CES: First Look - Astro's A38 Wireless Gaming Headset

Active noise cancellation headset arrives in beta next week.

In 2012, Astro reinvented its A40 gaming headphones with the completely wireless A50 for PC and consoles. Now, it's cutting the wires for its mobile-focused headset, the A30, with the Bluetooth-enabled, active noise canceling, A38. Designed for smartphones, tablets, PC, and gaming handhelds, the A38 preserves the same compact, lightweight design of the A30, but adds an internal rechargeable battery, integrated, playback controls, a built-in microphone, and a mini USB charging port.

Under the hood, Astro has dropped in wireless support for wideband Bluetooth 4.0 audio, including the low-latency aptX and AAC codecs. It even offers near-field communication (NFC) for seamless pairing with your smartphone or tablet if it supports it. Most notably, it comes equipped with active noise cancelation — a feature often limited to $300 - $400 headphones. The A38, on the other hand, will be priced at $229 when it makes it way to retailers around September or October this year.
But Astro isn't making early adopters wait that long. Instead, the company is adopting a more unconventional rollout strategy. Starting next week, Astro will be launch a beta program that allows prospective owners to order the A38 early, and at a reduced cost of $119. Through a dedicated portal on its website, Astro will gather feedback from A38 owners about the audio, fit-and-finish, and other aspects of the design, which will influence how the final product is tuned. However, Astro assures that fans won't be receiving unstable, crude prototypes, but rather a near production grade unit.

Astro provided me with an A38 beta model for preliminary testing, and so far, I've been impressed by the results. Aside from the obvious lack of cabling of any kind, the most noticeable difference between it and the A30 is the new ear and headband padding — and what a difference it makes. Instead of padded cloth, Astro has adopted an ultra-soft leather-like plastic material. It's easily one of the most comfortable on-ear headphones I've used and it forms a nice seal to limit excess noise from seeping in or out. The active noise cancelation adds another layer of sound dampening. When wearing them around the office or at home, nearby talking or other sounds are almost completely indiscernible. The feature was especially useful on my flight to CES, reducing the constant roar of the engines significantly.
But Astro's penchant for finely tuned audio, however, is the real star of the A38. Bass levels are beefy and sharp — not muddled, as is commonly the case for other products in its class. Highs are crisp and clear and there's a healthy amount of mid-range performance.
As for the on-board controls, Astro has kept it pretty simple — a volume rocker on the back of the right ear cup and power and playback controls on the left ear cup. The controls are easy to reach and large enough to easily identify with your fingers. There's a mute switch on the bottom of the left ear cup and a mini-USB port for charging on the right.

Speaking of power, Astro claims the A38 can last for up to 20 hours on a single charge, and while I haven't had them long enough to put that claim to test, they're still running on the charge they arrived with two days ago. Oddly, there's seemingly no means of identifying charge level, so knowing when to recharge could become problematic. But hopefully, that's the kind of feedback Astro is looking for and will take it to heart when the A38 ships this fall.

 

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Astro A38 Headset Photos