Plantronics Audio 770 headphones review

A contender for the gaming crown?

23 July 2008 16:01 GMT / By Stephen Patrick

Headphones for gamers seems to be a growth industry of late and the arrival of the Plantronics Audio 700 only adds to the range: at less than £50 they are good value for money.

The first thing you’ll notice is how big they are. The crossbar is metal, while a second softer headband attaches the cans neatly to your ears. The cans are rather bulky and house 40mm speakers. The overall effect is box-like but we found they were a snug fit and were comfortable to wear for long periods.

They’re not noise-cancelling headphones, so you’ll find external noise will get in but not so much as to distract you. They hook up to your PC using USB and we found that in order to get them to register we needed to reboot our Windows Vista PC.

There is no driver software, so you’ll need to set them up using Vista’s audio controls. In use we found the overall sound to be warm and are certainly clear enough for gaming use.

When it came to using them for music, they offer reasonable quality but we found the bass to be a little flat.

As with most gaming headphones, you’ll also find a noise-cancelling microphone attached for use in-game. It’s a fixed mic, so can’t be twisted around and while it makes a fair effort of excluding the ambient noise around you, we found the results to be a little mixed. When not needed, it can be easily pushed back out of the way.

Verdict

We like the Plantronics Audio 770 headphones. They may not be the most advanced gaming headphones on the market but they offer decent sound quality at a reasonable price.

Score

Review Recap

Made by: Plantronics
Price as reviewed: £48
Latest price: Compare prices
The good: Big speakers, comfortable to wear
The bad: Big, boxy, not so good for audio
Quick verdict: Big and boxy but they offer a good gaming experience for the price
Score