Check out Polk’s headset and see if it’s worth your time?
During this year’s Electronics and Entertainment Expo, I was able to swing by the Polk Audio booth and give their headsets/headphones a test run. I was excited by what I saw in the booth at E3 and was even more excited when I was able to snag a Striker Pro headset to review. I had heard good things about the headset so I was very excited! (See what I did there, I’m sorry, no more hearing puns!)
Crack the box open and you can tell that Polk put a lot of time into the Striker Pro P1. For starters everything is very organized, cables are tied and kept where they need to be. The headset can be used on consoles, PC’s, and mobile devices and you would think that would take a lot of wiring but that isn’t the case as hooking the headset up is a breeze.
If you find yourself having a tough time getting started, there is a very simple “start-up” guide that comes with the headset that can get you through those though times. The booklet gives you a breakdown of what comes with the headset and an images glossary, since each plug has an image on in for what it is used for. That’s just another way that simplicity is key and allows everyone to use the Striker Pro. For example, the PC cable has a little monitor on it so you can tell that those wires are to be used for PC gaming.
The guide is easy to use and as I mentioned before hook-ups are a breeze as well. The PlayStation 4 hook-up is a little more detailed compared to the others in the guide but “more detailed” means a paragraph compared to about two-three sentences. There is a troubleshooting section in the guide as well but I doubt you will need that because setting up is rather simple!
The minute you put the headset on you can feel that this headset is going to be very comfortable. The headband and ear-cups make it nice to wear and at times you could forget you were wearing a headset at all! The ear-cups cancel the surrounding noise as well so it really puts you at one with the game or music you happen to be playing at the time. That’s key for trash talking, to be in the zone, no distractions! It was lightweight as well and that’s another way you could forget you were wearing it all together.
The headset can be used for chatting during gameplay and it works well for that. Everything is spoken clearly and heard clearly through the headset and microphone. The microphone is flexible enough that you can wear it however you like and it can detach from the headset. It has a mute button on it as well but the main feature for the microphone is clear communication. You have to be able to talk clearly for talking trash during Madden so the burn you just gave your opponent hits that much harder. If he/she can’t hear it, then it won’t hurt as much. That isn’t a problem with the Striker Pro P1.
The headset can be used for mobile gaming since it comes with the mobile connect cable. You can play on your phone as well as make calls without touching said phone. It comes with a dual jack console controller connect cable which allows you to play on PS4 and Wii U games. It also strengthens the microphone and eliminates crosstalk.
Striker Pro P1 exclusively ships with a PS4 in-line Attenuator to make sure the microphone doesn’t distort during chat sessions. Good news, it doesn’t! The only minor issue I had was that the console cable was a little short for the Wii U but the Game Pad doesn’t go too far away from your person so it doesn’t bother me too much. It also comes with a dual jack detachable extra long pro PC connect cable which will boost microphone clarity for audio.
To recap, the Striker Pro P1 headset plays on multiple platforms and looks damn good doing it. It sounds damn good doing it too. The leather makes the unit pop and I really like the multiple platform aspect since you never see the Wii U get any love.
It’s these reasons that I’m giving the Striker Pro P1 headset from Polk Audio a 9.5/10
Score: 9.5 / 10
