Skullcandy PLYR1 Headset Review

Let's face it, we all hate cables.

Headsets have been a basket case for me. I can never seem to find one that is of good quality for a price that won't kill my wallet. My past headsets, namely the Afterglow series, while good, were still far from perfect. I did have an interest in Skullcandy's line of gaming headsets at the time, in particular their flagship model, the PLYR 1. And believe it or not, I couldn't be more happy with it.

Size compared to the Afterglow Prismatic.

This headset was the byproduct of Skullcandy buying out Astro Gaming, known for making some of the best headsets on the market. Essentially these are very similar to the Astro A50 in terms of what they can do, but the big difference is they're not $300 dollars. The PLYR1's only cost $180 which is more than enough to sway someone away from the A50. But are they really as good?

The control stick is a little different, but gets the job done.

Comfort-wise, they fit my head quite well and are very comfortable for long periods of time. I will note that if your ears are freaking huge they might be a tad uncomfortable as the internal clearance around the cups isn't too big. You can argue that the A50's build quality is better and while that's true, the build on the PLYR1's is quite nice. Yes they are wireless, with Dolby 7.1 Surround to boot. I've tested this on all my consoles and it works phenomenally. PC however, is another story, but I'll get to that later. There are three modes similar to that of the Afterglow, Bass Boost, Normal, and Immersive. Mic quality seems fine, no complaints from my friends over how I sound. Controls on this headset are a little... different. You flip up the mic to mute the headset and the master volume, game and chat volume balance are controlled by an analog stick on the side of the headset. No it's not bad but compared to having a standard mute button and volume wheels, it will take some getting used to. Battery life is excellent at around 12 to 15 hours of use. So far so good.

Back of the receiver.

The receiver is your typical stand receiver and it runs off USB so virtually anything on the planet can power this thing. The headset charges off a microUSB that runs out the back of the receiver and the fiber optic TOSLink cables go from the receiver directly into your console. The set works with just about everything but to go into greater depth, the set works with PlayStation consoles with no issues at all. The 360 requires a cable from the headset to the controller but it comes with one so no problems there. It works just fine with the Xbox One but you have to buy the headset adapter in order to talk with it. You could use the 2.5 to 3.5 adapter that comes with the adapter itself, but it's a piece of shit and broke within 5 seconds of plugging it in. So you'll have to shell out for a quality 2.5 to 3.5 cable. That's annoying, thanks Microsoft. PC requires a sound card with a TOSLink output and 7.1 capability. If you don't have one, you can just make do with stereo sound or buy a sound card for a small fortune.

So what's my final verdict on the PLYR1? Let's just say it's pretty much the best headset I've ever used. The sound quality is excellent, they work with pretty much everything, and they are quite comfortable. Compared to Astro A50's which are similar in performance, I would go with these unless you're nuts about build quality and/or have huge ears. It is a little annoying that Xbox One and PC requires some extra gear to use the full functionality of the set but probably the same goes for other 7.1 sets. All in all, the PLYR1 is an absolute steal for what you get and I highly recommend it.