Logitech Premium USB Headset 350 ( 980374-0403 )
by Logitech
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Our Price: $59.48 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $15.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Logitech Premium USB Headset 350 ( 980374-0403 )
Customer Review: good headset but flawed design, whaddyagonnadoo?
Summary: 4 Stars
My love/hate relationship with Logitech products is confirmed once again with this one. Logitech knows they're the only game in town for a high-quality Mac-compatible product line, and I suspect they abuse their position.
Synopsis:
Sound quality is fine for $50, short-term comfort is fine, log-term comfort is so-so, muting has an odd quirk but is minor, but the wire design is a disaster.
Details:
Comfort: I wish the ear cushions were made of something softer, maybe a felt option over tempurpedic foam or something. Long-term wear does create minor cartilage ache around the ear. But to be fair, all modern headsets seem to be this way, and this product's long-term discomfort seems mild in comparison to others. Manufacturers really have lost their groove entirely with comfortable headphones over the decades, but I digress.
I discovered a minor quirk relating to muting in OSX. What Logitech tech support will not admit anywhere is that the headset volume is typically muted by default, and requires the user to click the mute box (in OSX system prefs/audio) not once but twice (check, then UNcheck) in order to get an audio feed. Once you know of this, of course everything's fine, but it's annoying to be denied info that clearly needs to be conveyed to customers. They nuance around it. What they say is: "make sure the mute box is unchecked," but in OSX it's unchecked by default, so one wouldn't think to click twice anyway.
But the biggest tragedy is about the headset wire, and this is probably true of the entire Logitech line of headsets. The wire from the USB connector to the inline audio adjust dial is fairly burly and heavy gauge, which is good. But from the dial on up to the headset it's fairly frail and low gauge, and the little rubber anti-fray grommet where the wire exits the volume dial is so stunted as to be ineffective.
What typically happens is, under normal use conditions the dial housing (which is a pretty wide thing) gets caught on the armrest of your chair or tugged by the keyboard tray or something, and that puts strain on the only part of the design that absolutely cannot take it; the fine wire with the pathetic anti-fray grommet where it enters the volume dial. The wire begins to short (inside the grommet!) about a month after the warrantee expires, and you've got yourself a busted $50 USB headset. A pox on the house of Logitech for what seems a deliberate act of design suicide, from a company we want otherwise to love.
Even with it hanging there, the fine wire is responsible for carrying/pivoting the weight of the burly cord/ volume dial, which itself will eventually short it out. More careful wire exit design and a bigger grommet would've solved this. And with about three other more convenient options for volume control on a Mac, I question the need for the inline volume dial anyway.
My advice, since there's honestly nothing else out there, is for new buyers to loop the fine wire around the little pocket clip on the volume dial housing to minimize tugging damage. And if you don't mind compromising the aesthetics a bit, glue the loop in place with contact cement. Do this immediately after purchasing. You'll probably quadruple the lifetime of the headset by this simple trick.
Customer Review: Average Headset With a Design Flaw...
Summary: 3 Stars
I've used this headset for over 3 years now. There are plenty of good things about it, but also plenty of bad things depending on the user. Overall it makes this headset average at best in my opinion.
** THE GOOD
- The quality of the headset is fairly good. 3 years of heavy gaming use and it is still operating good as new. In fact the headset itself looks fairly new as well. The padded ear cushions are still as fluff and soft as out of the box.
- The microphone is located on the RIGHT side and produces a fairly good quality signal
- Plug-n-Play works great! Not one problem on Windows XP SP2/SP3 or Vista
- Audio quality of the speakers are fairly good. Audio comes out crystal clear and reproduction is pretty decent quality nearly equal to that of a decent sound card
- LED indicator to let you know if you have Power (solid blue) or are Muted (Flashes)
- Adjustable headband
** THE BAD
- While the USB cable is thick and sturdy; the cable leading from the right side to the "soft touch" control is thin. While it works fine it doesn't seem sturdy enough to handle being pulled on or accidentally tugged so handle with care!
- Soft touch feature is really SOFT TOUCH. In fact, you might bump against the mute button (which happens to be 90% of the soft-touch button panel) and mute yourself without even realizing it. A simple 'beep' notifying you a button had been pressed would of been nice.
** THE UGLY
- If you wear glasses (like myself) you might have a small problem. While the earmuffs themselves are fairly comfortable they do fit "snug". This can cause them to press your ears into the branches of your glasses and lead to headaches or just discomfort.
...To remedy this problem you can either slip a cotton ball between your branch and ear. Depending on your glasses, lift the branch slightly so it isn't behind the ear. OR wear the headset loose instead of securing it to your head. (leave some play in the adjustment)
** OVERALL perhaps 3 years ago this was a good headset to own. It is a simple headset which does its job well, and outside of my concerns with the thin connecting cable from the "soft touch" to the earpiece, the headset is built to last. The audio quality is decent and the speaker quality is exceptional for the price. I do not regret my purchase one bit (back in 2007). HOWEVER, this is 2011 and there are better alternatives on the market now; especially for someone with glasses and multiple gaming systems
With that in mind... I recommend the X11 (for PC/MAC/360 owners) or the P11 (for PC/MAC/PS3 owners) Both products are by Turtle Beach and are in the same ballpark $-wise... If you want to splurge get a 21 series line. (better audio drivers)
Customer Review: It grows on you
Summary: 4 Stars
Well, I've had this headset for nearly four years now. I wouldn't keep it that long if it were a piece of junk. The sound quality has been consistently good, and the recording quality is excellent, especially for voice applications like Ventrilo or Teamspeak. If you're running any version of Windows starting with 2000, setup is as easy as finding an open USB port. Windows will take care of the rest. After four years, these are the only gripes I have.
