Sound quality is generally the primary reason in selecting a headset but we all care about how anything we wear is going to look. Different manufacturers address personal vanity with different ways ranging from trying to come up with designs that have universal appeal or customizable earcuff covers or LED lights. There’s a large variety of choices out there, but Astro Gaming decided to take this a step further with their new Astro.ID. Astro.ID takes their acclaimed A40 header and gives customers the ability to personalize their headset’s appearance. This is perfect for streamers looking to create a signature look but is just a nice option for anyone who wants a unique piece of gaming hardware.
Before getting into the custom design aspect of Astro.ID let’s take a look at the headset itself. The A40 is a high-end headset that was designed with eSports tournament play in mind, emphasizing clear communication between players and being able to hear the game audio and teammates clearly in a noisy environment. It doesn’t offer bells and whistles like virtual surround sound but does provide high-quality gaming audio. The A40 remains comfortable over game sessions spanning a couple hours, even if the player is wearing glasses. It uses a 3.5mm connection and the specs are listed below, taken from Astro Gaming’s website.
Primary Specifications
Connector: 3.5mm Mini-stereo and PC Splitter
Boom Mic: 6.0mm Uni-directional
Technical Specifications
Transducer Principle: Dynamic, Open 40mm Sound Driver tuned for Gaming
Frequency Response: 20 – 20,000 Hz
Nominal Impedance: 48 ohms
Physical Specifications
Weight w/o Cable: 369g
Length: 8 in
Width: 7.75 in
Height: 3.75 in
There’s quite a bit of design freedom with Astro.ID with there reportedly being an excess of over 400,000 possible design combinations, making it possible to create a headset that could truly be one of a kind. The user designs their personal head by choosing the color for the frame, ear cushion stitching, headband stitching, mic, cable and tags, with their being two choices for the tag design. The choice of available colors is limited to six for each of those six components but even with that there are plenty of possibilities for everyone’s individual preferences. My A40 is primarily black with some white and red accents and I am pleased with how it turned out. There are a lot of options to pattern the headset after color schemes of any number of things of personal interest, like sports teams or other video game characters.
The A40 is a nice headset on its own and the option to customize its appearance makes it even better. The target audience for this seems to be streamers or eSports players looking for a way to have a signature look or for eSports teams to have a unique and uniform appearance but really anyone who wants a unique headset to suit their personality and taste can get one. Astro.ID is available from Astro Gaming’s website for $199.99 and include a carrying case for the headset. Turnaround time from order to delivery is about two weeks.
