[typing]
Greetings and welcome to LGR,
and it's time to take a look at some
audio stuff, which is something I don't take a look at very often on here.
Um, maybe I should do that more often 'cause as a YouTube producer and a
guy that does a lot of gaming and stuff,
audio is pretty important to me, as far as being to not only communicate with people that I'm playing with,
but also just to do videos and streams
and anything like that.
So, Avermedia has once again sent me some stuff to cover.
They've always sent me video– AV-like capture products in the past.
Well, this time,
they've sent me
a microphone
and some speakers.
So, they're part of their new line of I don't even know what, but they're doing them, so they sent them to me.
Let's go ahead and take a look at
the Avermedia Aegis Something-or-other.
So, this is the Aegis Gaming Voice Chat Microphone.
and they are charging $99.99 for it.
So right at a hundred U.S. dollars.
And it is supposedly designed and also named after Zeus's shield.
They sort of had this Greek theme going on.
That's not exactly what I was taught Zeus's shield looks like, but [laughs]
Some artistic license here, I suppose.
In a way it looks more like a–
a Transformer Millenium Falcon
and Hasbro got a hold of some Star Wars properties and just went crazy.
Uh, either way,
it's an interesting look for a mic that is for freakin' sure.
And so is the packaging design itself.
There's like this weird little...
I don't even know what that's there for, but it's there and it's a slant and it's red, so it intrigues me.
Kinda slick package, I suppose.
Not – not too shabby.
So we got the thingy right there.
That is the mic we'll look at in a second.
But it also comes with this. I don't know, uh...
[laughs] what the heck you would want that for. It's like a case badge.
Opening up, and the, uh...
first thing you'll notice here is
[laughs] This is the highest quality micro USB cable I have ever seen.
It's got like the braids and everything going on.
The ends feel like they're not gonna snap off. They're gold, I guess.
That's a pretty substantial cable. I am impressed right off the bat with this thing.
There's some documentation which you don't really need. I mean, it's seriously–
There's just a simple little piece of software that you download.
We'll get to that in a moment.
And then...
Ooh! Really loud.
There's the– [laughs]
It really wants to stay in there, doesn't it?
Here we go.
Then we have
the Aegis microphone itself.
And, yeah, it fits right in the palm of your hand, although,
ideally you won't be holding onto this.
You just sort of plop it on your desktop or wherever you happen to be doing some gaming
on a PC, and, well there you go.
The quality is not the greatest, especially, like, this volume knob is really, uh...
chintzy-feeling and loose. It just sort of wobbles.
But the rest of it is okay, I guess.
It's really, really lightweight. I think it's about four ounces or something, and, uh...
it does have this nice, rubbery underside here which
keeps it from moving around on your desk, which is good because it is so lightweight.
But when you do plug it in, in fact–
[tapping]
You see it glowing red there? [tapping]
That's a, it's making– if you're doing anything that is loud enough to make it peak,
the volume peaking crackling and stuff, it'll do that.
So...
Yeah, that's good.
I do like that a lot, actually, because I don't wanna be looking at a recording program while I'm
gaming or streaming or whatever.
There's also this "Kinetic" Muting Lever,"
[laughs]
It's just a friggin' mute button.
But I guess it's kinetic, I don't know.
And then it turns off the light right here. It's muted.
"Kinetic muting lever?"
That's the silliest thing I've heard in a long time.
The only other thing that's really on here is you have this DSP on and off,
which I will explain what is here in a moment.
Keep that in mind because that's really one of the only things that sets this apart from anything else,
other than the shape.
So, it features two unidirectional mics,
one right here, one right here.
These are condenser mics. They're supposed to pick up anything
to about two feet away.
And I'd say that's about right in my experience.
And then there's this thing that you install once you've plugged it into your computer
called the Aegis Voice Engine.
And this is really an interesting piece of software.
It's kind of similar to what the Microsoft Kinect and Kinect 2.0 do on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One consoles,
in that it's supposed to eliminate background noise and the noise from your games
so that you can just speak into the microphone from, you know, a couple of feet away or whatever,
but it won't actually pick up your game noise or the noise of your room.
This sets it up and runs through a little process to listen to your room and your speakers
to make sure that it can do its thing.
As long as that DSP button is switched on.
