). The top right corner of the sleeve clearly highlights the fact that the headset is compatible with PC, Mac and Mobile. There’s also a shield claiming ‘Official Headset of Major League Gaming’. The left side of the sleeve highlights the following features:

• Surround Sound
• New DSP for Superior Audio
• Customizable Audio Presets
• AUX Input Phone/MP3

The back of the sleeve states that the Ear Force Z Seven headset has been ‘Built on over 35 years of Turtle Beach audio expertise and designed with the pros at Major League Gaming’. Along with an image of the headset and Audio Control Unit, there’s also the following:

SEVEN Pro Gaming Headset – 50mm drivers deliver immaculate audio quality. Comfortable memory foam ear cushions create a noise-cancelling barrier from distractions.

Audio Control Unit – Combines External USB Processor & Amplified Audio Controller:

• Precise, adjustable surround sound on any PC or Mac
• Powerful audio presets and customization
• Ability to drive your desktop speakers
• Phone/music player connectivity

 

 

The left side of the sleeve shows the Console Interface (sold separately) to connect with an Xbox 360 or PS3 and add Dolby Digital Surround Sound. There’s also an image showing the Customizable plates that allow the plates on the ear-cups to be swapped for different ones.

On the right we find an image of the Audio Control Unit (ACU) in all of its glory, with the following features:

• True Surround Sound on PC/Mac over USB
• Audio Control Unit with Programmable Presets
• 50mm Speakers with Memory Foam Noise Isolation
• Customizable Speaker Plates
• Dynamic Chat Boost
• Sonic Lens + Sound Field Expander
• Voice Morphing
• Desktop Speaker Connection

 

 

On opening the inner black box we can see the headset within held in a plastic tray and covered with a plastic lid (not shown). At the bottom we can see the Audio Control Unit (ACU) within a red box and plastic bag. Everything is extremely well packaged.

 

 

Looking at the contents as a whole we have the Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven headset, Audio Control Unit (ACU), Cables & Accessories and an information pack.

Within the Audio Control Unit (ACU) box we find the ACU itself and a Audio Control Unit Reference Card.

 

 

The Cables & Accessories box contains the following; Headset Breakaway Cable, (6 Pin) PC Speaker Adapter Cable, Detachable Boom Mic, 3.5mm 4 Pole Auxilary Cable and a Mobile Adapter Cable.

Within the Wallet we find a Quick Start Guide, Presets Reference, Warranty Document (Australia only!) and a Turtle Beach sticker sheet.

At the time of writing the Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven headset it retailing for approximately £230.

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of Turtle Beach

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

Well first impressions are really good, the product was beautifully packaged and presented and all of the parts look to be well made and of a high quality. The headset itself looks great, although the ear-cups look a little small, you’d never believe there’s a 50mm Driver in there. The headband is particularly smart with its white stitching, in fact I really rather like the black & white colour scheme. The headset weights in at around 335 grams, not the lightest of headsets, let’s hope this doesn’t affect the comfort factor too much. There’s also a fair bit in the box too, whether it’s all worth over £200 though is another matter…

 

 

The left ear-cup features a breakaway cable featuring a 6-pin socket connected to approximately 20cm of black & white braided cable, this short length of cable is not removable. Also found on the left ear-cup is the 3.5mm microphone socket for the flexible boom microphone. The socket has a key on it (marked by a white line), so the plug can only be inserted at a specific angle, although I’m unsure as to why I need to insert a 3.5mm microphone plug in a particular position! Both ear-cups swivel both horizontally and vertically for maximum comfort. The plate on each of the ear-cups can also be changed/customised (see here), although no additional covers are provided, which is a shame considering the price.

The right ear-cup is the same as the left but has no functionality other than the obvious!

 

 

The Ear Force Z Seven features a padded headband, although there does seem very little padding! The black & white stitching and the Turtle Beach logo are particularly smart. But what is rather worrying, is the force required to open up the headset ready to place on your head. And once on your head, the force then placed on the side of your head is even more worrying (talk about vice like!), we will have to see how this pans out during the longer Gaming sessions, but I fear for the comfort of Ear Force Z Seven already…

The headband is also adjustable allowing for up to 30mm of additional expansion per side. I have an average size head (insert jokes here!) and I use about 12mm per side, I think those with larger size heads may need to think twice before getting this headset…

 

 

Each ear-cup cushion is covered with faux leather, I think, as it doesn’t look like real leather. The cushions also use memory foam for maximum comfort, this also ensures a good seal between head and ear-cup, for maximum noise isolation. The inner section of the ear-cups are covered with black material and adorned with a smart looking silver Turtle Beach logo.

 

 

The headset connects to a 1.5 metre black & white braided extension cable via a 6-pin connector found dangling from the left ear-cup, this in turn connects to the 3.5mm headphone out socket at the bottom of the Audio Control Unit (ACU).

