ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A COMFORTABLE, LIGHTWEIGHT GAMING HEADSET THAT CAN GO ANYWHERE AND WORK
WITH JUST ABOUT ANYTHING?
JAMES DONKEY HAS YOU COVERED.
YES, YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT, JAMES DONKEY MAY JUST HAVE WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR WITH THEIR
TACTICAL MASTER GAMING HEADSET, NOW CAMPAIGNING ON KICKSTARTER.
Typically, I don’t really even answer emails from companies pushing Kickstarter products.
Usually there’s little innovation, too big of a risk to the buyer, and my reviews are
supposed to be that… reviews, not advertisements for crowdfunding.
But I love reviewing headphones and headsets and I’m actually glad I checked this one
out - there’s a lot I like about it.
That being said, backing Kickstarter projects are always a gamble - and while I have a physical
product to review, I cannot guarantee you will end up with one.
All of that stuff.
Here’s the Tactical Master gaming headset from…
James Donkey.
What a name, amirite?
James Donkey’s goal with this headset was to produce a lightweight headset that was
comfortable for extended gaming sessions while still providing the sound that gamers want.
And honestly, I’d say they succeeded here.
Though I’d certainly prefer the price point stay closer to the “Kickstarter special”
than what they estimate the MSRP to be.
The headset has a pilot-inspired design and might look a little goofy, but it works.
The 53mm neodynium drivers inside the closed-back cans are angled 15 degrees inward towards
the ear canal to provide the best audio projection and housed in very lightweight, yet somewhat
durable feeling plastic cans.
The frame connecting the individual earphones is metal all the way through the headband,
but the clips attaching them are plastic - this is where I see a potential serious breaking
point as I’ve seen lots of clips like this shatter, thus effectively killing the headset.
The headband up top is not padded very well at all and not using any special super soft
material or anything like that, which I’d normally raise hell about… but these are
lightweight enough that I have literally never noticed.
I’ve actually found myself a few times switching TO these headphones to game due to comfort
fatigue of my higher end headphones such as my Sennheiser HD6xx and Monolith M1060 headphones.
Pretty crazy, I was surprised.
The ear pads are adequately thick and comfortable, are made of protein leather, and they attach
to the cans with magnets - which I only just learned while finishing this script.
At no point during any of my use or throwing them about did they come loose, and yet they’re
incredibly easy to remove and clean and replace - but I’ve never seen magnetized ear pads
like this, so finding alternative pad options might not work out, despite the convenience
factor here.
The cans don’t turn out like many headphones, but the natural flexibility of the build here
means they should fit most heads fine - though particularly tall-headed people like myself
may have trouble, I have these extended as far as the adjustment allows and it just barely
fits right, but at least it stays comfortable.
Tall head and big ears is a rough combination for headwear, maan.
Sound quality on these is not bad at all.
It’s nothing amazing, but for the price and intended audience, they work well.
There’s no options to control or disable their “Virtual 7.1 Surround Sound” - which
can be a problem for some, but I’ve found it to be some of the least offensive virtual
surround implementations I’ve come across… to the extent that I questioned if it was
present at all at times.
That’s not a bad thing.
I’ve always been someone who prefers proper stereo sound with directional audio and headphones
with good imaging to take advantage of it, but this implementation is a good workaround
to cheaper, closed-back cans.
I’m a fan.
These lack clarity on the higher ranges of sound and don’t blast your eardrums with
bassy rumble.
This means you’re not getting a phenomenal music listening experience, which the less
accurate, though adequate, imaging may already hinder anyway - but in exchange you get a
very comfortable gaming experience that won’t cause ear fatigue.
There’s no aggressive sharp highs or overly rumbly lows.
The low end and low-mids are still the emphasis, but they’re rolled off in a much more comfortable
way than many headphones.
This is ideal for long gaming sessions.
Also these get loud.
Really really loud.
They start at 100% volume, i usually keep them around 20-25% while gaming, sometimes
lower.
But again, these won’t replace quality-oriented or more analytical-sounding headphones for
music or mixing anytime soon, but for the price and for gaming, they work quite well.
Each can has an adjustment dial with a RGB ring around them.
