My personal views and opinions on the Astro Gaming Mixamp PRO USB

Overview

The Astro Gaming company based in San Francisco California. They offer products such as the A40 Tournament headset, A30 Portable headset, Astars Ear buds, and the new A50 home use headset.  The also offer accessories such as travel bags, headphone stands etc.  They are well known in the major league gaming tournaments by and gamers world wide.

The product I am reviewing is the USB Mixamp Pro.  You connect this device to your gaming console or PC.  It will then take the input of a microphone for voice chat and output the game audio and voices of other players in to your headphones.

Build and appearance

The build quality of the mixamp is solid like a rock.  It has two knobs on it.  The top larger knob is for overall audio.  The smaller knob just below is the blend knob. It blends the game audio and voice of other players.  This makes it possible to listen to all the game audio, only the voice chat or anywhere in between.  The knobs are black with a silver rim.  They are tight but they turn nice and smooth.  The blend knob has a spot where you can feel that it is in the 50/50 position.  The outer parts of the mixamp have a nice rubbery feel, smooth but grippy.  The top of the device is a gloss black finish.  The knobs are black with sliver rim. There are two buttons on the headphones.  The one on the left is the power button that lights up red when it is on, and if you have the optional battery pack in, it will flash orange when it is charging. The button on the right lights up red when it on and turns on the 5.1 simulation.  When it is off, it is in standard stereo audio.

How I use the Mixamp

I use the mixamp on both the PS3 and Xbox 360.  I have the USB cable connected from my PS3 to the USB port on the mixamp.  Then there is an optical cable coming from the PS3 and the Xbox.  They go in to a cheap manual optical switch.  The output of the switch goes in to the optical port of the mixamp via another optical cable.  I also have the optional astro gaming mixamp battery inside the mixamp.  Then I use the Y-cable that comes with the mixamp to hook up my Sennheiser PC 360 Headset.  You can also use any headphone and microphone of your choice.  For example, before I got the Sennheiser PC 360 I used to use a pair of Denon D2000 headphones and a Zalman Clip on microphone.

This is all I need when I am playing on the PS3.  I just make sure the switch is set to where the PS3 is at.  When the PS3 is on it will charge the battery.

Then when I want to switch it over to the Xbox 360 I simply set the switch to the spot where the Xbox 360 is.  Then I attach the Astro gaming 2.5mm cable that comes with the mixamp in to the Xbox 360 controller and to the mixamp itself.  This is how you get your voice back in to the Xbox 360 so your friends can hear you.  When I am using this method I am running off of the battery.

If you only have one console, the PS3 or Xbox, you will not need the optical switch or the battery. Just run both the optical and USB in to your console of choice and to the mixamp.  But, if you are like me and use both, I have found this is the best setup. 

  Pros

Easy setup.  Looks good.  Virtual surround sound is very accurate.  The sound reproduction is nice and clean.  Powerful enough to drive most headphones.

Cons

No volume control for the microphone on the mixamp.  It would be nice to adjust the volume of my voice output on the mixamp.  The only way I can do this with my headset is to go in to the dashboard of my system.  Not to big of a deal because once it is set you do not really need to change it much.  Other than maybe to mute your microphone.  The solution for muting the microphone is to have one that can mute such as the Sennhesier PC 360 when I raise up the microphone, it mutes.  When the volume is at lower settings you may experience sound only coming out of one ear usually the left ear cup.  But if you just bump the volume up a tiny bit it should come back in both ears. 

Conclusions

This device is one of the simplest ways to get great audio and voice chat on your gaming console of choice from any headphone and microphone you have.  Very easy to use.  It is a great addition to your gaming experience.  I would recommend this to anyone with a nice headphone looking for a gaming and chat solution.  I also feel it is a much better set up then anything from Turtle Beach or Tritton on the market right now.