Turtle Beach PX5 Review: Your Home Theater Mac's New Best Friend
27.05.11
All new and recent Macs (since the Power Macintosh G5 in 2003 ) come equipped with optical audio out, something not every Mac owner may be aware of. Using a mini-stereo adapter, Mac owners can stream full 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound with using a TOSLINK digital audio cable. But to do that, you need a receiver or speakers capable of decoding the signal. A decent quality full home theater audio system can cost many hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, and might be too loud if your system is in a small area.
Turtle Beach recently introduced a wireless gaming headset called the PX5, which features a mini receiver designed for use with PS3 or Xbox 360 gaming consoles, but it actually supports Macs, too, thanks to the optical audio out I mentioned above. I spent a week testing out the PX5 with my Mac HTPC setup, and here are my thoughts.
Not Cheap — In Both Good and Not So Good Ways
The PX5 system is the mostly costly offering in Turtle Beach’s lineup of gaming headsets, with an MSRP of $249.95. You can get it cheaper if you look around (Amazon has it listed for $212.99 as of this writing), but while it’s still not inexpensive even then, consider that Beats by Dre or Bose headphones will probably cost nearly as much, if not more.
Source: GigaOm