Review Score:

The Tritton 720+ is the latest gaming headset from the minds behind Mad Catz. It features 7.1 surround sound for gaming, listening to music and watching movies on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Design and Features

The first thing about this headset is that it is beautifully designed. The Tritton 720+ clearly has a design influence inspired by race cars, with the white headset sporting a black racing stripe coming down on both sides.

Keeping in line with the race car motif, when you put on the headset, the cloth covered leather ear cups feel like you are getting into a luxury car with leather seats. In addition, the Tritton 720+ also feels fairly comfortable as I have had play sessions which have ranged from 1 to 5 hours without taking the headset off with me feeling no sense of discomfort afterwards.

The Tritton 720+ has Dolby Pro Logic LLX technology which converts Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, and Dolby Digital EX into 7.1 Surround Sound via the Dolby Digital Decoder Box. The decoder box comes with two equalization settings; one for gaming and the other for movies and music.

The build of the Tritton 720+ unit is also extremely durable. I have had many gadgets in my lifetime and most of them end up destroyed in my everyday use. In the span that I reviewed this device I dropped it on the floor from a height of around 5ft, sat on it and stepped on it and the unit still looked brand new.

Like most professional video game headsets, you can hear your own voice audio playback to you. This headset provides what Mad Catz is calling Selectable Voice Monitoring (SVM). What this allows is the option to turn the off the feature that allows your voice to be played back to you. In fact, this is the default setting when you turn on your headset. Since I’ve been used to hearing my own audio played back to me for several years, this threw me off when playing games that use voice chat. There is also a detachable microphone, which is a feature that doesn’t really add much to my own experience, but for those who do not want to look like a total geek in public can remove the microphone and retain a stylish look.

Setup and Interface

The Tritton 720+ is optimized for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. This headset can be used for PC but the European version is fully optimized for a higher quality experience. The set-up is fairly simple for all three versions. Plug the headset into the Dolby Digital Decoder Box and plug the box into your platform of choice. It’s that simple. For gamers who play video games on different platforms, it makes switching from one console to another easy. Also, for those who still haven’t red-ringed their phat Xbox 360, the set-up with either component, composite, VGA or HDMI is still fairly straightforward. When using the in-line audio controller, the Tritton 720+ could have used a little bit more work. Both volume switches look great aesthetically, but in terms of functionality the set-up felt a little lacking. I never got a good sense of when something was at full or half volume. A more traditional style volume wheel would have been sufficient in providing more haptic feedback. Another thing that took me awhile to figure out was how to toggle the SVM. After an hour of searching the device and looking at the instructions I eventually discovered through trial and error that you had to push in the audio switch to toggle the SVM or headset out on or off. I feel this problem could have been solved by having a hard button on the face of the in-line controller.

I did test the headset on PC in North America along with the microphone. As the North American version of this headset is not optimized for the Tritton 720+, this is more of bonus feature than anything official. After running into a number of problems I would not suggest using this device for PC. One of the difficulties was that I could not get the audio volume to change by either the switch located on the wire or on the Dolby Digital Box. In addition, the audio sounded a little muffled. In Europe, this headset is optimized for PC so I cannot give a full review for PC in North America.

Earphone and Microphone Quality

Compared to the audio quality of my previous set-up ,which was a Turtle Beach X12 and Dolby Digital Box, the two set-ups sounded similar and I could not recall any discernible differences between the two in terms of sound quality as they both offer high quality 7.1 surround sound. When playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, I could pinpoint enemy locations from the sound of their footsteps exactly with both headsets. The biggest difference of quality in sound comes from the chat quality from both my friends and me.

In the box, there are two Xbox Live Communication cables, one with the puck and one without. When playing on Xbox 360, the puck is your best option for voice communication quality. While testing the audio on Xbox Live, each person I have tested with agreed that my voice quality was much improved over my Turtle Beach X12’s.

Final Thoughts

The Tritton 720+ is a fairly good price for (in North America) a nearly universal headset. For those who loathe dealing with wires, the Tritton 720+ is fairly easy to set up and keep wire tangle to a minimum. I prefer wires though because there is no delay or annoying syncing involved. This headset is now being used as my main gaming headset for consoles. For a more hands-on look at the Tritton 720+, be sure to check out my unboxing video.

Prices:

United States of America: $149.99

Canada: $159.99

United Kingdom: £129.99

France: €149.99

Germany: €149.99