TakStar Force Feedback Headphone Specifications:

The box defines these as "force feedback" To quote from the box, Xitel says that "This revolutionary headset actually shakes and vibrates for a totally addicitve sensation that takes the virtual reality of positional audio all the way. Now you’ll not only be able to hear where everything is coming from, you will also be able to feel it. Its like wearing a full surround system on your ears, subwoofer included."

So let me start from the more mundane component of the headphones. They use a padded adjustable headband and a soft cushion earcup in a closed format which keeps the inside in and the outside out in terms of acoustics. I have been using a set of Sennheiser HD 525s since January. Even ignoring the price difference between the two set which is significant (the Sennheiser HD 525’s list for $125), the TakStar phones compared well in terms of comfort with the Sennheisers. However, I found the deeper earcups on the Sennheisers to be a fair bit more comfortable and the Sennheiser 525s are also just a little lighter. The TakStars don’t match the Sennheiser’s tonal balance and smooth bass response (without the force feedback enable) but you will be hard pressed (impossible?) to find a set of headphones in the retail market for $20 that sound as good as the TakStars. Because of the force feedback effect the TakStars have their own in-line amplifier a couple of feet below the headset. This amp is powered by 2 AAA cells and also houses the volume control and force feedback settings. I expected this to be typical of most low cost amps that can introduce lots of noise of but I was again pleasantly surprised at how little line noise was introduced! For those of you that plug your headphones directly into the sound card the TakStars offer greater volume that you could normally achieve from non-amplified sound card outputs. In just this regard, they out-performed the Sennheisers. If this is where it feature list quit it probably would still be considered a good deal to get these headphones for $20 but of course there is more good stuff in the way of the "force feedback" effect.

Audiophiles need not read any further because of the pain this concept may cause to their sensibilities ;). I approached the force feedback headphone concept with a fair degree of skepticism despite being a big fan of the Intensor LX gaming chair. I was in for a pleasant, if at times mind numbing, surprise. If you read the headphone specs above you may have been thinking we had a typo with the bass response shown as 5 Hz, which is well below the human hearing range. Well 5 Hz is not below our feeling range and the headphones do a great job of emphasizing bass response. This is where the force feedback concept comes from. To games feedback might imply that they uses the joystick force feedback APIs and it does no such thing. What it does do is react to bass in the sounds being played and the more bass in the sounds being played, the more the headphones will vibrate. You can control this vibration via the headphone control box which has three settings for the vibration effect - off, partial and full effects and you can also control the effects by adjusting the bass in via the equalizer in the Storm Platinum’s control panel. This is the same equalizer that all Vortex 2 owners have access to.

Let me start of by saying I think the effect is great and in some games its better than others. I found the vibrations a little too much in shooters and had to use the Storm Platinum’s equalizer to adjust the bass down to my preferred level as with the full effect going its not something I would want to use all the time. I did start to get a headache after playing with full effects for a solid hour of Half-Life, but it most definitely added an additional, positive, dimension to interactive gaming and I really enjoyed the effect it had on several games. Personally, I would not use the force feedback effect for music, but I am sure there are those of you out there that would just love to have your bass shake your eyes out J These headphones are excellent value added to the Storm Platinum Gamers Pack and are also available separately from Xitel for $39.95. By no means am I saying these are an audiophiles dream, but as a $20 add on for the gamers pack they are a great deal and even at $39.95 after-market I think they are very competitively priced and would compare favorably to other headphones in the $40-60 price range.

Given the different nature of headphones I though we would offer a second opinion by way of 3DsoundSurge’s Frank Benfari. Here is what he thought:

"So how do they feel you say? Well like Mark I was comparing them to the Sennheisers which have a more comfortable feel to them as the earpieces gently cup your ears in their soft sponge cushion and a rectangular cushion for the top of your head, while the Takstars seem to push against your ears. However, I feel the Takstar earpiece helps to achieve the force feedback effect. Personally I don’t like the way the Takstars feel against the ears... after a while your ears start to actually perspire from the material around the ear piece and it gets somewhat uncomfortable. The Takstars are also a little heavier than the Sennheisers but this is because of the force feedback mechanism located in the ear pieces.

How do they rumble you ask? AAA batteries are what powers this energy hungry accessory. I had to buy several packs of batteries over my 2 weeks of testing as batteries get energized a lot of the time. Calling them force feedback is a little gimmicky as it's just a loud low bass sound rumbling shaking the ear sets but I must give it to Takstar as overall they do sound impressive!

Sound quality wise, the Takstars don’t match up to the $125 Sennheiser’s which offer clearer highs and a very good lows. However, switch to force feedback effect on Takstars and they have a great feel to them when holding and firing a chain-gun (Quake2) which produces a lot of low frequency sounds.

All and all for an extra $20 I recommend getting the gamers pack! Headphones are very good despite and when rumbling occurs I’m sure you'll love the feel to it as you plow down corridors with your rocket launcher!"