 

 

The Audio Control Unit is the engine behind the Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven headset, featuring a powerful Digital Sound Processor (DSP) among other things. The unit is quite heavy (which is a good thing!) and can be sat on a desk without concerns of it moving thanks in part to its weight and the 3 rubber feet on its base. Also on the base of the ACU is a clip, for what I can only assume is to allow the ACU to be clipped to an article of clothing, although I can’t see many doing this. The top of the ACU has 8 preset buttons and a main volume control wheel. Around the outside of the wheel are 6 additional buttons, these allow various aspects (Surround on/off, Mic mute even speaker angles) of the headset to be adjusted.

At the bottom of the ACU are 3 sockets, these (from left to right) are AUX input, Headset jack and Xbox Chat input; but as this is pcGameware we will only be concerned with the middle one.

 

 

The left side of the ACU features an on/off switch a PGM control wheel (microphone monitor), allowing you to hear and control the volume of what you’re transmitting, then finally there’s the AUX volume control wheel.

On the right side of the ACU we find the Mode button and the Xbox chat volume control wheel.

 

 

The microphone is of the noise cancelling variety and sits at the end of an extremely flexible (pipe cleaner style) boom, this allows the microphone to be placed practically anywhere and more importantly, stay there. The 3.5mm microphone jack plug feature a small white line and this must be lined up with the corresponding line of the ear-cup for the microphone to be inserted properly. The end of the microphone also features a wind screen (that foam thing!), with a smart silver Turtle Beach tag (see image below).

 

 

Hardware Installation

 

The Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven ACU has two connectors at the end of its 2 metre cable, but only the USB connection needs to be used for full functionality with a PC. This needs to be plugged into not just a free USB port but a free USB hub! i.e. there shouldn’t be any other devices on the same hub as the Turtle Beach ACU. This is as per the instructions in the Quick Start Guide (full User Guide here). A Microsoft program called USB View can be downloaded from the Turtle Beach Seven page to enable you to see what’s connected to each USB hub on your PC (quite useful really!).

Once powered up via the switch on the left side of the ACU, the unit comes to life with a flash of red lighting around the main rotary control. Once initialisation is complete the unit’s functionality is lit by way of white back-lighting.

 

 

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

The Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven was actually tested on both our Intel Test Rig and our AMD Test Rig. As no software is supplied or required for full functionality of the Ear Force Z Seven headset no fresh install of Windows was performed.

The following games were used during testing:

• Metro Last Light
• Spec Ops The Line
• Ghost Recon Online
• Battlefield 3
• Metro 2033 (benchmark)
• Unigine Heaven (benchmark)
• Unigine Valley (benchmark)

 

Hardware Performance

 

• Headset

 

The performance of a headset is predominately based upon what it sounds like, therefore what we have here is my opinion on what I think about the audio performance of the Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven headset; of course this is somewhat subjective.

Awesome! That’s the best word to describe the sound produced by the Ear Force Z Seven’s 50mm Drivers. Awesome predominately because of the bass, the best bass I have heard from any headset to date! The bass produced at the start up of Ghost Recon Online is simply breathtaking, I just fired the game up over and over to listen to the meaty rumblings. This of course is great news for games like Battlefield 3, Ghost Recon Online and other shooters, but other games exist too; so what about the mid/high range performance? Luckily for the Ear Force Z Seven, this is good too with both the sound of voices in the mid-range and the clatter of gunfire appearing to be well represented. The 50mm Driver seems to be more than capable of producing shrill highs when needed, even some of the subtler tones heard during the Unigine Valley benchmark (rain, bees, insects etc.) are also well catered for.

So it’s perfect then? No, obviously not as that’s way too subjective for me to claim that, but the Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven is Very good, especially for Gaming, but sometimes that bass does get the better of it. Meaning that when there’s a lot of bass present some of the other sounds start to get drowned out a little. Not because the 50mm driver isn’t capable, but just because the bass is so strong. Too strong, well that’s down to personal preference…

 

• Audio Control Unit (ACU)

 

The ACU is a great bit of kit, allowing you to mess to your hearts content with the sound being produced. The ability to modify the levels in 5.1 surround sound mode is welcome, allowing you to boost any of the 4 channels should you wish (it’s always good to boost the rear channel in an attempt to hear those footsteps). But of course the Ear Force Z Seven has it’s own presets to play with, these are listed below. But the one that caught my eye was Number 7: Footstep Focus. This does actually work, you can definitely hear footsteps better, but it’s at the expense of all of the other sound in the game, so to some degree it’s a little pointless.

 

1. Flat – Incorporates Dolby surround sound processing for an immersive audio experience.	2. Bass Boost – Hear and feel the runble of deeper bass sound effects.	3. Treble Boost – Boost high frequencies for crisper sounds and greater clarity.	4. Bass Boost + Treble Boost – Rumbling lows and pristine highs come through clarity.
5. Stereo Expander – Stereo processing with a 3D effect that allows you to focus on subtle audio cues.	6. Action Enhancer – Amplify intense sounds from weapons and explosions.	7. Footstep Focus – Focus on the sound of enemy footesps approaching.	8. Superhuman Hearing – Boosts low volume sounds.