How does it work and how is the quality of it?
Well...
Okay, so what you hear right now is me talking through my normal gaming
microphone solution, which is just a Steelseries headset. Really basic thing.
And here we're gonna switch over to the Avermedia Aegis
starting now.
[tinny and quieter] So this is what the Aegis sounds like, and, um...
Well... [laughing]
It's not good.
Uh, let's put it that way. It's, uh...
This isn't the DSP mode at the moment.
If I switch modes...
[click]
It just– it sounds pretty much the same.
And, um...
that's really– this is what you get
for $100.
Let's go ahead and try it out with a game!
[tinny] Okay, so just as a test here, I'm gonna play some Duke 3D with a bunch of noise.
[rapid gunshots]
[explosion]
And it said to just play it at my normal gaming volume, so that's exactly what I'm doing.
And, uh...
I guess we'll...
see how that goes.
Oh, this is Baby Duke 3D. Forgot.
[laughs]
Yeah, um...
Okay, letting you know I'm gonna kill myself here, and that should be a lot of noise.
[popping and loud clicking] There's like subwoofer stuff and...
[indecipherable] ...and music and...
All right.
See how that goes, or... went. [loud typing]
Well,
yeah, so this a friggin' disappointment. Um...
I'm sorry, but for $100, I just cannot
possibly understand...
why...
You know? Just why? Like,
this should be a whole lot better.
I'm not expecting this to be, like, you know, studio quality mic, like I'm using a
Zoom H2n over there.
I've got a– just a Blue Snowball.
That's fine. Those are for recording, you know, videos like this
narration.
But this sounds as bad as a Kinect or, like, a headset
that came packed in with any number of my consoles.
This is a $100– I'm sorry, I just can't.
I'm sorry, nope. [thud]
That thing is out of the question. I can't possibly recommend it.
Let's take a look at these speakers, though, and see how well they fare.
Of course, this gonna be a little harder to do since they're speakers and
obviously you can't HEAR what they sound like, exactly, because you're not
here with me. But, I'm gonna do the best I can.
Alright, let's move onto the Ballista Trinity Gaming Speakers.
Yeah, so its continuing that whole Greco-Roman naming scheme,
and it's named for, of course, the ballista weapon.
Uh, the "Trinity?"
I don't know. I don't know what that means.
There's other speakers in this set.
These are the $129 version, so $129.99 is what you're going to be paying for these.
There's some that are cheaper that have
slightly fewer features and maybe slightly less speakers.
I don't know. I don't have those, so I can't really compare, but
they come in a box, so that's– that's good.
It's just a friggin' box. There's nothing really special here.
Opening the front flap – or the top flap, really, when you're about to
take the speakers out of there, you get some instructions right there!
So, as for the look of these things...
Well... [laughs]
These are absolutely absurd! I...
You know, if I were like 14, these would be the coolest-looking things I've ever seen.
I mean, if you like this kind of thing going on.
It's like again with the whole, like, Transforming kind of motif.
Wh-what is this style?! There's so many things that have it now, like
you know, you've got gaming mouse input devices and like
microphones look–what is this?
There's this weird, angular– I mean, you see it in games like Destiny, too.
In fact, the subwoofer looks like something from Des–
It looks like Ghost from Destiny had sex with a
Companion Cube from Portal, and then just like...
got painted by some kid in 2003.
Like, this is the silliest thing I've ever seen as a speaker system, but
maybe that's just me being slightly older and curmudgeony now
and liking very straightforward- looking speakers, but whatever!
Another thing that's not really an issue and sort of is a personal preference is the quality of these cables.
Maybe, maybe that's not personal preference. Maybe that's just me speaking from experience,
but these don't really seem like quality cables at all.
And I do like that the ends here on these are gonna be RCA, and that's fine,
but these are like the cheap kind. [chuckles]
They just look like they're just gonna fall apart on me, I dunno.
But the quality of the speakers themselves
seem to be, uh...
quite nice actually. I don't have any real problems with these.
These, you get 14.5 watts each.
There's nice rubber feet on the bottom, which is good.
A lot of speakers I've had for computers don't have rubber feet.
So they stay in place.
And they have a little spot there that you can hang them
on your wall, if you so desire.
