Casey at Bat; Strike 1!
A long time ago, I had to read the poem Mighty Casey at Bat. It it a story about a ball player who refused to strike at the first 2 balls and then strikes out at the end. You can read the story below.
So as you can guess my review is of the Strike 1. Did they hit a home run or did they strike out? I am putting soundcore stock phot as well I could not make it look that pretty myself.
The Strike 1 is soundcore’s entry model into gaming headgear while the Strike 3 is its more higher end model.
Just like baseball you hope to hit a home run when you make a product and sometimes you strike out. With the Strike 1, I am still at bat with it. (will explain that soon)
Design
The Strike ones have many things to like about the design. It has a rubberized mic that is detachable. It has a cooling gel infused in the cushion. It also has a flexible headband.
The cooling gel is cool when you first put them on and does keep your ear from heating up that much while in use. I have used these during some work meetings as the ear cups are larger than the ones that my work provided. This helps for me to tune out surrounding noise (kids doing school work).
The strike 1 only come in only a black and red color. The Strike 1 also has an audio jack that is attached to a six foot long wrapped cable. The cable has reinforced rubberized material around the main parts of the cable ( around the audio jack, the volume control and the headphones).
Performance
As stated the headphones have a 52 mm dynamic drivers in them. I will say performance wise, I really enjoyed them. I have used these mostly for work or for the PC but have used them on a PS4 a few times. On the PS4 I used them for one of the Call of Duty games. I will say that it did take a couple of times to get use too as I had to get use to hearing things differently than my other headphones. So overall performance was pretty good.
The microphone based on coworker have said that I was coming through loud and clear. I do like the detachable microphone. My only thoughts for an improvement is a way to keep them with the headset. May a pocket to slide them in when not in use. I think over the long run the microphone could get lost.
The control box is fairly basic and similar to other headset. It has volume limiter as well as a mute and volume control wheel. The volume limiter when on will only start to reduce the volume as the volume gets higher. It overall work as stated but think it could be restrict the volume at its highest just a little more.
System wise it looks to be able to connect to the xbox, as well as PC and ps4. I have not connected it to the xbox but in the other systems, it worked well without an issue.
As stated in the ad that it was put through extreme testing using advance material (POK) for endurance. (POK is short for Polyketones are a family of high-performance thermoplastic polymers.)
This is where I may have a potential issue with the headset. As it shows the flexibility of the headset band, it is the ear cup slider band that is the issue. In about 4 months of use that inner ear band cracked in less than 2 months. I think that the slider band is just a little thin when you start to slide it out. I have talked to a couple of the community members and have had about a 50/50 in their views of the headset.
I think this caused a stress fracture due to you will leave them to your head size. So as you are causing more pressure on the thin piece of the sliding band plastic… So as time goes on, I think it found the weak point in that thinner plastic. Other reviews showed a similar break. I have a pic that will show the break and you can see cracks above the break.
It really need to be reinforced with a metal band or something to help take that pressure of the POK plastic.
So unlike Casey, I do not think that the headset struck out but maybe found a foul ball. As stated others have not had any issue. I still use them daily and was able to “fix”them.
I think with the Strike 1 that you can get a triple out of them or a home run depending on which side you have landed on. Overall, I would still would recommend them but to be cautious in handling. I think with the slider band pulled out a little and you are putting them on with them out. I think that is causing the extra pressure on slider. If you pull them open by the main band on the top, you are probably more likely not to have them to crack.
