The gaming headset industry is a minefield of various makes, types, and ultimately quality. There are headsets available for all budgets, tastes, sound type, and much more, and getting the right headset for you can be an absolute nightmare.

Personally, when researching headsets, there are three criteria I tend to look at: comfort, sound quality, and microphone quality. Comfort-wise, you really can’t fault the Playsonic Alphas. They have a well padded head-band, and the single, over-ear cup is well cushioned and stays comfortable over long periods of play. I wear glasses when playing, so it’s important for me to find a headset which doesn’t result in the arms of my glasses being embedded into the side of my head, and I can safely say, this did not happen with the Playsonic Alphas.

The sound quality is also excellent, with a great range of bass, mid, and treble tones, which are perfectly balanced. Despite being a single-cup headset, I was still able to pin point enemies around me with ease. The benefit of a single-cup headset is that you are still aware of your personal surroundings, leaving you able to play easily, but also be able to listen out for spouses shouting at you to come off the game at 1am.

PlaySonic-Alpha-Mono-Chat-Headset2

Unfortunately, the microphone really lets the headset down. I tried various configurations to try and get the best sound possible, but all resulted in an incredibly quiet, muffled, or broken sound. I first tried plugging the headset directly into the 3.5mm jack on my Xbox One controller, but without having to eat the microphone, my team mates found it incredibly hard to hear me. I even removed the microphone boom cover to see if that helped, but the difference was negligible. Secondly, I tried plugging the headset into my chat adapter, which connects to the base of the Xbox One controller. This improved my voice somewhat, but it was still hard for my friends to hear me as quite often my voice would cut out, and usually at suboptimal times during the game.

EDITORS NOTE: We spoke to Priftech about this, they shared the following link to show the how the sound from the microphone should be when plugged directly into a phone, there is a chance Xbox Live could have caused the problem, other members of the team using headsets such as Astros can be awfully quiet for no reason – we have seen other reviews that suggest the microphone works well so we may have been unlucky.

The build quality of the Playsonic Alpha is pretty solid considering the price. I’ve tried a few budget headsets which all felt poorly constructed, and as if they’d fall apart after a short while. The Playsonic Alphas feel strong, and as though they would last a long time.

The Playsonic Alphas also features in-line volume controls, which make is easy to control the volume as and when required. The microphone is also fully detachable, so if you wish to use them just to listen to music or game audio, you don’t have to worry about moving the microphone out of the way to do so.

The Playsonic Alpha Wired Mono Headset is from the lower-end of the budget range, available from Priftech on Amazon for £19.99, and whilst they provide a great listening experience, the poor microphone hold it back significantly.

Thanks to Xbox and Priftech for supporting TiX