The subwoofer that looks like a weird amalgamation of sci-fi themes
is a 6½-inch sub. You get 48 watts in this model.
And, man, this thing...
Yeah, this packs a punch!
I absolutely blared it full blast and all sorts of the bassiest like music and games that I could find.
And it performed wonderfully. I didn't hear too much noise.
So, I'd say it performs pretty well for my limited expertise.
So everything that you have plugs into this central control box,
which is quite nice actually.
Many of the others that I have had have plugged into the subwoofer,
or the back of, like, the right speaker, and I don't like that when the volume and like all these inputs
and other things are on the back of the speaker somewhere.
It's just inconvenient. This you can plop down somewhere,
like a small little piece of AV equipment
You actually have quite a few things you can do on this little box here.
So you've got knobs
for volume, treble, bass and input selection.
as well as some stuff to plug in some other devices here.
So you've got headphone, microphone and a line out.
And then on the back, of course, you have possibility for a microphone out
and auxiliary in.
So that's pretty handy, actually.
There's also this thing– [laughs]
It's called the "Assassin Button."
Ugh! My word. What–
Whatever, man. Gamers or something. It's supposedly cool.
Not for me, but yeah, this Assassin Mode is literally just a half-mute button.
Not really a button that I see myself ever using,
since you can just friggin' turn the volume down.
As for the quality of these things, how do they sound?
Well...
sound reproduction normally is quite fine. [laughs]
The subwoofer sounds
nice and bassy and boomy and all that,
and the speakers, they sound all right, too.
There are a few issues with this sadly.
There's a faint hiss whenever the speakers
are powered and it's even when the volume is turned all the way down.
And some really severe crackling with this volume knob.
Again, what's with these cheap volume knob, Avermedia?
Come on now, listen to this...
[crackling classical piano music]
So yeah, there's an entire section of the volume knob that just sounds like garbage
and that is really most unfortunate.
Beyond that, it's fine. It's a nice, smooth volume adjustment.
Everything else sounds really good, but
maybe I just have a defective unit here. I don't know.
But dang it, for $130 I shouldn't be having to deal with such a weak knob
and these other slight inconveniences and technical issues.
I want this thing to be solid. I really do.
Like I said, I don't mind the sound quality. It's quite nice actually, but
everything else...
I dunno, man.
Alright. So the speakers, they're not that bad, at least these.
They're not that good either.
And for $130, I expected a lot more.
Dang it, Avermedia. What's with your, like, shoddy products recently
because seriously, the last video capture thing you sent me kinda sucked.
At least the software did.
Since there's been a software update for that, that has been addressed. It does work a lot better
than when I reviewed it, but it launched in a horrible state.
This thing...
I don't know if this can be upgraded through software or not because the quality is just...
No! It's unreasonable for the price.
It'd be fine if it were just a $10 headset, but it's not. It's a $100 thing that sits on your desk and, you know...
[thud]
The speakers, you know... eh, they are what they are.
The speakers, I don't mind them when they work.
I just wished that the quality was a little bit better as far as the build quality and the things like the hiss.
The hiss bothers me more than anything, to be honest, and, uh...
I can get over the volume knob... sort of.
I mean, I've got shoddy volume knobs on my Logitech speakers, too,
and I still use those all the time.
But that hiss...
I can't...
no.
So maybe go for some of the cheaper ones. These still aren't bad speakers on their own and
if you like the look of them, there are the cheaper ones that I think are $69 instead of $129.
That might be the better deal.
But I don't have those. Maybe that's even worse. I don't know.
Either way, totally average products here, and, uh...
that's... that's that!
Thanks, Avermedia, for sending them to me.
Sorry I had to sort of take a dump on them, but you know...
Start making better stuff [laughs]
and I'd be happy to, you know, call it like it is and say it's better, but
until then,
see you next time.
And if you enjoyed this video and would like to see me cover more products both new and–
well mostly old.
A lot of old stuff is on here because
that's what I like to do even more,
then you're on the right channel.
May as well check out some of my other videos linked to here, or
subscribe to be notified when there's more in the future.
And there will be more.
More coming every Monday and Friday.
And you can always check Twitter and Facebook and Patreon, if you'd like to do social things
and support the show other ways.
And as always, thank you very much for watching.