 

All of this though is a little gimmicky for my liking, it’s what I call the Graphic Equaliser Effect, when you spend so long messing with all of the options but in the end you often find yourself back at the default!

The ACU is not without its issues either, the most annoying of which is that it doesn’t work, sometimes! It would appear that leaving the ACU on and rebooting your Rig throws the ACU into turmoil, as after a re-boot there’s no sound. This forces you to recycle the ACU unit, but if you’re already in game this doesn’t seem to work either! Forcing you either to come out of game and try again or turn off the ACU, reboot the PC and turn it back on! Woefully unacceptable for a headset costing over £200, I feel! I Actually tried this on both our our Intel Test Rig and our AMD Test Rig and ran into problems on both, even though the AMD MB (Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0) seemed to keep the USB sockets powered up at all times! EDIT: What seems to be the problem is that Windows needs to be up when the device is powered on, if Windows is not available at that time (like when it’s booting) the ACU fails to initialise correctly.

The other issue with the ACU is that all of the controls are touch sensitive, and of course the ACU is covered with controls! So even when trying to press one specific button or adjust the volume you end of getting a beep alert through the headset informing you that you’ve accidentally pressed something else. Now you need to work out what you pressed, annoying…

I also came across stuttering sound; when the volume was low or the sound subtle the Ear Force Z Seven would seem to stutter as the ACU/DSP kicked in and out, hmm…

Another slight oddity is that I found that I was more than happy to listen to the Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven with its volume at maximum. Now although I’m not sure I wanted much more volume, it is apparent that the power supplied via the USB connection seems to be holding the headset back a little. Those that like it really loud should probably not apply.

 

• Comfort

 

And now we get to the real Achilles Heel of the Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven headset, the comfort factor. Unfortunately for me this headset gets the award for the most uncomfortable headset that I have ever tested. This is because of the vice like grip that it places on your head. Therefore due to the pressure exerted on the ear-cups the cushions themselves just can’t cope over long (2 hour+) gaming sessions. Considering that this headset is the ‘Official Headset of Major League Gaming’, I’m sure that the players must either have strange shaped heads/ears or very sore ones!

Maybe it is I that has an odd shaped head or ears, but this is the first time that I have ever experienced such discomfort and that’s after testing a multitude of headsets over the last few years…

 

• Microphone

 

Luckily the detachable noise cancelling microphone that comes with the Ear Force Z Seven headset is excellent. It was easy to set up and I had no complaints from my friends when using our VOIP of choice (Ventrilo). The ability to have your voice (transmission) fed back to you via the ACU is also excellent, you can even control the volume of the sound being fed back to you, nice!

 

Final Thoughts

 

The Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven is a great headset per se, unfortunately it’s let down by a raft of issues, it’s a shame as the potential is definitely there, it does after all sound great!

If I had used this headset for 30 minutes it probably would have been given a Gold award. But luckily here at pcGameware we use our review products for a minimum of a week, and after that amount of time the issues with the Ear Force Z Seven become plain and clear.

The headset was beautifully packaged as one would hope for the £200 plus price tag and there’s plenty in the box too. You get not only the well made headset itself, but a rather smart looking control box and a raft of cables (all braided black & white) for all of your connectivity needs. The first sign of trouble comes when you go to place the headset on your head for the first time, talk about a vice like grip! The headband is just too tightly sprung, meaning that even though it provides some great noise isolation, over time (a couple of hours) discomfort begins to set in. Other than that and the maximum volume being a little on the low side, the headset itself is great, producing some of the best sound I’ve heard and certainly the best bass, making it a worthy Gaming headset.

Unfortunately, the Audio Control Unit, while providing a wealth of useful options and looking good to boot just serves up a host of issues. The main issues for me is the constant need to recycle (power on/off) the ACU between PC reboots. This is made even more frustrating by that fact that if your already in Game before you realise the sound is no longer working, it appears that you will need to go back to the Windows Desktop (i.e. no sound) before a recycle of the ACU works. Either that or turn off the ACU reboot the PC and then turn it back on again. Then there’s the issues with sound stuttering, now even with the Windows volume at 100% (as per the instructions), I still heard sound stuttering when Game volume was low/subtle; suggesting that the ACU’s DSP was not sensitive enough to cope with low volume sound, causing the DSP to effectively kick in and out causing stuttering.

There’s other smaller issues too, the fact that the ACU is adorned with touch sensitive controls means that’s its all to easy to press something that you didn’t want to press. Although you can disable all of the control (apart from volume) via the Mode switch, but this setting is lost after a reboot, so you’re back to square one.

At £230 these issues are not acceptable in my book, which is a shame as the Turtle Beach Ear Force Z Seven could have been one of the greats. But given time with this headset, it soon becomes apparent that the Ear Force Z Seven has its fair share of issues, meaning that this headset is not one we would recommend…

 

Verdict

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