ASTRO Gaming A50 Wireless Headset + Base Station Gen 4 - Compatible With PS5, PS4, PC, Mac - Black/Silver

I received this helmet and was able to try it out for a few days before returning it for a refund. I'll start by saying that I did about a week of research comparing Turtle Beach, Steelseries Arctis Pro Wireless, PlayStation Gold, and Platinum headsets. I have owned Turtle Beach Elite 800 since around 2016. They are amazing with the built in mic. The problem I started having around year 2 of owning them was that they lost audio then came back 5 seconds later. Then they started making a shrill sound. Call of Duty, for example, would have all of the sounds in the game played in the cups with shouts added to them. It was terrible. Factory reset did nothing. After doing this randomly for a few more years, I thought I would look at another set of helmets. I ultimately settled on the Astro A50 Gen 4 as they are like the Elite 800s in that they have a magnetic base for charging the headset. They were more expensive than what I originally bought the Elite 800s for and come with a boom mic instead of built-in. Within 2 days of owning the Astro A50s, I turned them off and on again for no reason. I could also see the base lights go out. Then the headset would reboot in seconds. This happened to me twice. The first time I thought it was just a glitch, but the second time it reminded me so much of why I started hating my Elite 800s. It's also like the sound reset from of what I had composed it? So it would start a match and it would be amped up so loud and I would have to remix it. I also can't stand the fact since I was so used to it on the Elite 800s but the game/chat mix on the Astro A50s is super annoying. The Elite 800s have talk volume on the left earbud and game volume on the right earbud. Completely separated. You don't get that on the A50s... If you want your game volume to be higher, you click twice? and hold the right button on the right earbud. You will hear two beeps. You then take the volume knob and turn it to the gaming volume you like. Then for chat you do the same thing but click the back of the earpiece on the right ear. Then dial it. After that, you might not be right and have to start all over again. Even better, you can finally compose everything, then a new game starts with different sounds mixed from the studio and you have to RESTART your settings again. Click and click. SUPER BORING. Turtle Beach is right in making the two volume controls (for game and chat) completely independent of each other. Astro did it in such a weird way and it's terrible. Structure/Design: The headset and base look great right out of the box. The helmet was a bit cheaper/lightweight. I will say the cloth ear cup coverings were nice, but if you have facial hair it can be itchy. (They have an overpriced leather "mod" you can use for the leather earbuds. Absolutely ridiculously priced for those - price gouging for sure) Sound: The sound was great for the footsteps. I noticed it lacked bass but that's like everyone else has said. Other than that, the sounds were crisp and clear. I don't know why, but they sounded way more different than the Turtle Beach Elite 800s. That's good and bad. I preferred the Elite 800s sound, maybe it's because I'm biased because I've had them for 4 years. helmet. This headset isn't worth the $300 price tag for anything and that's coming from someone who's spent a lot of money on high-priced stuff. This is one of my very few purchase regrets. Personally, I would choose the Elite 800s even if the Astros were given to me for free. That being said, I have another PS4 and have since upgraded to the PlayStation Platinums for $115 and they have a built-in mic with independent game/chat mixing for over half the price. I'll see how they rank.