Reviews

Viewsonic VX2235WM 22 inch Widescreen Monitor

AudioFX Force Feedback Gaming Headset

Zalman ZM-RS6FM Headphones

Comparative Review and Conclusion

Review of Viewsonics VX2235WM 22 inch Widescreen Monitor

 I've had this monitor for about a month or so now and feel confident in writing a review for this piece of hardware that is so essential to computing whether your into gaming or doing video or just making sure all of your finances and papers are in order.

 Let me start off by saying that once it was unboxed and sitting on my desk (it wasn't hooked up yet) I went "WoW!!!" this thing is HUGE. I've shopped around for 22 inch monitors for months now. I have never seen anything compare to this in size. Now it just might be my imagination, visual illusions are highly probable, but I feel like a kid with my nose pressed against my T.V. screen.

 I haven't seen any ghosting or other effects that LCDs are famous for. I do see some backlight bleeding on black or extremely dark screens, but thats liveable and no big deal. If your looking for a good speaker/monitor configuration forget it. The speakers on this thing are absolutely HORRENDOUS, they are good for emergency backups and that is all they are good for. Don't bother hooking them up you will be greatly disappointed. I had no dead pixels even though the box was in a bit of rough shape, looked like it had been dropped.

 One feature I accidentally discovered is the opticolor mode, listing Cinema, Game, Portrait, Scenary, Vivid settings/optimizations, you select them by pressing the up arrow and nothing else then select up/down to pick which setting you want. Kind of like the Sports, Movie settings some Televisions have only better. One thing I did notice and highly recommend is buy a good DVI cable something preferably that has gold plating on the ends. Good cabling is the key to getting the best performance out of this monitor.

 Now one word of caution especially to those of you not knowing very much about purchasing hardware, the native resolution for this monitor is 1680 X 1050 big deal you say? heh heh think again if you plan on gaming. You  better have a decent video card or your game will absolutely crawl to a slow down. Most games don't even support widescreens yet so you will have to google a solution to run your game in widescreen. Some games will let you edit ini files or a shortcut to the exe forcing the widescreen resolution for gaming. Now for video editing etc. it's all good although it will eat up some resources on your PC it wont eat a ton like in gaming.

 If you are into looking at the specifications I have listed them below, this monitor retails for around 350 dollars. I purchased mine for $319.00 on special at OfficeMax. Check out the major online sites like NewEgg and Amazon to see what deals you can find, it's definately worth the money.

Specifications

AudioFX Force Feedback Gaming Headset

Product Review by Gizmo[GG] aka. Jeff Smith

  To visit the manufacturers site Link Here

    The AudioFX Force Feedback Gaming Headset is an excellent headset, I love the microphone with noise cancellation. For voice communications during gaming these headphones rock. The thunderous noise of explosions and of helicopters flying around are intense enough you might need to turn the sound down.

The overall sound quality is fantastic, especially considering that for just under 50 dollars you're not going to find a better deal with the same sound quality. Once I received them and hooked them up to my system, I thought "That's it, that's all there is?" fired up my system and started Battlefield2 to give them a work out.

The instant the game loaded I was impressed; the game sounds were so much clearer and distinct. Using Ventrilo and TeamSpeak the experience is the way these programs were meant to be heard. These headphones come with an inline cord adjustment, allowing you to adjust the volume and the force feedback effects, As well as being able to turn those effects completely off if desired.

Now the cons: the headphone clamshells are small, which means the top and bottom of my ears get pinched. After playing several hours my ears hurt from the pressure. If your into extreme gaming going for hours on end stay away from these unless your ears fully fit inside the cups.

As for 3d dimensional sound, I don't hear any major difference. They claim 5.1 surround, so either I haven't configured them correctly in some way (I doubt it, let me know if you discover something I haven't) or they don't match the claims written about them.

I do recommend these for normal music listening though. Hearing your favorite tunes volume to near max is just about a fantastic experience as you can get for 50 dollar headphones. The bass is truly remarkable, with the force feedback enabled and adjusted you can actually feel the bass as with your home stereo system. You only actually feel it in your head not through your body as you normally would, but the intensity is there. If you enjoy music with a heavy beat or massive bass these are the headphones your neighbors are praying for. Get Intense System Sound without driving anyone else nuts with these babies.

They come with indicator lights built into the clamshells which change color as the intensity increases or decreases, kinda cool to look at but useless otherwise. I believe in a LAN party situation people would stop by and ask you about them. I do have to warn you though you cannot hear anything outside your environment while these are playing, so your gaming pleasure wont be interrupted with phone calls, people at the door, or any other distractions that may come your way.

While for gaming they will intensify your gaming experience to new levels of realistic sound reproduction, I don't recommend them if you're looking for surround sound in a headphone device. For music and movies I love them as I can now have the incredible bass that you don't get with normal headphones.

Pros

6 ft. cord

Excellent Cable Management

Vibration/bass

Noise canceling mic

Ease of installation (No Cd or Software Required)

Amazing Bass Reproduction

Volume and Force Feedback controls on cord

Cons

Cups too small (can't wear for extended periods of time)

Can't detect 5.1 surround sound differences

Uses up a USB port

A bit bulky (You look like a helicopter pilot when wearing them for you fashion buffs)

 Zalman ZM-RS6FM Headphones

Product Review by Rick Smit {-pfc-}Wetchaser     You can visit ZalmanUSA  LINK Here

    The Zalman ZM-RS6FM are by far the best headphones that I have ever owned for gaming. They are very comfortable, and don't squeeze your head like a grape. The pressure required to hold them on my noggin is well balanced with the weight held by the top strap, so no part of my head gets irritated from them.

