![]() ![]() ![]() There is a large radial dial with small detents to handle the master audio duties, but the mixture of audio to voice is handled by pressing on the outside face of the right ear cup. The charge points sit in the cradle for easy sync and charge.Īudio mix beyond the EQ is handled three ways on the Astro A50. We’ll dig into the EQ a bit more later, so put a pin in that thought. Depending on the type of game, hearing the footfalls of your enemies may be more or less important, so I found myself bouncing between the second and third settings pretty frequently. Astro defines them as Media (higher bass levels), Core (balanced for single player gaming), or Pro (boosted highs for competitive play). This button moves between the three built-in EQ presets, with one, two, or three beeps to differentiate between them. The last button on the rear edge of the right ear cup is the Equalizer toggle. Moving down the right ear cup, the next button enables the magic - it turns on the Dolby Pro Logic IIx support, providing a crisp and clean simulated 7.1 surround sound right to your dome. It even has a small LED to let you know that the A50 is on, and it blinks when the device is charging - no guesswork here. Rather than the usual “hold to start” button, Astro has gone with a much-preferred toggle switch to power them up. Moving around the headset, Astro has leaned into a mixture of radial dials and physical switches for their controls. The last visual indicator on the charge dock is the numbers 1, 2, and 3, showing you at a glance which EQ mode you currently have selected. Adjacent is a Dolby symbol and a star, with the former being illuminated when Dolby is enabled, and the star indicating when the A50 is simply in audio pass-through mode. Next to those lights are two platform indicators that indicate whether the device is currently paired to your PS4 or PC (or Xbox, if you have that version). There is now a four stage power indicator with an audible notification at 10% and 5% as well. While the Gen 3 was a little plain, all sorts of visual indicators have been added to this new edition. The base station for this generation of the A50 has gotten a bit of an update. The headset sits comfortably in the headset charging base. This isn’t an unfamiliar problem, but it’s annoying that there isn’t an elegant solution. Unfortunately, there isn’t an elegant solution here, meaning the only way to get all three devices rolling with the A50s is to buy a second base station for an additional $79.99. Unfortunately, the way that Microsoft and Sony have approached audio and connectivity leaves a lot of peripheral manufacturers having to scramble to serve a market where gamers might own both consoles and a PC. Speaking of the “device currently connected”, the Astro A50 comes in two packages - one for PC and PS4, and another that covers PC and Xbox One. It would be great to see that micro-USB charge port swapped for USB-C and Quickcharge 2.0 as that is the industry direction, but we’ll have to hold that thought for V5 it seems. There’s no need for plugging in wires (though there is a micro-USB, should you need a bit more juice, or want to take it on the go without carting around the stand), and the base display on the face of it shows charge level, whether Dolby is enabled, and which device is currently connected. When they stand on the charger, they stand upright, sitting in two detents on the base. On the bottom of the left earcup of the A50 is a pair of contact pads, with a single pad on the right. Gone is the makeshift banana stand replaced by a wireless charging base that, shockingly, never seems to allow the headphones to fall off. After roughly four hours of initial charging, the A50s were ready to use, so it seems fitting to start digging in with the new base unit. ![]()
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