All the gamers or homecinema lovers out there know this feeling! Unless you are living in a single family house, it's impossible to enjoy Call of Duty 3, Battlefield 3 or the last X-Men without having your beloved half or the guys next door breathing down your neck or ears for that matter. Well, now there are solutions or plenty of bad options out there. After many hours reading reviews and visiting local electronic stores, I've narrowed down my search to 3 wireless surround headphones. Unfortunately, you need to forget about local stores. They only carry basic products and if you care just a bit about quality, there is nothing that will content you. My ultimate solution comes from Amazon.com (xoxo) and is the Razer Chimaera 5.1 priced around $ 174 before tax.
This is the 3rd headphone I try and all I have to say is : "This is it (finally)" ! This is by far the best product you can find at this price range. Priced above are the Pioneer SE-DIR800C and the Sony MDR-DS4000 costing more or less $ 300. Before ordering this Razer 5.1 (do not take the standard version!!!), I've tested one of the crappiest product ever. Stay away from the piece of plastic cr.. that is the Turtle Beach Ear Force x41. This was the only acceptable solution at my local stores, so I decided under the advices of a sales reps at Magnolia Audio Video to give it a go. Everything on it was just not right : build quality, spec with 2.4ghz making it almost impossible to use as it interferes with my TV, wireless network, microwave...well, everything connected wirelessly. I returned it the next morning to my local Best Buy.
The Razer Chimera 5.1 in the other hand is just so good. The packaging and out of box experience are comparable to what you get with Apple products. It feels premium and well put together. The sound is really true Dolby digital and not a sort of surround sound like on the Turtle Beach. You are totally immersed into your games on Xbox 360 or your movie. The level of bass is really good and well balanced, just what you need! Best of all, I can now play any game or watch my favorite action movies while my wife reads her book next to me. Yep the sound stays inside the headphone unlike on the TB where there was no proper noise isolation. If you are on the market for a 5.1 wireless headphone, buy this one and no need to spend more. If I had $ 300 to burn I'll probably buy the Pioneer but I'm not sure I'll see a difference.
My only complaint is that this headphone feels tight around your head and ears. I have yet to spend hours with it to see if I feel any discomfort. I'll report back here soon. Oh, also now my wife uses it all the time to watch TV shows she records. And she records a tons of them!!
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