By no means am I an expert audiophile, nor a sound engineer.  I am a gamer and entertainment enthusiast who likes the most realism he can get in sound.   This review is written as such.   If you’re looking for a professional reviewer, look elsewhere.  I will be as objective as possible.

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).

Ok, I saw this today on WoW.com and had to post it.  Too funny.  Great parody of Good Eats.

I got a twitter on this today.  I just had to share it.

If you’re not familiar with Boom De Yada, it’s a lyric from a song called I love the world that the Discovery Channel made and used for their advertising campaign in 2008 and 2009.   People all over started making and posting their own versions on YouTube, and the Discovery Channel encouraged more, and even asked people to post theirs as a video response to their original.

Yesterday was the official start of the Lunar Festival. All across Azeroth are the Elders that are to be honored, from the Horde to Alliance, Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Northrend, and various dungeons. Tonight I heard on [2:Trade] someone ask why there are elders in Northrend, but none in Outland? Well it’s simple really. The Elders are all from Azeroth, and Outland is not Azeroth, it’s Draenor. The Lunar Festival is an Azerothian festival.

So, tonight Theshat and I got a few of the achievements done. [Elders Of The Alliance] (both of us), [Elune's Blessing] (both of us), [50 Coins Of Ancestry] (me), [25 Coins Of Ancestry] (him), [Elders Of The Horde] (him), [Elders Of Kalimdor] (him), and the ones for the fireworks. I had done some of them already last year.

Tomorrow we’re going to try to knock out as many of the rest as we can. Some of the Northrend dungeon ones we’ll have to group for with others, but the old world ones we can do ourselves.

Well, that’s all for now. More tomorrow

Well, it’s that time of year again.  Love is in the air!  For the past week I’ve been working with my best friend on the latest world event.  We finished the meta-achievement [Fool For Love] yesterday.  We still haven’t had time to go after the holiday bosses due to some PC issues, but we’ll try soon.  Tomorrow starts yet another world event, overlapping for a week with Love is in the Air, called The Lunar Festival.  That will run for 3 weeks, and we’ll need it.  There’s a lot to do for the meta.  Getting all of the Elders honored is hard enough considering how many there are, but then to have to go into enemy territory to honor theirs is going to be a pain.

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.

Well today as anticipated, 3.3.2 has dropped!    Season 8 of Arena has started, Frostwing Halls have opened in Icecrown Citadel, a few buffs and nerfs have been added, and a few bug fixes.  The patch was about 170Mb.  Not too bad.  Took about 8 minutes total to download and install on my connection.

Season 8 of Arena:  As most of you who PvP know, once a new season opens, the last season’s gear becomes available for sale without requiring Arena Rating.  This is good for those of us who like to PvP in battlegrounds, but don’t do arena much.   There’s controversy though about it.  Some say it’s “welfare epics”.  You know what, screw that.  I still work hard for those honor points to buy the gear.  I’m not a raider,  I am casual.  I rarely do dungeons.  I don’t have time to raid every night like some do.  I enjoy the battlegrounds, and so the gear I can get is a good reward for all the time I do put into BG.

Icecrown Citadel:  Recently I did do a random dungeon and landed in Forge of Souls, and had a lot of fun.  I’m really going to try this year to do more dungeons and maybe even some raids.  Now that the final wing of ICC is open maybe I will start doing more randoms and see what happens.  I need to gear up though.

Buffs and nerfs: Lots there, I’ll let you read the notes about that.

The official patch notes are as follows:

——————————————————————————–
- World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.3.2
——————————————————————————–

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

Dungeons & Raids

-  Halls of Stone
Brann Bronzebeard has been getting into shape and now feels comfortable walking faster when escorted.

-  The Forge of Souls
The Devourer of Souls will now cast Mirrored Souls less often.
The Spell Reflect ability has been altered on several creatures. It now has a cast time, only has 2 charges, and has a 75% chance of reflecting spells.

-  The Nexus
Anomalus will now use the Create Rift ability only once, down from 3 times.

-  The Old Kingdom
Elder Nadox now only gets one Ahn’Kahar Guardian during the encounter.
Jadoga Shadowseeker now only ascends once during the encounter.
Several enemies between the Befouled Terrace and The Desecrated Altar have been removed or had their pathing altered.

