Customer Ratings & Reviews

Very good headset for gaming movies and talking with friends

DO NOT BUY THIS HEADSET!! The Rig 800 pro HX are almost one hundred dollars cheaper, better sound, more audio options, longer battery life, also have a charging doc AND THEY WORK FOR MORE THAN A MONTH. One month after usage my charging doc doesn’t work for the A50s, two years into my Rig they still function as brand new and there is nothing Best Buy will let me do about it because of a 15 day return policy. TERRIBLE HEADSET NEVER GOING WITH ASTRO OR BEST BUY AGAIN!!

Very good headphones for gaming. If there was one thing i would have to change about these i think i would just make them a bit more noise cancelling, as i make music and if my volume is too loud in my headphones my microphone picks it up. Otherwise very good and i love the custom EQ setting you can mess around with.

Great gaming headset. Setup was straightforward and simple. The sound quality is awesome and it gets even better when you turn on the dolby mode. I also like being able to charge the headset on the docking station and see when the charge is complete. These are worth the money!!!

10/10 recommend buying! Excellent quality, very comfortable and gives an excellent aesthetic to your setup

Amazing sound for the true die hard gamer! I play COD/ DBD and other games where sound is top priority when sneaking around is a must to win. I can hear anyone coming in ANY direction!

The headphones work great and they are Bluetooth makes it easy to move around while in betwen games.

Very good high quality would recommend to anyone love it

I bought this headset not listening to the reviews, allowing myself to rest my hopes on the high reviews but I used for both XBOX and PC gaming and Work Conferences with great disappointment! After continuous disconnects and problems connecting the headset, I had performed firmware upgrades and confirmed connections and finally after establishing connectivity i get repeated audio disconnects and see the lights go out for 2-3 sec and come back every few min! It's frustrating, especially when communicating with team members and gamers. For the amount of money we're charged for this headset we shouldn't be dealing with this kind of garbage. I have tested with both Xbox and PC with the same performance. Horrible..

Owned a pair for 5 years now still works perfectly.

Great headset sounds great Best headset i ever had

Work great! Good quality! Pretty loud and that’s what I was aiming for

Great product when it works but for your own piece of mind buy a warranty. This is my second new set, I bought the one previous from Amazon and they broke down only after a year and few months. Astro only covers them for a year and let me tell you there customer service in nominal at best. Save yourself some frustration and buy from Best Buy and get a warranty.

Best audio for shooter games , excellent command center app

Very good headset for gaming and very good sounding .

