That' s the only excuse I' d take as to why their build quality is so horrible.

I' ve bought four MS brand headsets in the past year, and not only is the sound quality horrible, but they break about once every couple months! I was in a game of CoD with Torr and Rampage, and my mic starts sputtering, so I take it apart (again, as the mute button had snapped off earlier that week) and see a few loose wires, that are so thin when you go to solder them it nukes the ends clean off.

Has anybody else had bad luck with these things, or am I just getting a negative karma bomb here?

I still have my original 360 headset from launch and it works fine. I switch off between that one and the one that came with my Elite. Haven' t had any problems with them.

Not to jinx myself, but I have never had any problem with any 360 hardware. In fact the only console hardware I ever broke were the original 2600 joysticks, thanks mainly to Activision' s " Decathlon."

They' re pretty fragile. Mine just stopped working randomly. The wiring was loose in it because if i held it just right it would work.

Has anybody else had bad luck with these things, or am I just getting a negative karma bomb here?

I' ve broken two, but they were both my own fault. The first one my dog chewed up, and the second one I stepped on. I thought they were pretty durable compared to the original xbox' s. The one I broke by stepping on it, I had stepped on it at least a hundred times.

They' re pretty fragile. Mine just stopped working randomly. The wiring was loose in it because if i held it just right it would work.

Yep, that' s exactly it.

There' s a little shrink-tubing encased wire that runs to the bottom of the jack. The solder always breaks loose, at least that' s what' s happened to all of mine.

Are there any 3rd party headsets that have better sound quality?

Don' t they have an adapter, so you can use whatever headset you like? If I actually played online, that' s what I' d do. But I don' t. So, there.

Are there any 3rd party headsets that have better sound quality?

I don' t think it' s the headset, I think it' s because they compress their audio to hell, but I could be wrong.

Joe?

Mine broke almost immediately when I tried to take it out of the controller for the first time. Part of it stayed in the controller, the rest came out. It has never gone back together very well and it doesn' t work.

Yeah, they compress the hell out of their audio. I' d be surprised if it were more than 4kbps (compared to 128kbps for your average, low quality MP3 file). The frequency range/response it also likely only between 1,000Hz and 4,000Hz or so. I also wouldn' t be surprised if everything gets compressed again on MS' s server so that your internet only has to worry about one 4kbps bitstream for all of the voices combined. You might be able to find better headsets, but everyone will still sound very slurry and distant.

Just get a cell phone and a wireless headset for that. The sound quality would be 10 times better (though still complete ass).

I have like 5 Microsoft brand headsets and have never used any of them.. All I know is that the few times I have played online you guys sounded AWFUL! All I hear is super low quality muttering.

the original one that came with the 360 was rubbish, the mic didn' t work properly ever. The one I got with the keyboard attachment works just fine - it has also survived attack by 2-year old so it must be built reasonably well.

I have like 5 Microsoft brand headsets and have never used any of them.

...Why?

I have like 5 Microsoft brand headsets and have never used any of them.


...Why?

5 headsets because I have:

1. Japanese Xbox 360 (came with headset)
2. US Xbox 360 (came with headset)
3. 2 Xbox 360 Chatpads (each came with a headset)
4. Got one of those Xbox Live subscription packs as a gift long ago. (Came with the Xbox Vision camera, headset, a subscription to Xbox Live, and some free Xbox Live arcade games. Unless I' m mistaken and the camera came in a separate box.

So that' s 5 friggin headsets I' ll probably never use!

If you connect them all together, you could chat in surround.

If you connect them all together, you could chat in surround.

But the sound quality would still suck!. Surround Suck Sound!

Yes, it would sound pretty crappy, but at least it' d sound better than a Bose setup!