My last booth visit at E3 2015 was with Turtle Beach to check out all their latest innovations in gaming audio headsets and equipment. As a gamer, having a good pair of headphones is vitally important. The strength of Turtle Beach is that they offer a range of products in all price ranges, so you can pick the pair best suited to your needs. My meeting with them also helped me discover an innovative new project they are working on, which could revolutionize how we listen to television.
Ear Force series has headphones for everyone
Turtle Beach’s Ear Force headsets are designed to be comfortable for those (like me) who tend to spend hours on end gaming. They are lightweight and very cushiony, making your ear extremely comfortable.
For Xbox One, Turtle Beach offers a base model for online chat at a competitive price to the headset that comes with the Xbox One. The headset uses unique sound triangulation to ensure we hear crystal clear voice when talking to friends online. The microphone can be adjusted so no matter if you prefer it on the right, or on the left, you can have the right fit.
Wireless Headphones with balanced weight
Turtle Beach also offers wireless models, like the Ear Force Elite or Stealth, and they are as light as wired headsets. Moreover, the battery is hidden in one ear, yet it doesn’t add any extra weight to that side. Your comfort during extended gameplay sessions will therefore not be affected.
An innovation in sound technology
Turtle Beach is pioneering a new way to hear sound, called Hypersound, and I had a chance to learn about this technology, and listen to it during our E3 meeting. Turtle Beach is currently only testing the medical applications of hypersound, but the potential for other applications certainly does exist. The concept is super simple, yet powerful. Thanks to a special transmitter, hypersound funnels sound waves in a specific direction, and only that direction. The device amplifies the high frequency sounds (like voices and sound effects in movies), and so a peson who is sitting in the sound direction will hear the amplfied sound–while those not in the sound beam will hear regular sound from the TV or stereo. A person whose hearing starts to decline may therefore enjoy a movie without having to blast the TV volume and disturb the entire household.
What really impresses with this technology, is that the instant you leave the sound beam, you won’t hear the amplified sounds at all. It’s like turning a light switch on or off, but apply this same functionality to audio. The Turtle Beach rep gave us a demonstration by playing an X-Men movie on TV, and we first started watching/listening to the movie in the sound field, and then stepped out–what a difference! In the sound field I could hear crystal clear voice and very precise sound effects, outside the field audio sounded flat and muted. That’s the power of hypersound!
Though it’s currently only being used in the medical field, we discussed other potential applications, like watching a movie at home with volume while others are sleeping (and they wouldn’t hear a sound). The same can be said for video games, some games can get quite noisy, and with hypersound potentially you could be playing your games a high volume while those around you (even in the same room) won’t hear a peep. It almost seems like magic, but I heard it first-hand and it’s definitely real!
For more E3 related information visit Best Buy Canada’s E3 Gaming Page
