Logitech G430 7.1 Gaming Headset with Mic

Ok, first off, I would like to say that this is an absolutely amazing headset sound wise. The virtual surround sound couldn't be more accurate, and music sounds great to me in it. But, I will go into more detail later on.I would like to just state up front now though, that if you need to use the microphone on this headset for anything outside of voice chat in games or skype with your friends, look elsewhere, or consider buying a standalone mic. The mic on this headset is understandable, but the quality is terrible, and it will randomly cut your voice off mid sentence due to badly designed background noise removal that you can't turn off.But, on with my review of this headset. I decided to upgrade from my aging Turtle Beach x32's (Yes, I know that headset is made for the Xbox, but they sell a pc adapter cable, and it worked great for me.) and decided to go with surround sound this time. I bought this headset mostly because it is the only blue headset I have ever seen, and it matches my all blue pc build.Surround Sound Quality: 5/5I have tried out Titanfall, Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty Ghosts, and I do definitely feel like I have an advantage over other players. Think of it this way, you are sitting in a small room with two doors. With a stereo headset, you can hear footsteps, and you know somebody is coming, but you don't know which door they will walk through and have a higher chance of dying. With this headset however, in that same situation, you know which direction the footsteps are coming from, and you have a much higher chance of not dying due to that extra bit of knowledge you wouldn't get with a regular headset. The surround quality in this headset is better than my 5.1 surround sound setup in our media room, so this definitely earns a 5/5 in this category.Sound Quality: 4/5I am rating the overall sound quality of this headset a 4/5 for one reason. The virtual surround sound in this headset tries to make all sounds "Surround" your head, and in doing so, it makes anything that isn't a game, or music seem like it's being played in a big stone room with all the sound echoing off of the virtual walls the headset seems to create. You do get used to this effect quickly, and I now kind of like the effect, it makes things seem a bit more real I guess, but I'm just throwing this out there for anybody who might care to know about that.One last thing for this category, I have seen too many people online complaining about the headset glitching out whenever you have something that is surround sound and something in stereo playing at the same time. (it will rapidly swap between stereo and surround sound and produce a lot of static.) I have found a way to fix this. (This is for windows vista and 7.) You simply open your control panel in windows, go to Hardware and Sound, click on the button that says manage audio devices, and in the playback tab, find something labeled with Logitech G430 Gaming Headset, click on it, and then click properties. It should open up a new window, with the tabs General, Levels, Enhancements and Advanced. Go to Enhancements and find the one in the list labeled "Speaker Fill" check the box next to it and click apply. Basically, what that did was tell your computer to turn all stereo sound into surround sound, and that prevents the scenario where the headset could glitch out.Mic Quality: 2/5I am giving this a 2/5 for the reasons I told you about above, the mic is understandable, but does not have good quality. If you simply plan to use it for skype calling with your friends, maybe some in game chat, it will be absolutely fine for you then, but, since I'm a youtuber, I have much higher standards for my mic quality. If you plan to use the mic for business, recording yourself singing, recording videos for youtube, or anything where you need to sound good, consider buying a blue snowball mic, or something comparable to it.Final thoughts:So, this headset is overall a good headset for the price, good sound quality, good surround sound emulation, and ok mic quality. I personally have a Blue Snowball microphone, so the mic being not so great on the headset is no big deal for me, but it might be for other people.I hope that this review has helped you to see the ups and downs of this headset, and help you to decide if it's worth your money!

I've used this headset since October 2018 when I picked it up for $38. Today I realized how long I've been using it and felt it deserved a review even if it's obsolete at this point.Sticky points:- Faux leather trim on the cups has ripped up a bit and worn away (not the cloth of the cups themselves, just the thin trim around the outside), but this is to be expected after years of heavy use- Super long aux cable can be annoying to deal with, but can also be helpful- Mic quality... supposedly? I'm not really a sound guy, but the mic has always worked fine for me to game with friends according to them. Also, the mic has a habit of picking up environmental sounds which can be a dealbreaker for some peopleGood stuff:- Sound has always been good whether playing games or watching shows- Super long aux cable - had to mention this again because while the length of the cable can be annoying, when you get it set up well the headset effectively feels wireless. You even have room to get up and walk around a little. Side note: I have rolled over this cable in my chair countless times in the last six years and it's still fine- Good for big ears

