Final Thoughts, Pricing, Conclusion
Final Thoughts
The overall performance of the Plantronics GameCom 777 surround sound headphones varied fairly widely from game to game during our performance testing. While the bass overpowered us in Bad Company 2, it seemed to be just enough during Call of Duty Modern Warfare. The directional sound wasn’t as precise in any of our FPS games as it was during our Psyko 5.1 headphone testing, but it wouldn’t be fair to pit an $80 pair of headphones against one that’s worth $300. With that said, the synthetic surround sound did it’s best to help me find where the sound was coming from if I was hearing bullets wizzing by or airstrikes raining down from the sky.
The 777 headphones really excelled the most in Call of Duty because of how it immersed me into the game itself. The theater-effect really seemed to go well into overall game play and environment in COD. With that said, Bad Company 2’s urban warfare environment seemed to go against how these headphones produce synthetic surround sounds. The sounds seemed too far away and the depth of the sound didn’t seem realistic compared to other games we used during testing. It would have been nice to see a software or hardware-based solution to configure the headphones to match each game environment.
Pricing
The Plantronics GameCom 777 surround sound headphones are available at Newegg.com for $79.99. Consumers can also purchase these headphones at Amazon for $56.99 and Buy.com for $57.
Conclusion
We’d like to thank Plantronics for providing the GameCom 777 7.1 Gaming Headphones for our review today. There were many strengths and weaknesses that worked with this headset in some FPS games, however some results we recorded didn’t work so well. The overall construction, design, and price point fell perfectly into the proper class for these type of headphones. The noise cancelling microphone that were concealed skillfully in the bridge of the headset was a stroke of genius on Plantronic’s part. However, there were a couple small issues that made me think basic users might have a difficult time using these headphones.
Trying to optimize the 7.1 surround sound was a large issue and wasn’t easy to alleviate because of how the synthetic surround sound works. The directional sound quality wasn’t there because the software couldn’t emulate the capabilities of a true 7.1 surround sound system. The Dolby hardware did it’s best to figure out the right tones and sounds for each gaming environment, but it just didn’t hit the mark as a true surround sound solution.
Stengths
- Solid construction
- Comfortable feel overall
- Noise cancelling microphone with hidden feature
- Affordable price point
Weaknesses
- Ear cups a bit too large
- Bass and treble needed to be optimized in some FPS games
- Directional sound quality was decent, but not the best we’ve heard
I have used quite a few
I have used quite a few different gaming headsets but, the best resource I found to get an impartial view on them can be found at http://www.gamingheadsetreport.com, they are constantly adding new headset reviews.