TRITTON XBOX 360 Warhead 7.1 Wireless Headset

Pros: Light nice looking sleek easy to use wireless

Cons: Sound is fair at best mic is low and when people talk hard to hear them but if they talk loud or yell it just turns to static not happy with them and i really wish i was i like tritton

Other Thoughts: Fix them tritton

Pros: As I unboxed my new toy, I admired the beautiful packaging. My degree is in graphic design, so I appreciated the effort they put into a well-designed container. Initially, I noticed how light the whole thing was -- an important factor for a wireless headset. Even the base charging station seems light. The batteries are also surprisingly light.

Connecting the headset to the computer requires and optical audio port. If connecting it to an XBOX, there is an adapter included. There are 3 power adapters for different types of power outlets. One is for North America and the other two I assume are European. The directions come in English, French, German, and Italian. There is also an RCA adapter that can be hooked up directly to a TV while not using any extra audio ports.

Charging the battery, the directions state, can take up to 8 hours. For me, it took 3-4 hours to fully charge one battery and about 5 hours to charge the second. From a completely drained battery, it is close to 8 hours. A fully charged battery easily lasted a full day of use.

Wireless range is good (I'm in a small space so it is harder to test), but the sound starts to drop out after going behind a wall. Behind two walls, it drops completely.

The EQ modes game, movie, and music seemed distracting and I opted to leave them off. Leaving them disabled gave me the best sense of directional sound in game. Games tested: Defiance, Battlefield 3, Dota 2, Guild Wars 2, Trackmania 2. Some weapon sounds were muffled compared to what I'm used to. If given the option, changing the speaker setup to headphones fixed most of the sound variance issues. Music playback provides excellent sound quality. The bass is full. Treble is crisp and clear. Movies sounded good in stereo and 5.1 surround settings, both providing directional sound.

Cons: To receive warranty coverage (2-year limited), the manual says it is necessary to register the product at trittonusa.com. I found no link there. Newegg lists the warranty as 1 year.

Getting sound to play proved to be challenging and I resorted to using trial and error while music was playing to find the correct combination of settings. This was partly due to my inexperience with optical audio. As it turned out, the optical audio on my motherboard was bad so I installed my older X-Fi platinum sound card. The optical cord is very short, so the headset base cannot be far away from the computer.

The headband is a tight, snug fit which is important for a headset with no cords. It can become uncomfortable after more than two hours of use. The padding is sufficient though and seems like a good material.



For the adapter (purchased separately), it was not recognized automatically.
First, run setupstb.exe from the disk.
Go to the device manager.
Right click and update driver software.
Browse my computer for driver software.
Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.
Scroll to the bottom of the list and choose Xbox 360 Peripherals.
Click Have Disk, Browse.
Navigate to the disk \Software\XBox360\Setup64\Files\Xusb21.inf
Choose Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows
Choose Yes at the prompt.
Now it should be installed in the device manager correctly. Hold down the sync button on the adapter and the sync button on the headset (inner left headpiece) for about 5 seconds. The circle light on the base unit flashes on the 1 when it is connected correctly. On voice comms, people said I sounded worse than on my last headset and far away. After restarting the computer, the microphone had to be re-synced. The expected methods did not work, but unplugging the base station and plugging it back in did. It also occasionally transmits with heavy static. I have not found a permanent solution for that yet.

Other Thoughts: These were purchased on 03/2013 as an upgrade from the Tritton AX51 Pro 5.1 headset for PC which I purchased 06/2009.

My experience with Tritton headsets has been positive. I did have to get my first pair of AX51's replaced due to loss of sound in one speaker, but customer support was very helpful and prompt in sending me everything I needed. It actually happened twice, once on 12/2009 and once 07/2010. The pair I'm upgrading from has no problems after nearly 3 years of use.

I realized going into this purchase that these headphones are designed for XBOX and that I would be using them only on PC as I do not have an XBOX. After reading reviews on another website, it was clear an adapter would be necesary for the microphone to operate properly with the PC. The one I purchased is Black USB Wireless Gaming Controller Receiver Adapter For PC Windows 7 Xbox 360.

There was a 30% off coupon in one of my Newegg Newsletter e-mails for Tritton headsets. With Shoprunner, 2-day shipping was free.

System Specs:
Operating System: Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Processor: AMD FX(tm)-8120 Eight-Core Processor (8 CPUs), ~3.1GHz
Motherboard: ASRock 990FX Extreme3 AM3+ AMD 990FX
Sound card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum