Ok, I know I haven’t updated in a long time.  I really have no good excuse, I’ve just been slacking.  So what’s happened since May?

Well, we have been pretty busy.  We started raiding Icecrown Citadel and have been running it on a weekly basis now with a regular group for 10 man and have been pugging 25 man.  We still have a ways to go before we get up to The Lich King, but I’m confident we will eventually get there when our team builds up enough gear and experience.

Some more good news,  Theshat and I are going to Blizzcon 2010!    We got incredibly lucky thanks to Theshat’s quick finger on F5 and we got into the queue on the first day of tickets at around 700.  So in October look for us at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Also, Theshat and I did finish out [What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been] and got our [Violet Proto-Drake].  It was a tough ride though.  The hardest one to complete was [Torch Juggler].  Unfortunately I could not get a screenshot of that one because that one was bugged this year, and in order to reduce as much latency as possible I had to disable all of my addons, including the one that takes screenshots of achievements.

On a personal level, I finished an achievement I’ve been working on for quite some time:  [Mountain o' Mounts].  It was hard, really hard, but I finally did it tonight.

Well, it’s late,  and I need to get some sleep.  Maybe I’ll actually start keeping this blog up to date again.

/logout

Ever since it was announced last August, I’ve been anticipating the availability of the Creative Labs WoW headset.  Today, I finally received mine.      I ordered mine through Amazon.com on Thursday for a retail of $159.99, and after overnight shipping, it came to $181.95.  Your shipping cost may vary and tax of course, depending on where you live.

So after opening the huge box from Amazon, here’s what I got.

Inside the box, going clockwise from top left we have:  the headset itself,  a storage bag (which has two internal pockets with Velcro to keep them shut, a small flat head screwdriver to pop out and change the lenses (below the screwdriver),  the USB dongle,  a USB charging cable,  a quick-start guide, and the detachable microphone.

Note that there is no driver disk included.  I’m ok with that.  Instead the quick start guide tells you where to download the driver.  That ensures you will always have the latest driver when installing for the first time.   Installation was very simple.  First before I did anything, I plugged in the headset to a free USB port with the charging cable to get that started, like it recommends. (Well, before I did even that, I changed the lenses.  Mine came with the Alliance glyphs installed.  I quickly changed that to Horde.)  Then, after downloading the driver,  I plugged in the USB dongle to another port and did the pairing.  Pairing was easy.  Hold down the connect button for 3 seconds on the headset and release.  The lens should flash blue.  Then press and hold the connect button on the dongle for 3 seconds and release.  The lights should stop flashing then.  After pairing, I installed the driver and then rebooted.  That was it.  All done.

While rebooting, I put them on.  They fit snug, and are very comfortable.  They are a little heavy, but I quickly got used to them.  They cover the ears very well, closing out a lot of outside noise.

So, after that, I went into the Audio Control Panel, and started making adjustments.  First, I set the color of the lenses to red.  They’re cyan by default (or at least it was on mine).  Next I went to the THX section.  There I turned on the various settings.  There are five options:  Crystalizer (Enhance music and movies to make them sound livelier), Surround (Control the level of audio immersion in music, movies, and games), Bass (Enhance the sound quality and bass of any speaker system for a better listening experience), Dialog Plus (Enhance the voices in movies for clearer dialog), and Smart Volume (Adjust the loudness of your audio playback automatically to minimize sudden volume changes) .  I turned them all on, and set them all at middle (50%), which I adjusted later while playing.

Next I checked out Game Audio.  This section allows you to enable VoiceFX (to change your voice) and enable the EQ.  There’s about a dozen presets and you can of course adjust each slider on your own.  It has a few WoW races you can chose from to change your voice to.  I was a tad disappointed there wasn’t a Tauren to chose from, but maybe in a future update (hint hint Creative?).

The last section is for key bindings.  You can set up key bindings to do different things in game with your headset, such as turning on and off the various THX settings, turning on and off RGB color cycling, and so on.  Note that if key binding is enabled,  they will be locked out of other applications.  The warning is also present on the key bindings page.

So, the main reason you’re here is you want to know how they sound.  After all, panels are nice, but sound quality is the key.   Ok, well,  I have to say, I am not disappointed in the least.    I had an eargasm the first time I logged into WoW.  As I walked, I could hear every little sound.  I could litterally hear the grass crunching under my feet.  I could hear the subtleties in the water fountains in Dalaran.  I then went up to Argent Tournament to do a little combat.  I swear, it was like I heard the game correctly for the very first time in the five years I’ve been playing.  I can’t emphasize more how phenomenal this headset sounds.

Now, in game, I had to make a minor change to be able to hear the full 360 degrees of sound.  Under the sound options, I changed it from default sound device to the headset device.  If left to default, I couldn’t hear full surround sound.  That may be because Windows still sees the default headphones as 2 speakers only.

Next, I tested the headset to watch a movie.  I wanted to chose something that would have a lot of sound effects and dialog, so I chose the new Star Trek movie.  I used a Blu-ray version of the movie with Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 Ultra.  After a couple of minor tweaks in the software to make it play 6 speakers rather than 2,  the movie came to life.  Again, sound quality is phenomenal.  I got so engrossed in the sound, I forgot to stop the movie after a few minutes and ended up watching the entire thing.

After the movie, I put in iTunes and played some of my mp3s.  My music library ranges from hard rock, classic rock, classical, jazz, blues, country, metal, and video game soundtracks.  I played a wide range of my music library to get a good eclectic mix.  Again, the sound quality was impressive.

I only have one real complaint about them.  The wireless range doesn’t seem to go very far.  I can go about maybe 20 feet away before they lose signal.  My kitchen is about 50 feet away from my computer, so I can’t go all the way there to get a beer or soda while playing.   Now, your mileage may vary.  My computer is in the corner of my room, so I have to go past a few walls to get to my kitchen.  You may have better range depending on your home’s layout.

The wireless runs on 2.4GHz, but it doesn’t seem to affect my wireless router.  I imagine it was made to be outside of the range of the 2.4Ghz channels that most routers use.

As for the microphone quality, I got onto Skype with a friend and talked for a little while. She was able to hear me very clearly.  I had to bend the microphone slightly to come closer to my mouth.  The noise cancellation works very well.  She said she couldn’t hear any background noise, not even my fan I have running behind me.  I could hear her very clearly as well, better than I ever could with my old headset.   I played with the VoiceFX for a few minutes, which incited a lot of laughter on her part.

Overall, I have to say this headset exceeds every expectation I have had while waiting.  Of course, I will keep playing with it and if anything changes I will certainly let you all know.  I’m not going to give a number rating, because I think those are bs.  Instead of a number rating, I will say that they are definitely worth the money (If you can’t afford the wireless, the wired version is $119.99).

So, as you may (or may not) have noticed, I’ve redone the site, and on the sidebar over there, I’ve added an armory feed of my latest achievements.  Last night,  I finally got the next step in [Got My Mind On My Money], at the 10,000 gold level.  It’s going to be one hell of a grind up to 25,000 gold.

Well, that’s all I have for the moment.  It’s time for some coffee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5D07c0dJuQ

http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/