Hardware Review: Gioteck EX-06 Wireless Headset

We’ve seen how the EX-06 Wireless Headset deals with racing and all-action shooting, so let’s look at something a little more subtle.

The Last of Us
If you thought there were parts of The Last of Us that freaked you out before, try it with some of these on your head. When I reviewed this at the start of the year I played the entire game through my surround sound speaker setup, something I very rarely get the chance to do. It was incredible, and yet the sensation felt by playing through the EX-06 wasn’t too far off at all. Considering the headset is a fraction of the price of your average 5.1 equipment, that’s a pretty impressive thing to achieve.

Those of you who have played TLOU will know that listening is a vital part of the game, equally as important as your ability to stay out of trouble and kill whatever needs killing. It helps, therefore, when you can tell precisely what’s around the next corner, who’s sneaking up on you and which direction those shouts are coming from when you’ve been spotted.  It’s the kind of thing that any old set of headphones will help with, but as with our findings on Ghosts it’s the clarity of the EX-06 that blew us away. Every echo, every groan and every gunshot was produced with crystal clear precision. The online modes worked well too, and when gameplay requires cooperation as this does, being able to hear your teammates so clearly is a definite bonus.

Incidentally I also tried hooking them up to my PC for Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and it was insane. It made one of the most atmospheric games of the year even more atmospheric. And scary. Good GOD it was scary. But I won’t go into details, we’ve covered survival with The Last of Us.

Proteus
I was desperate to try this. I mentioned in the Proteus review that I nearly fell asleep while playing this and wearing my Turtle Beach headset, such was the effect the music had on me while I sat atop a mountain and watched the clouds roll by. The Gioteck offering easily matched them, and the surround sound effect came into its own, giving the dreamy landscape and soundtrack a more haunting and almost hypnotic quality. It sounded like I was in a room full of speakers – not true surround sound, but just totally enveloped in the incredible audio that Proteus produces. While the setting might not be suitable for games that require much tighter and accurate sound, this just totally mesmerised me. A quite amazing feeling and one that I never experienced using my other kit.

FIFA14
One thing often lacking in sports games is the feeling you’re actually there, in the stands with all of that brilliant football stadium noise around you. If you’ve ever wondered how you could make things better in that department, I’ve got the answer for you. Not only were crowd noises enhanced, but the chatter on the pitch was far more audible, especially if you switched off the commentary to let the background sounds come through. Crunching tackles give a more real sound, thumping a 30-yarder off the post gives that familiar sound of leather against metal and the noise when it finally ripples the back of the net? Very nice.

Microphone, Comms and General Quality
The microphone on the EX-06 is not only detachable, but can also swap sides so if you’d rather it hangs off your left ear in stead of the right, that’s easy to do. It’d get a little confusing considering the controls for the comms are on the right hand side, but the option’s there if you need it.

Hearing others is extremely clear, with the independent volume buttons letting you mix the action with the voices of other player to a level which suits you. Other players said I was coming across a little quiet despite having my volume up to max in the PS3 settings, something I managed to make slightly better by bending the mic boom slightly. It would be nice to be able to adjust the sensitivity of the microphone on the headset itself somehow, but I could still be heard easily and clearly and had my 1 year old not been asleep in the room above where I was sat I’d probably have been speaking a fair bit louder. Either way it’s certainly more comfortable than most Bluetooth comm-only headsets I’ve tried over the past few years, and having the game audio coming through the same headset is invaluable.

The final test I had was for sound leaking out of the headphones when I was playing. When just holding them and turning the volume up you could, as you’d expect, hear a lot of sound through the headphones. Of course you can, they’re speakers. They make noise. But I roped in my wife to see how things were when I was actually wearing them, and it was very very impressive. Even when turning the volume up to the highest I could comfortably manage during a game of Need for Speed: Rivals, she couldn’t hear a thing despite sitting on the same sofa.  With the level of bass that they can push out, and the volume they reach while still maintaining their clarity, being able to play without disturbing anyone else nearby is brilliant. So much so, that I suspect these will just become part of my normal gaming setup instead of the TV itself.

Overall
Gioteck have pitched the EX-06 as their premium headset, and it’s easy to see why. Their site quotes the following claim, and while it’s easy to take these sales pitches with a pinch of salt, this once is spot on. “Designed with superior materials for the perfect fit and finish you can wear these phones for hours of play in the ultimate comfort. Rich detailed audio comes from the 40mm drivers with sure fit over-ear enclosures that deliver only the highest level of clarity at every frequency.”

It’s almost like they wrote my summary for me. The EX-06 is a fantastic bit of kit, of that there’s no doubt. Being able to use it on a wide range of machines is handy too, and make the suggested £70 price tag extremely good value if you’ve got more than one system to use them with.

But even without that, even with just the one console or PC to play on, the EX-06 should be very high up your list of possible options when considering a new headset. It’s comfortable, it’s flexible in terms of how you use it, and it sounds incredible. Whether you knew much about them before or not, Gioteck have just elbowed themselves into the hardware party and brought with them something pretty special.

For more info about the EX-06 and their other products, head to the Gioteck site.