fye why they make the limit so much though too much

Be forewarned, it can be difficult to figure out which generation of the A50 you’re getting. For this generation, there are two color schemes, set according to the console system they’re compatible with. One is named “Gray,” which has a gold color accent on the side and is compatible with the Xbox One system. The other is “Black,” which has silver/grey color accent for PS4 systems. With the two having almost similar colors, it can be tricky finding out which is which based on the picture alone. The color/model reviewed here is Black for the PS4 system. Audio experience is expected to be the same on both models. Usability experience, however, will be different. Both models are technically compatible for use on PC systems. Testing and review will be done on a PlayStation 4 Pro and a laptop PC. While audio experience should be the same on both platforms, a short test run on PC will be done to confirm whatever findings I have on the PS4 side. Since the headset has a firmware, everything is reviewed using whatever firmware was shipped and arrived at the time of composing. This is to accommodate those who may not have access to a desktop computer for updating its firmware. (Yes, I know that may be hard to believe. But you have to take in any/all possibilities into consideration.) Connecting the base (charging) station to the PS4 is straightforward. Like many high-end headsets, audio is connected using the included TOSLINK cable. Upon doing a bit of research, users of PS4 “slim” models can still use the headset. There are some workarounds from using a HDMI splitter to using the TV’s audio pass-thru. But these are all workarounds and not very optimal. Your mileage will vary due to the PS4 Slim having no optical audio output. Borderlands: Handsome Collection, Blue Reflection, FEZ, and Deux Ex: Human Revolution were given short play runs to check on audio quality. While I’d like to test Borderlands 2 and Deux Ex more, I am completely incapable of adapting to first person shooters. For audio, all the games I’ve played sounds okay. There isn’t anything that really stood out due to being limited to stereo channels. This is a drawback to using the A50 on the PS4. Xbox One owners can use Dolby Atmos for virtual surround sound. While this may seem like a minor feature discrepancy, it’s still better than nothing on the PS4. Aside from games, some music tracks on Spotify and a short viewing of Avengers: Infinity War were used to check the audio output quality. Like before, nothing really stood out. Although, having listened to music a lot as of late, the headphones does lean a little on the bass. But it is tolerable to not drown out other frequency bands. To check if there is any audible difference between PS4 and PC, I connected the base station to a laptop. The audio is handled through USB and setup is fairly simple and straightforward. Out of the box, the headset and base station works without needing to download any additional software. Installing the “Astro Command Center” (ACC hereafter) provides some additional options to tweaking or customizing the headset. Initially, ACC was at v1.0.195 throughout all experiences and testing. A subsequent and more compatible version, v1.0.209, was released later on but after I have already finished all listening tests. An updated firmware was also released and, like ACC, was released much after all listening tests were done. A secondary listening run was done hastily to check any difference and to evaluate the new version of the ACC software. ACC allows you to customize the EQ levels and presets on the headset. There are 5 presets installed but their EQ levels are different from the built-in presets. The built-in EQ presets are Astro, Pro, and Studio which are slotted in 1, 2, and 3 respectively. While there are EQ presets available to pick from, they don’t function when connected to the PS4. Also, the baseline EQ preset is Studio which is neutral/flat across the board. This setting is used to check the audio fidelity. ACC as a program takes up a lot of space. Its interface is filled with a lot of space between various elements. There is no way to resize windows and its window control is very minimal and crude. While there are some options that is geared for the streamer-oriented users, there’s very little use for those who just wanted a high-end headset for simple gaming. And now on to how it all sounds on the PC platform. There’s a certain level of audio fidelity to expect from a gaming headset costing $299.99. Sadly, it doesn’t live up to the price and it certainly did not live up to expectations. The EQ presets pre-installed on the headset did little to help it out. The “Astro” preset helped in some cases but not by a lot. The fundamentals of producing audio in headphones and headsets lies in how you tune the speakers. For the A50, the sound fidelity is difficult to describe in how unimpressive it sounds. Muffled? Muted? Drowned? Lackluster? It doesn’t have the kind of clarity that I’m expecting from a headset costing as much as a “studio”-level wired headphones. But these issues are apparent only on PC. The PS4 seems immune to this, to which the audio seems to sound average. As in, it doesn’t sound like a $300 headset. The supposed “Dolby” feature on the headset doesn’t add anything other than a slight reverb effect. To me, this is unnecessary and doesn’t add any value to the headset. I listened to the same track from both Spotify and locally in FLAC audio format. The Dolby feature did not make either of the format sound any better. The microphone, whether by design or not, does not pick up voice very well. But I can only test this using Windows 10’s built in voice recorder software. Despite turning the microphone level to the max, I still have to position the microphone very close to my mouth to get decent audio level. I fear how bad it’d be if this was used on the PS4. And now for the bad things about the headset. No, what I described earlier aren’t the bad things. Those were criticisms on the performance of the headset. To start, there is no surround sound capability at all. It’s completely stereo through and through. Dolby Atmos is available only on the Xbox One model. As to whether or not this is a limitation of the PS4 or the headset is unknown to me. Still, this is a feature discrepancy between the two platforms and makes the Xbox One version the superior model in that respect. The included cables felt cheap and thin. The TOSLINK optical cable is the worst of the two. It’s thin and feels so fragile that one bad bend could break the cable itself. The USB cable isn’t any better and also feels cheap on hand. For a high-end headset designed for console systems, you kind of expect that the included cables would be better than this. The headset came with no charge at all, thus you cannot turn it on and start using it. Most rechargeable devices I’ve encountered had some level of charge when they leave the factory. This did not have any. This delayed reviewing due to having to charge the headset before using it. This is a small headset. I do not consider myself having a large head. But this is strangely small to me because of how much I needed to adjust to fit my head -- very little. Out of the box, the headset is at its maximum size. But to fit me, I only need to go down one line notch on both sides. If you’re considering this headset, I highly recommend finding a display model in store and trying it before purchasing. Do not blind-purchase it thinking it’ll fit your head. The Dolby feature matters next to nothing for this headset. When connected to a PC, it becomes a negative aspect. On the PS4 side, I do not hear any discernible difference between having it on or off. Both platforms just doesn’t have the kind of audio fidelity I’m expecting for a headset this expensive. So in the end, the A50 isn’t worth the asking price. At $299.99, I can easily find a premium studio-like headphone, albeit wired, that has far superior sounds, better sound stage, and is comfortable to wear for hours on end. The cheap cables, sup-par audio fidelity, weak microphone, it all doesn’t add up to what it’s worth. The lack of virtual surround sound doesn’t help its case when compared to the other platform. As a gamer, I care more about audio fidelity over many things. It’s just unfortunate that, after all the media tests and several short gaming sessions, all I heard was an overpriced stereo headset. Verdict: Nope.

Expensive, but worth it if you do a lot of gamming. I did have a connectivity issue after 5 months of using it.

Great product, clear sound, best gaming experience hands down.

Good quality i have no complaints worth every single penny