   I played at a 16-hour lan party with no problems with them. Be warned, that in a lan situation, you are not going to be able to hear the person next to you talking unless you hit the nearest mute button.

   First thing I have to say is the lack of an in-line speaker/mic control is a pain, but if you get any current model keyboard it will have a built in volume control. I kinda like it that way now after it was forced down my throat. Let's just say, don't let that small thing sway you away from these bad boys.

   You open the transparent transport case (packaging) that the unit is stored in and see wire city. Zalman did not go cheap, and gave you plenty of cord length which is  9.8 feet. That is the longest cord I've ever seen on a headphone/mic combination. Each plug is clearly marked as to which to insert into your sound card jacks. (You do have a surround capable card right?.....Yea, ok, just checking.)

   I went directly into my cards configuration utility and made sure all was well. Well everything is almost well. These are 5.1 headphones, and the back/center channel did not work on the Audigy2 ZS Platnium, as I had expected it would in 6.1. So I realized I only had 5.1 and moved on.

   I then moved into Americas Army Hospital SF map, and became super ear to my clan. I could hear things from twice the distance that I could before. I would have people on TeamSpeak babbling in my ear, and still hear someone open a door half a map away. My kill rate shot right on up man. I have read other reviews about learning how to listen with these headphones, and to not expect an immediate increase in your game playing abilities. I say those guys are crazy. How can you not be a better player when you are in BF2 and you can hear exactly where that chopper is as you're moving into postion to kill him during a dog fight? How can you not do better, when you can hear exactly where that infantryman is running behind that building? These headphones get me kicked out of more servers.........

   The bass is there, but it won't be rumbling your ears. I can hear bass, but it is certainly no substitute for a good surround speaker set up to watch a movie with. You can watch a movie, and be very happy with just listening to positioning sounds alone, but the bass just isn't going to be there. I really haven't met a pair of headphones that delivers the kinda bass that I'm looking for, but I know they exist. I just wonder if they exist with the 5.1 as well.

Con's:

No volume/mic control in-line

Really wish they were 6.1

Lack of bass

Mic clips to cord. No boom?

Pro's:

Serious comfort on the head

Nice long cord

3D Sound that really works

Mic works good even without boom

Dude they're only $50.00

2nd-day shipping had them here on time

Rick Smit

aka.. {-pfc-}Wetchaser

Comparative Review of both the

AudioFX Force FeedbackGaming Headset and the

Zalman ZM-RS6FM Headphones

    This is a comparative review of both the AudioFX Force Feedback Gaming Headset and the Zalman ZM-RS6FM Headphones reviewed on this site. Since writing the review on the AudioFX headset, I have purchased the Zalmans as well. I have been using the Zalmans for a few months now and I finally feel that I have enough information to compare both sets.

    Let me start by saying that although both are listed as Gaming Headsets with 5.1 surround, I truly only found the surround feature on the Zalmans. The AudioFX, although they are great headphones, simply don't cut it for surround sound, either for gaming or watching movies. Now don't get me wrong, the sound they produce is nothing short of incredible, the bass response, and the clarity is awesome. They just don't cut it for a surround experience. If you want great headphones, but aren't interested in surround sound, and mostly listen to music, then these are the ones for you. Now the Zalmans on the other hand, once I installed them and got my surround sound card configured correctly, are nothing short of a true surround experience. For gaming I was flabbergasted, the sounds are truly directional. I could hear someone sneaking up behind me as I was sniping, or could tell which direction the jets or helicopters were coming from. The main drawbacks for these are that the mic is separate and clipped to the cord, and the bass response is good, but not great. If I could merge these two headphones then I'd say they were a perfect set.

    The cord length on both are more than adequate, the volume controls on the AudioFX are outstanding as they are placed in-line on the cord.  While using my keyboard volume controls was a little strange to get used to with the Zalmans, it finally became more natural during game play to adjust the sound as needed. The comfort factor on the Zalmans is absolute heaven on my ears. The speaker grill inside is covered with a soft fabric and the imitation leather cup covers are extremely comfortable for hours of long wear. The AudioFX, unfortunately, are a bit small for my ears and tended to pinch both the upper and lower portions of my ears. If your blessed with normal or even smaller ears, they should be more comfortable as the basic comfort design of the AudioFX is similar to the Zalmans, although Zalman went just a step further.

    In order to use the Zalmans effectively (I use a Creative Labs Audigy2 ZS sound card) you need to make sure that your sound card outputs surround sound and that you have it configured properly to achieve the desired result. Unfortunately, Creative Labs makes their configuration utility too complex and it took me quite a few tries to get it setup properly, it kept changing back to the default configuration after reboots or sometimes after just exiting and restarting games. I finally performed a reformat/reload and had the utility acting correctly, but once it was finally setup, the Zalmans really started to show their stuff. While the AudioFX provided ground shaking bass with a force feedback vibration, that really wasn't enough to make me give them a recommendation for use as a gaming headset.

    If you are truly a gamer that is discerning of what hardware you use, the Zalmans are the way to go. Your scores/stats will improve once you get used to them in-game. Both are priced competitively around $50.00 plus shipping, and the packaging for both was well done.

    Here is a side by side comparison of the pros and cons listed by Model:

Now I know this isn't going to be the definitive review or even the definitive answer to your sound reproduction needs or issues, but in my humble opinion the Zalmans are the way to go for the serious gamer. Even though the mic is clip-on, I get no complaints as to the quality of voice communications other than the fact that the noise canceling mic on the AudioFX is clearer and has sharper sound.

Gizmo