First issue: when I first got it, the padding became a bit uncomfortable after a few hours of use. The more I used it, however, the more it conformed to my ears. As an avid gamer, I frequently end up playing for hours on end, usually well into the night. I can confidently assure you that if you wear this headset enough, you will be able to keep it on indefinitely with no discomfort at all (read: I once wore this headset on my noodle for 40 hours straight with no discomfort).
Second issue: the mute button/volume control. I really don't like it. It is a large, easy-to-press button that is situated on the cord in a place that is usually somewhere around your lap. If you sit up close to your desk, you will end up accidentally muting yourself A LOT. A pocket clip is attached presumably to solve that problem, but I always wear tee shirts with no pockets which makes the clip useless. The volume control actually adjusts the system volume (in Windows, anyway). Whether that's good or bad is up to you.
Third issue: this is my biggest problem. After four years of use, it's finally starting to give me trouble. It will be either connected or disconnected, depending on how the USB plug is sitting in the port. Jiggle it one way, it works great. Move it a millimeter the other way, and it won't even get power. Sometimes it's temperamental: I'll be merrily engaged in a game of some sort, when the headset will momentarily lose it's connection. This is incredibly irritating if you happen to be playing an online game and using Ventrilo, because you will completely lose sound in the game (requiring you to quit and reenter the game to get sound back) AND Ventrilo, even though it was only disconnected for the briefest moment. I haven't found a way to restore full functionality without quitting every program that uses the headset and starting them back up. Sometimes it will be fine for hours, other times the damn thing will disconnect every minute. Maybe it's just time to replace it, but I really hope that I don't have to buy a new headset every few years. The rest of my computer equipment holds up far longer.
All in all, you really can't get any better for your money. Give it a shot and you'll more than likely be very pleased.
Customer Review: Beautiful set. Amazing quality for price
Summary: 5 Stars
I was terribly skeptical about this headset because of its startlingly low price, but I'm entirely satisfied with them! I noticed that there is an inline audio processor attached to the chord (this is a good thing), so when using these, you'll need to go into your audio settings and set the usb device as default, although it should do this automatically (except for programs like skype, you may need to adjust settings differently for different programs). Also, the inline volume controller is useful for some, but it turns up the computer system volume, not the volume just for the headphones. That is quite annoying for me, but for most, it's very convenient.
The Microphone: As for the recording quality of the mic, the inline audio unit filters out interference and provides decent recording quality for your microphone. USB headsets generally are better than analog 3.5mm headsets. They have increased bandwidth and are able to use things like inline audio modules to increase quality.
The Headphone sound quality: The quality of sound that these cans produce is certainly surprising at this price point. I was expecting muffled or excessively bright sound, but they're quite clear. They are slightly lacking in spots and they have a VERY subtle muffled quality, but they have amazing clarity and powerful punchy bass. They can handle volume too. There is zero distortion at max volume. I'm an audiophile, and I love high quality sound. These headphones have the potential to open up a world of crisp, live music and sound for you if you aren't used to expensive set ups with headphone amps and such. If you are used to a nice set up, then these headphones will be just fine for you. At least they won't displease you.
I needed a headset that merely got the job done. I was not concerned with quality of sound recording or playback, and in buying these, I was completely blown away at their incredible quality considering price. I was completely surprised at the performance of this headset, and the fact that it was 17.93 is absolutely astonishing. For music listening, I use a pioneer stereo receiver as an amp and equalizer for my senheisser HD 435 headphones. I don't mind switching to the logitech 350 to listen to music while I talk on skype. Logitech must have made a deal with the devil to produce quality audio recording and playback at such a low price. I'm entirely pleased.
Customer Review: Much more comfortable than the earlier 300
Summary: 5 Stars
I have the Logitech Premium 300 headset at work and liked it well enough, so I decided to try out this 350 when I needed a headset at home for Skype. I was very pleased! The 350 is much more comfortable to wear as a set of headphones, and the microphone is much smaller and less obtrusive. Finally, the volume and mute buttons are sleeker and the lump at the end of the USB cord (presumably something related to drawing power over the USB port) is much, much smaller on the 350.
As far as the comfort of these headphones compared to other non-Logitech units, I would say that they're not as nice as the Bose noise-cancelling headphones that curl AROUND your ears without mashing them down. These 350 headphones definitely mash your ears--like all other headphones of this design--but they seem comfortable enough to wear for an hour or two at a time. The sound quality is excellent, and is far and away good enough for VoIP applications. You'll probably notice some bass lacking if you watch movies, but otherwise they get five stars for sound quality.
The only drawback I've noticed is cord management. They ship with a pretty long integrated cord and there's no place to store it. The headphones don't fold well (or really at all), so for portability purposes that makes it tough. USB headphones won't work on any iPods anytime soon, though, so maybe this is a non-issue.
I was curious about how well the microphone performed, so I did the signal-to-noise test that Dragon Naturally Speaking performs when you first enroll a user. To my dismay, this unit only got a "19" S:N rating. I don't think this number means anything in an absolute sense, but as a relative comparison I've seen scores of 19 and 20 from quite a few computers that have ordinary motherboard sound and the free headset that comes with Dragon. The best score I've seen was a 26 from a Toshiba laptop with the free Dragon headset, so obviously this score of 19 is nothing to write home about. This fact was surprising to me since I thought the USB end-to-end digital headphones would produce a better S:N ratio, but I guess these weren't designed for extremely high input quality. They are, however, "good enough" for the price and I can recommend them without reservations.