I have owned this headset for about 13 months now.The cloth earpads aren't the most comfortable as they can get a bit scratchy/irritating, but not a big issue.I have this weird slight bulge running down the center of my head, so headphones with a single-piece head cushioning give me a headache, but this was easily resolved with some tape strapped around the center of the head band.Other than that, the headset has been decent in terms of overall comfort, and I like that over ear headsets don't press my ears against my glasses, which was an issue with a previous pair of on ear headphones (JVC HA S500) I've owned.When I first reviewed this headset I felt that it sounded cheap compared to the JVCs, and it still doesn't feel as precise or clear of a sound, but its not a bad experience and definitely won't impair any gaming, movie watching, or normal music.About 15 days ago the plastic part holding the drivers to the headband cracked near the screws, causing the ears to slip off the headphone and dangle from the internal wires, and I had to repair it with superglue, and so far there aren't any issues and my headset still retains full functionalityThe headset has a switch for mic and a slider for volume, and the mic is definitely not something you wanna use if recording audio is your thing, however it is legible and functional for basic communication.The virtual 7.1 surround sound supposedly comes from the usb dongle which could account for the $35 difference between this and the G230 at the time of purchase, and I have no idea how much of the surround sound I've experienced comes from the soundcard, and how much is just from the game's sound design. I use the headphone on the dongle exclusively, and its definitely not a bad solution if you don't have working jacks (which I do), without any noise that you get with some bad quality usb sound cards.In my previous computer I had an uneasy process obtaining the drivers (the 32bit drivers are incompatible with my 64bit win7 home premium, while when selecting 64bit drivers the website would automatically redirect me to some kind of product registration page, I had to manually change the download link from xxxxxxx.xxxxxx/xxxxxx/xxxxxxx32xx.exe to xxxxxx.xxxxxxx/xxxxxxx/xxxxxxx64xx.exe in order to download the drivers).After installing the drivers, I thought the headset would show as 5.1 or 7.1 in the windows control panel. Why? Because I thought the usb dongle would take the 7.1 channels first and then process it into virtual 7.1, however nope it only shows up in control panel as "stereo" - with to be fair an option to "enable surround" in the Effects setting. I'm not sure how enabling surround allows the driver to work with games. Alas, I'm not even sure the drivers I installed or the usb dongle is even doing anything, the only obviously 3D content I've experienced so far are the pre-processed binaural stuff (eg. virtual barbershop) that doesn't require specialized equipment in the first place, I also have conflicting information regarding how a game such as arma handles 3d sound -specifically, does it output into the dongle for processing? With the aforementioned lack of virtual multi-channel output, I've been unable to get 5.1 movies working either and I've never seen the "logitech gaming software" say anything other than "surround sound content has not yet been detected", even clicking on "experience surround sound", there isn't any obvious separation in the demonstration track, but that may just be my ears.There is 3D- somewhat (again, not sure if the dongle, headset or the logitech software is contributing in any meaningful way - my acer laptop has some kind of dolby sound with 3D headphone output, and so does VLC player which has an option to "enable virtual surround").Maybe its just my ears, but in testing the 3D sound using an article on The Verge "Surrounded by sound: how 3D audio hacks your brain" as well as lobbing grenades in Arma 3, I've never been able to get something to sound like its coming from in front of me. Sounds can either come from behind, left, right, or around my head, but never ahead, well I guess in gaming you don't really need to hear it if you can already see it.I left a 2 star review when I initially tested the headset, but I would say the headset has grown on me and been fairly reliable hence the increased stars. I would still question the value of the G430 compared to the G230 (which is still $20 cheaper as of this update and apparently identical except for the supposed lack of dolby surround (which you can only get from the dongle)), although other reviewers do notice the difference and I'm in no position to disagree.