Turtle Beach Ear Force AK-R8 Headphones Review

Surprisingly enough, editors at CNET didn't totally hack my review into pieces like I had anticipated. A good 81% of my original review still exists in the final review. However, my opening paragraph (where I took a little poetic license) was completely chopped off and replaced with a paragraph of complete technical rhetoric.

Original posting: "For avid gamers, movie and music-lovers alike, sound quality is very important. Being enveloped by the subtle (and not-so-subtle) nuances of a song, a throng of car explosions, or being able to anticipate where an opponent is going to attack, adds to the excitement factor; feeling a great sense of immersion. This is where Turtle Beach’s Ear Force AK-R8 headphones come into play. Although no headphones on this planet can give you the true 5.1 channel surround sound effect that standalone speakers can give, these come pretty close."

...and CNET's edit:

"Plenty of PC headphones and audio cards offer a "headphone surround-sound" mode, but it's often little more than a sophisticated reverb mode that uses psychoacoustics to trick the mind into thinking it's hearing something beyond a stereo (2-channel) source. That's why the Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA headphones were so impressive. The full-size headset included four actual drivers in each earcup (center, front, rear, and "subwoofer"), effectively strapping a full 5.1 speaker system to your head. The result, unsurprisingly, was some of the best headphones-based surround effects we've ever heard. The catch was the HPA's design: it required minijack connections to a PC audio card, and it actually needed its own AC adapter to power its built-in amplifier. Thankfully, Turtle Beach went back to the drawing board and now offers an alternative: the Ear Force AK-R8. The new headset ($150 list) utilizes the same multidriver earcups as the HPA, but it connects to PCs with a single convenient USB plug."

Obviously, I didn't want to get into the comparisons of other headphones just yet. I felt I needed an opening paragraph that was not only welcoming, but on a level which everyone could understand and appreciate; enticing the person to want to continue reading the review as opposed to getting immediately bored and turned off. Alas, what can you do but take it with a grain of salt. On the upside, compared to my Labs partner's first review (where his got completely rewritten), I feel better of what I can do and put forth on the table.

So check out my complete review on CNET.com for the Turtle Beach Ear Force AK-R8 PC gaming headphones.