-  Pit of Saron
Players can now zone back into the instance if they are dead while encounters with Krick and Ick or Forgemaster Garfrost are in progress.

-  Utgarde Pinnacle
Skadi the Ruthless can now be removed from his drake with 3 harpoon strikes, down from 5.
Svala Sorrowgrave now casts Ritual of the Sword 1 time during the encounter, down from 3.

-  Vault of Archavon
Toravon, the latest boss to join the Vault’s giants and masters of the elements, is now accepting challengers in 10- and 25-player formats.
-  The Violet Hold
The time between a boss being defeated and a new portal opening has been decreased.

PvP

-  Arenas
Season 8 has officially begun featuring all-new rewards!

Druids

-  Talents
-  Balance
Earth and Moon: This talent now increases the druid’s spell damage by 2/4/6%, up from 1/2/3%.

Shamans

-  Talents
-  Elemental Combat
Shamanism: This talent now provides 4/8/12/16/20% extra spell damage to Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning, up from 3/6/9/12/15%, and 5/10/15/20/25% to Lava Burst, up from 4/8/12/16/20%.

Warlocks

-  Talents
-  Affliction
Shadow Embrace: This effect can now stack up to 3 times, up from 2. However, the periodic healing reduction effect has been reduced from 3/6/9/12/15% to 2/4/6/8/10% per application.
-  Demonology
Demonic Pact: The damage bonus granted the warlock by this talent has been increased from 1/2/3/4/5% to 2/4/6/8/10%. The buff granted to a raid or party by this talent remains unchanged.
-  Destruction
Conflagrate: The damage-over-time effect of Conflagrate has been increased to 40% of the spell’s total damage, up from 20%.
Empowered Imp: The pet bonus damage provided by this talent has been increased to 10/20/30%, up from 5/10/15%.
Improved Shadow Bolt: Damage done by Shadow Bolt increased by 2/4/6/8/10%, up from 1/2/3/4/5%.

Warriors

-  Talents
-  Protection
Shield Slam: The damage scaling from block value for this ability now diminishes faster and diminishes starting at a lower block value. The difference should be negligible for players in high-end tanking armor. In addition, the threat caused by Shield Slam has been increased by 30%.
Warbringer: This talent no longer allows Charge and Intercept to break roots or snares. Intervene remains unaffected.

User Interface

-  The party leader is now referred to as Guide in chat when a group is formed via the Dungeon Finder.
-  Fixed a bug where players with Raid Assist capabilities were unable to perform a Ready Check.
-  Fixed a bug where the first couple of tutorials were not displaying upon logging into the game.

Items

- New strength-based melee DPS rings are now available from representatives of the Ashen Verdict.
- Tier-9 Sets: The Aspirant vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds have worked out a deal with merchants in Dalaran so that all item level 232 set pieces will now be available on armor vendors in the city. Set pieces which require trophies will still be available for purchase only from vendors at the Argent Tournament grounds.
- Tier-10 Balance Druid 4-Piece Bonus: Fixed a bug to allow for this bonus to properly trigger.
- Tier-10 Elemental Shaman 4-Piece Set Bonus: Redesigned. Successful Lava Burst casts now increase the duration of Flame Shock on the target by 6 seconds.
- Tier-10 Tank Sets: The gloves and chest pieces for warrior, death knight, and paladin tanks have had their stats adjusted slightly to provide additional armor value.
- Tier-10 Warlock 4-Piece Bonus: This bonus should now correctly be applied to the warlock’s pet.

Technical Support

- The cvar ‘processAffinityMask’ controls which CPU cores are available for the World of Warcraft client to use. Previously the game client was limited to 2 cores as a default which players could override in the configuration file. In the past this provided a performance boost on some CPUs and operating systems. We have identified several systems that are experiencing severe performance issues with this restriction and have removed it. Players who would like to restore the old behavior can do so by updating the Config.WTF file by adding: SET processAffinityMask “3″.

Well, It’s day 1 of Blizzcon.  Yesterday I arrived at my hotel, got settled in and went down to the convention center to get my goodie bag and my badge.  There are some really cool items in the goodie bag.  I’ll post pics of it all later.  I’m staying at the Anabella Hotel, which is about a 5 – 10 minute walk to the convention center.   The working out I’ve been doing has been paying off, as the walk got me less winded like it usually would.

