Tritton Pro+ review

Tritton Pro+ review 

A good 5.1 headset made (slightly) better

Should you ask anyone at Tritton what the best way to deliver 5.1 surround sound in a headset is, they'd tell you it's by putting four separate drivers in each ear cup - that's 'true' surround sound, after all. It's the ethos behind both the flawed AX Pro headset, and this Pro+. This is a revised iteration of those cans, designed to iron out the irksome mic, rigid headset design and fussy setup, while still delivering crystal clear surround audio.

However, if you asked someone who wasn't trying to sell you their 5.1 headset, you wouldn't get such a black and white response. We've heard excellent results from digital 5.1 headsets like Creative's Recon3D, which digitally interpolates (read: magics up) the points between physical drivers to create a much wider (albeit virtual) sound space.

That's what you're dealing with when choosing between true and digital 5.1 - the latter wins for fidelity, but with a bit of trickery, the best digital cans can create an experience that's just as dazzling.

Pros and cons

This is important for the Tritton Pro+ because early signs suggest a £150 price point, which means you're paying a premium for those eight drivers. You're also paying for a more malleable microphone and headset than you get with the AX Pro, plus cross-platform compatibility and an interesting volume control that lets you alter the levels of each driver to accommodate for different 5.1 mixes.

For example, we found that FIFA 13's crowds sounded like a riptide by default, until we lowered the rear and sub volumes. Sound quality isn't always where you want it to be, but with a little tweaking you can achieve a really impressive surround. We're not sure it's good enough for pro gamers to pinpoint sound cues though. The Recon3D offered a mode that exaggerated nearby sounds to that end - a feature that's missing here. Ironically, for anything less than pro gaming, the Pro+ is great. We do have a couple of grumbles around setting the headset up, though. Assembly requires quite a few cables - one proprietary cable from the headset to the Dolby box, one AC power cable, and optical and USB cables connecting to the PC, PS3 or Xbox.

It's more simple if you're running an analog setup to the PC - you just hook up the headset to a PC adapter cable via USB, and plug in four mini-jacks and a USB into your back panel - but for anything else you're going to have a lot of wires lying around. Isn't there an easier way? The Pro+'s convoluted setup procedure actually makes a great case for wireless headsets.

If we're being harsh, you're not rewarded by anything stellar at the end of the setup. The cans tend to get hot and uncomfortable after an hour, and although the sound they're producing is fantastic with the exception of some muddy low end, when you're sitting there all sweaty-eared looking at five cables going in and out of a box the size of a router, maybe fantastic sound isn't all that. This isn't a headset you'll regret buying, or one that fails to deliver on its promises, but neither is it an easy headset to love.