These only breathe a cycle of colors, with no options to turn them off or change them,
but they’re subtle enough to hopefully be inoffensive to most.
The right ear dial adjusts the volume - which does affect your actual System Volume level
in Windows, so keep that in mind - and I found it to do nothing at all while in-game on Playstation
4, which could be a problem for some.
The dial on the left adjusts the microphone’s levels… which I found to be a bit silly.
With no mute option, I would have much preferred this to act as it, and mic levels are typically
adjusted in your software or system settings anyway.
Especially since there is NO loopback on the microphone, so even with the adjustment dial
you have no idea how loud you actually are.
This would have been a very valuable addition.
The microphone capsule is nice and large, stays out of the way while working well.
It has two positions, closer to your mouth or closer to the cans, both work well.
James Donkey advertises the microphone as being a “Digital Noise Soundproof Microphone”
- this is referring the the signal-to-noise ratio of the microphone’s capsule and electronics
themselves, NOT background noise.
This seemingly has no background noise suppression or filtering at all.
This is honestly a good thing, in my eyes - most voice chatting apps and services use
their own noise gates and filtering anyway, so this means the microphone is giving you
the most natural sounding source it can, and I kinda like it.
The microphone on these headphones is nothing to write home about, but it does do a very
good job of sounding fairly natural without, you know, making yourself sound too nasaly,
or too stripped out.
But it seems to have no background noise reduction whatsoever, so there's a continuous hiss or
just kind of whurr of my computer noise and the USB electronics themselves.
And if I start typing and clicking, it's picking all of that up.
So it may annoy some people, but otherwise it sounds pretty good.
That cable noise I complain about later is also picked up in the microphone.
It does have multiple positions.
This is all the way out.
This is if I'm talking into it with it all the way in, and it does have an adjustment
dial for the microphone level.
But you have no real feedback as to how loud it actually is, because there's no actual
loopback of it to yourself, which has become very annoying during some of our gaming sessions.
Just something you've gotta deal with, I guess.
By far the worst aspect of the headset is the cable.
The non-detachable USB cable is rigid and has very scratchy/noisy braiding.
This is where cost-cutting can cause problems.
It’s obnoxious to deal with and the lighter plastic build has any rubbing of the cable
on your desk or clothes transferred up into your ears - much like ear buds - which can
be very obnoxious if no sound is playing, and is transferred to the mic.
Honestly just making the cable detachable would more or less eliminate this as an option
as I could replace it with my own.
Plus the end of it is rather fat and did not want to fit in my Playstation 4 Pro’s USB
ports at first.
Speaking of which, this device runs with plug and play drivers which causes the lack of
control I mentioned before, but means it should theoretically work with just about any device.
It worked great, microphone included, with my Playstation 4 Pro, although it seemed the
volume adjustment dial did nothing in-game to control volume.
The headset did not work at all with my base Xbox One, however.
I’ve seen lots of threads about Xbox requiring special validation for USB audio devices to
work - I’m guessing this isn’t the fault of the headset but of Xbox’s weird strictness.
Oh yeah, the headphones fold up nice and tight for travel, too.
While the “Tactical Master” headset has a pretty cringey name and kickstarter video
to go with it - what is UP with that super stretched low-res PUBG aspect ratio, anyway?
- it’s actually a pretty impressive headset.
A cheap, lightweight, yet decent-sounding gaming headset is a product I can get behind.
For the remaining “early bird” pledge cost of $49, a headset like this is honestly
a STEAL compared to other cheap headsets, but for the listed MSRP of $89, this headset
is going up against some tough competition and I’m not sure how much the newcomer will
offer against higher price tier options.
There’s about half the Kickstarter campaign time left to go, and their original goal was
aimed at Hong Kong currency and was very low and quickly met, and their only stretch goal
was adding a Yellow color option for some… reason… but I’ll be following this headset
to see if it makes it to full retail, since they clearly already have the headphones to
send them to me.
But since their campaign is killing it, I’d love to see them change to a detachable USB
cable or a better one, and implement a mic mute option of some sort.
Links to the Kickstarter will be in the description.
While you’re down here, 360 YY ladderstall noscope that like button… whatever the kids
these days are doing… and get subscribed for more tech education.
I’m EposVox and I’ll see you in the next one.