Right now I’m just waiting for my breakfast order (coffee, oj, and oatmeal), before I go down to the convention itself.  The opening ceremonies are at 11:30, so I have time to get in line right away for the store and then buy some loot.   There’s also a quest that was in the goodie bag.

“Catch Me If You Can”

Any Northrend angler worth their salt knows about lures, bait, and bobbers.  I bet you didn’t know that a set of lures exist that can help you catch treasure.  It’s true.

Go to Brady Mercantile located in the Merchant’s Quarter.  Marcia Chase has left instructions with some of the workers there:  they will give you a bag and a map.  Follow the instructions carefully; find and bring together the complete set of mysterious lures – but be warned, the only appear at defined times in specific locations.

If you are able to gather them all, return in the evening, when Marcia visits the shop…perhaps she will have a reward for your due diligence.

DESCRIPTION
Marcia Chase seeks your help.  She has left instructions with a local merchant – Brady Mercantile.  She needs heroes to collect a set of 5 mysterious treasure-fishing lures.  Brady Mercantile can be found in the Merchant’s Quarter.

REWARDS
Lure bag
Map

I’ll attempt it today.  Who knows?  It could be something interesting.

I also realized this morning after looking at the goodie bag, I’m going to have to do some creative repacking to get everything into my suitcase and laptop bag to take things home.  Oiy.

Well, gonna sign out for now.  I’ll take lots of pictures.

Today I logged into WoW for a few minutes, and when I logged out, I noticed the background downloader had started, and it says it is indeed for 3.2.   Generally I’ve noticed that the background downloader starts up about 1 – 2 weeks before a major patch.  Could it be soon?  Let’s hope.  The patch so far looks to be about 273mb.  I’m guessing that’s new graphics and model information.  Actual code won’t appear until the real patch goes live.

I’m going to Blizzcon 2009 in August!  WOOTAGE!  Was a tough fight, sitting here at my keyboard, elbowing people aside for a place in line, but I did it!  I’ve got the coveted golden ticket.

For those of you who don’t know what Blizzcon is, well, basically, it’s Blizzard Entertainment’s huge yearly convention.  Blizzard is the company who makes World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft.

This post is going to be a bunch of non-sequiturs, so bear with it.  I haven’t updated in a while (no reason, just sheer laziness).

Well, I’m now in my 4th week of classes online.  So far, I’m doing well. Let’s hope I stay that way.

I’ve added a new link to the side over there.  Go check out the WoW related comic: World of Warcraft, Eh?    It’s very well done and it’s hit the list of my favorites.

Speaking of links, I’ve added another one of those tottaly useless things to my list of Social Networking things that I almost never update.  I’m on Twitter (link is on the right ->).

What else.  Been playing WoW with my best friend when we can. Our Tauren bros have hit 36 as of yesterday, our undead locks are still sitting at 31.  My main (80 tauren druid) has been working on rep here and there.

Redid my PC to run Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit.  The speed difference is incredible.

Oh, I finaly found out why I never could get my PC’s ram overclocked to factory specs.  I have a Dell XPS 720.  The 4 gigs of Corsair Dominator ram are supposed to be factory overclocked to 1066mhz, but it’s never been.  Today I was poking around with the nVidia performance control panel, and found out, one of the memory modules is different from the rest.  3 of them are indeed 1066mhz modules, but one of them is an 800mhz module.  The timings are different from the other 3, and the SPD profile is different too.  No wonder every time I tried to bump the fsb clock speed up to OC the ram to 1066, it would lock up.  I contacted dell, and after going in circles with their LOVELY tech support tier one person who knows less about PC’s than a 1st grader (I mean comeon, how hard is it to listen to the customer who knows what they are talking about instead of trying to insist they try some things that are pointless in the first place), I have them sending me a replacement module to match the others.   Just to clarify,  she wanted me to take out the three other modules, leave in the one, and try to OC it.  WHY?  If it’s not going to OC stable with all 4, what is the bloody point?  I sure as hell am not going to run only 1 gig of ram, OC’d or not.  Ah well, at least she finally listened and they’re sending me the right one to match the others.  Later on, if I don’t upgrade to an i7, I may just drop 8 gigs of 1066 ram in here.  The mobo supports up to 8gb, and Vista 64 will see all 8.

Well, that’s about it for now I guess.