Out of town for business until Sunday, so missing the PS5 pretty bad. Didn’t get to play much last weekend after needing to replace my media center because this thing is so massive… lmao. Anyhoo, here’s what I can report so far after finally getting all set-up.
Games Purchased:
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate PS5 (purchased Tuesday while out of town)
Mile Morales PS5
AC Vahalla PS4 (used target B2,G1)
COD Cold War PS5
Games Played:
Astro's Playroom - really like it but I'm am a bit spoiled by the VR version on PS4. Ray tracing is evident.
COD Cold War - Only made it through the beginning sequence, so too early to form an opinion. On the first attempt, the console did shut down and went through the rebuild database thing.
Pulse 3D (2020) vs. Pulse Elite Headset (2012):
First, both pair up with no issues. Just insert the dongle and power up (front or back of console). All controls work and the appropriate UI pops up on the screen for volume and mix, etc.
For the Pulse Elite, all of the modes are disabled. When you hit the mode button, you hear the change tone but the lady's voice that used say, "game, shooter, racing, fighter, music, and movie", are completely absent. I looked in the PSN store for the "Headset Companion App" but it is not there for the 5. So modes are gone...
The Bass Impact feature seems to be run by the logic in the app as well because when playing Astro, the rumble was not in sync with the game. It was almost as if it was just producing random noise at times. Will play with this more when I have time as I could have just had the bass impact volume sensitivity/volume set too high. Regardless, just like in the past, it does add another level of immersion as you can really feel the rumble.
Moving towards sound, both sound great but the newer Pulse 3D's really shine when it comes to clarity and sound separation (spatialization). Granted they represent 8 years of evolution since the Pulse Elites released, I still think credit for the advancement is well warranted. The 3D audio is quite impressive to me as there were two occasions when I went to leave the man cave and two things led to a bit of hesitation after pausing the game:
1. The Pulse 3D's are so light and comfortable, that you sort of forget that you have them on after you have been playing for a while... which leads to #2.
2. The sound is so full (in a completely silent room) that it took a moment for me to be sure I still had headphones on and I was not hearing my actual sound system on low volume.
In my opinion, this headset is a homerun for $99. It's not a perfect product overall but for $99 is absolutely is...
Minor issues for me:
1. I could always go for more volume. When I have my single room A/C running, I can still hear it. If you have ever owned a pair of the original Beats Studio headsets, you know what real noise cancellation is capable of.. even by standards of a decade ago. These IMHO, do not seem to have anything close to that capability. So if you are not in a silent room, you will miss the ability to go louder than the max to cover up outside noise.
2. My head is not on the petite side, so when stretching the headphone to put them on, I can hear the band creaking and stretching - so like many older Sony headsets of the past, some cracking after the plastics become more brittle is expected. At which point, you can sell them and replace them for not much of a loss.
I still may try out the Steel Series 7X since it will work on the series X and the 5, mostly for more volume but I do not have any desire to wear anything with any weight or heft after experiencing the weightlessness of the Pulse 3D.
Other Accessory Opinions:
- Charging station works great and looks even better next to the console.
- DualSense is power hungry, I suggest you get a long female/female USB C Cable.
- Haven't opened the camera - don't think I need it since it cannot be used for VR. Might return...
- Media remote is out of the package and fits perfectly under the right hand of the console when horizontal but I have not paired it up.
LMK if there are any other questions - happy gaming everyone.