Today, all my phone calls have been made using voipStunt (for free landline-calls) and Skype (to fellow geeks), and all of them have been made using my new favourite headset, a Sennheiser PC 165.
This pro headset comes with its own USB dongle, creating a 'virtual' sound card. Very handy if you want to listen to music in your headset, but hear the incound call ringtones on your PC speaker etc etc.
Setting it up is a matter of plugging in, going to Tools -> Options -> Sounds settings in both programs (note how similar VoipStunt's and Skype's user experiences are!) and choosing Sennheiser Headset as both audio in and audio out device. Then play.
The microphone is high quality; distance sensitive (picks up voice, backgound sounds are weak) and the headphones themselves pack a punch for normal, non-conversation use, like music and games.
Piping Winamp through these babies is serious fun (to change where winamp should play its music, go to Options -> Preferences -> Plug-ins -> Output -> DirectSound -> Configure and select your preferred output device).
Most other headphone/mic combos I've had have been pretty lame, music-wise, but with this headset it's all bass and detail. I've tried Madonna and I've tried jazz and classical. Brilliant...
Full disclosure: the test headset used for the review was supplied free of charge to me by the friendly chaps at sennheiser.co.uk that I met at Skype Night last year. This headset is also known as Sennheiser PC-165 or PC165.
©
Anders Jacobsen [extrospection.com photography] |