Logitech USB 350 Headset - Articles / Reviews

Reviews: Multimedia

Logitech USB 350 Headset

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Bradford Day
Kurtis
Logitech
Jun. 16, 2005

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First Looks

Despite the rather humdrum model name of USB Headset 350, these are pretty stylish headphones. Extracting them from their plastic blister-pack casing is an exercise fit for those of us familiar with finger-wrenching pain. This is a subjective complaint, but I hate the impenetrable solid plastic bubble pack with a passion. One is left with only one recourse in opening these packages, that being a pocketknife (or the like), and that method requires a steady hand lest you slice the valuable contents inside, or better yet, a finger.

Once I successfully extricated the headset from the plastic, I was able to get a good look and feel for what these babies are all about. The unit is a nice shade of charcoal gray with black padded ear cups. Logitech's logo tastefully adorns each earpiece as well as the in-line volume control. The volume control was light and easy to manage, unlike some others I've seen that weigh down the user with heft akin to one of Mr. T's gold chains. To adjust the volume, simply touch the outer gray ring on the + or -. Depressing the Logitech logo will mute incoming sound and cause the blue power-up LED to flash. The ear cups are about 3" in diameter and feature soft foam coverings on the inner well, while plastic grills cover the outboard sides. A fold-up microphone boom is mounted to the right ear cup and slides neatly out of the way. The headset is definitely a lightweight, tipping the scale at just under 200 grams. Along with the headset, Logitech also includes an easy to follow User's Guide.

Testing

As I mentioned, these headphones are pretty light, which is mostly attributed to their all-plastic construction. Slip the USB 350s over your head and you will find that they rest lightly over your crown. However, there is no method for adjusting fitment of these headphones other than the traditional sliding earpieces. The ear cups don't rotate very much at all to accommodate wearers of various ear anatomies. Adjusting the height setting was easy enough, but the headset felt very tight on my ears and the solid plastic headband allows for no width adjustment. The soft ear cups are supple when manipulated with fingers but offer little comfort on the ears. It was almost like they weren't thick enough to offset the face of the speaker. I felt like the plastic casing was resting right on my ears. Not off to a good start.

Installation, if you can call it that, is simple. If you are running Windows XP, 2000, ME, 98ES or OS X+, your machine should instantly recognize the headset. But let it be known that USB headsets do not act the same as their 3.5mm input jack brethren. Let's say, for example, you are playing music in WinAmp over your desktop speakers and want to swap quickly to the USB headphones. You can't just plug your USB 350s into a free USB jack and have the music swap from speaker to headphone. I found that when making a change of this type you need to stop your music software, install the headset and then re-start the software. Not very convenient. Of course, this isn't such a big deal if you don't ever plan to use external speakers. In fact, this headset is really suited more for the laptop user or Mac Mini enthusiast who has no audio outputs.

To test the musical capacity of these headphones, I employed my standard run of assay music. Through the speakers I ran many tracks of punk, ska, country, rock, metal, rap, techno and more punk. I was not immediately impressed. Right away I noticed that punk and rock songs really did a number on the headphones. The heavy, rapid thump of a bass drum coupled with a rock bass line just destroyed any hope of crisp sound. The distortion at even medium volumes was instantly noticeable. Techno inflicted equally as much damage. It appears the speakers just can't handle the barrage of both bass drum and bass guitar. However, when I turned to my trusty THX Deepest Bass track I was pleasantly surprised. The sharp, heavy electronic bass wasn't grossly distorted until very high volumes were reached. At normal listening volume the track was clear and even the mids and highs sounded pretty good. I experienced the same thing when listening to the Beastie Boys' newest album. The speakers were much more responsive to electronic bass than bass guitar and drums.

The gaming portion of testing fared a bit better than the music side of things. I tested the headset's in-game sound quality with a few rounds of Call of Duty, Half-Life 2 and Richard Burns Rally. While playing the games I was also chatting away with my teammates over the Ventrilo VoIP chat program. Firstly I will say that all of my teammates reported they could hear me load and clear. High marks to the microphone. And, as I mentioned before, the thin microphone boom tucks neatly away when it's not in use. The game sounds didn't suffer from the same lack of definition that the musical tracks did. For the most part, the game sounds were sharp and un-distorted. At loud volumes distortion did occur, but it also made my ears hurt so I doubt I would be playing at that volume anyway. I was satisfied with the game performance of the USB 350s. I've heard much better, but for the size and price point, in-game sound quality was respectable.

Movies were a bit middle-of-the-road when heard over the USB 350s. Loud explosions in the Matrix and LOTR suffered from the muddiness syndrome, but voice and other sound effects were of satisfactory quality. However, the uncomfortable ear cups would drive me nuts if I had to sit through a 2-hour movie.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Looks & Testing
Page 3: Conclusion

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