Audio is a part of the computing experience that is very often overlooked when people are building their system. We see this every day when someone is talking about putting together an HTPC (Home Theater PC), a gaming system or even a general usage system. They stick with the audio on the motherboard and call it good enough. Even when someone takes the time to pick out a good sound card, they often buy $20 speakers to play this sound through. Today we are going to take a look at a combination audio card and headset from Rosewill this is the RHM-6308. The RHM-6308 is listed as a Circumaural Gaming Headset; we are going to see if this $30 headset can live up to its name.
Performance -
With audio gear it is hard to be objective. After all different people like different music and even people that like the same music might like to listen to it in different ways. To make sure that I cover the audio products that we get here at DecryptedTech I like to have more than one opinion. Usually I gather 5 other people to listen to different audio types (gaming, movies, MP3 and CD-Audio). I then ask for a rating of one to five with one being the worst and 5 being the best for each category. As an added item I also ask for a single word to describe the audio quality. I then follow up with my personal feelings and observations. 
Gaming -
Gaming was the easiest one test and also the easiest one to observe. When the audio quality is good you can see people register it in the way they react to what is happening in the game. We used Modern Warfare 3 and also Mass Effect 3 for the audio comparison.
The numbers are shown below, while the words used to describe the gaming quality were;
Good
Better than I was expecting
Nice
Flat
Over Processed
Our gaming experience was better than our first impression led us to believe. We fully expected to hear flat and dull audio with more high and mid-range than low. The reality was almost the opposite. There was plenty of low-end, but this also brought in a little mud in the mid-range. Not a lot, but enough to recognize. The virtual surround was nice; during part of our time in Modern Warfare 3 (during the Mind the Gap level) we were able to get a very good feel for the audio quality when shooting from inside the concrete tubes. The sound became louder and seemed to ring in our ears a little. We also noticed that during our game play the games would sometimes stutter. This appeared to happen when the most during combat (which was most of Modern Warfare 3). We tested again with the Sirus headset and did not see the same stuttering. It would appear that at times the USB audio cannot keep up with the sounds that are being pushed.
Movies/Video -
Movies was an easy one also, I have several Bluray titles that are great for this including Pirates of the Caribbean. So I loaded up this title and then dropped in a couple of other movies that have good surround effects. The response was not as good as the gaming, but still the surround piece did seem to impress. The numbers and words are shown below. 
For movies the extra bass also diluted some of the audio quality. While the sound was good (especially for a $30 headset and audio card combo) there was just a little too much low-end for the majority of the sound we listened to. The virtual surround was the least effective here; although it was noticeable, it was not enough to truly call it surround.
Music (MP3 and CD-Audio) -
For Music I have a few favorite tracks that I like to use. These are not always other people’s favorites but they serve as a baseline and have some impressive audio features to them that can distinguish between good audio and bad. One of them is Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing. It is an amazing track. Other are A Day in the Life by the Beetles, Are you Experienced by Jimi Hendrix, and Cage the Elephant’s Ain’t no Rest for the Wicked. The numbers for this along with their corresponding one word comments are below.
The music experience was pretty good. For most of the audio we listened to the extra bass did not kill our listening experience. However, when we hit our true test track, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s remake of Little Wing we noticed the drop in quality. During this track with good audio gear, you can hear his fingers moving up and down the strings and over the frets. This is in contrast to the hum of his amp all of these elements are really what goes to make up this track and the “feel” of it. When you have heard all of these you notice their absence and it really does take something away from the song.
Comfort -
The Rosewill RHM-6308 gaming headphones are not the most comfortable we have ever tested. More than one of our test subjects made the comment that they felt awkward on their ears and it was hard to find a comfortable spot to put them on their head. Adjusting the earpieces when they are on your head can also be difficult as the mechanism is stiff. The pads on the ear pieces also have a slightly odd shape that does not completely conform to your ears. We found that they pressed down on the top of our ears but were very loose at the bottom (which did allow for outside noise to leak in). The top strap also became uncomfortable after extended use for us as well as two out of our five test subjects.
