GotFrag eSports

New York, NY -- December 6, 2007 -- ASTRO Gaming and Major League Gaming, the leading professional video game league today announced the launch of a new high-end gaming headset and audio system specifically designed to meet the needs of competitive gamers. Following a full year of field-testing, the MLG Edition of the ASTRO Gaming A40 Audio System will become an integral part of MLG gaming stations at the 2008 MLG Pro Circuit and is now available to gamers nationwide.

"ASTRO Gaming designed the MLG-branded A40 Audio System from the ground up to be a complete tournament-grade audio solution for competitive teams," said Joshua LaTendresse, producer of the A40 Audio System. "The MLG Pro Circuit is the premier competitive series in professional gaming today, and we wouldn't have partnered with anyone else for this ground breaking product."

The MLG-branded A40 Audio System consists of two parts; the patent-pending A40 MixAmp� and the revolutionary A40 Headset. The palm-sized A40 MixAmp� combines high-quality headphone amplification with Dolby Digital surround sound and integrates a zero-lag voice communication channel for private team chat. The A40 Headset pairs world-class audio quality with versatile configuration, including a noise-canceling boom microphone that can be worn on either side and an array of noise-dampening Speaker Tags.

When the A40 MixAmp and A40 Headset are combined together, they represent the ultimate audio solution for demanding gamers. When two or more MixAmps� are connected, the A40 Audio System becomes the pinnacle of audio performance for professional teams. In partnership with Major League Gaming, ASTRO will deploy a full array of Team MixAmp� Racks that will enable simple "drop-in" connectivity at all MLG competition stations.

"The A40 is the most sophisticated, highest quality approach to competitive gaming audio, so we're proud to debut the systems at the 2008 MLG Pro Circuit as ASTRO Gaming's exclusive partner," said Matthew Bromberg, President and CEO of Major League Gaming. "Developed with the needs of gamers in mind and tested by MLG Pros, The MLG- branded A40 will be highly sought after by demanding gamers who want to play with the same equipment used in our pro competitions."

The A40 Audio System is available for sale online at www.mlgpro.com, www.astrogaming.com and will be available for in-person purchase at all MLG Pro Circuit events during the 2008 season.

About ASTRO Gaming
ASTRO Gaming LLC, San Francisco CA, produces professional grade video gaming equipment and is a spin-off of design powerhouse, ASTRO Studios, Inc.
For information: http://www.astrogaming.com or http://www.astrostudios.com.
For human contact: Josh LaTendresse -- josh@astrogaming.com or Jordan Reiss -- jordan@astrogaming.com. Phone: 415-354-6300

About Major League Gaming
Major League Gaming is North America's first professional videogame league and its only sanctioning body for pro gaming. MLG operates the multi-city MLG Pro Circuit, presented by GameStop and powered by Xbox 360; produces compelling competitions for national television, broadband and mobile distribution; and exclusively represents the best gamers in the world. It also operates a thriving online community and online tournaments for millions of gamers at mlgpro.com. MLG, founded in 2002, is based in New York City and is privately held.

User Comments

pics or it didnt happen

Theres pics on the websites, and it looks ridiculous.

Squeegee your third eye.

the price is also ridiculous #2

and the headphones are not even that good.
they are $60 value headphones but for over 4 times the price (putting mlg logos is expensive).

if only they weren't ugly as hell

This comment was edited at 12/10/2007 11:56 AM

[b] http://csp.zpliskin.com [/b]

The specs of the headphones compare to like hd 595s you should read what people said on fpslabs former gotfrag hardware about it. They are probably right as far as gaming headsets go these would be the best if price wasn't so high cause they do out perform all the other gaming headsets out there in specs but I personally haven't tried them so I would wait for reviews I was really hyped for them about 6 months ago when I first found out at bout them being used in mlg some of the top gow/halo3 teams.

Until I got my audio technica ath a900.

Ha, what a joke. Another overpriced set of "gaming" headphones AND they only have a 1 year warranty. Thanks, but i'll stick to Sennheiser.

steelseries headphones - same thing

#4
hz on those headphones is 20-28k
HD595 = 5-35k

icemats are 20-28k

how is that any close ?
anyhow, the HD595 are not even $250.
you can find them for a bit more than $150.

icemats are $50.

Better to stick with the good old reliable Sennheisers.

#7 - Where are you getting those numbers from? The following are from each headphones' respective company websites:

Astro A40: 15 - 28,000 Hz // http://www.astrogaming.com/equipment/
SteelSeries (Icemat) Siberia: 18 - 28.000 Hz // http://www.steelseries.com/us/products/au..
SteelSeries 5H v2: 16 - 28.000 Hz // http://www.steelseries.com/us/products/5h..
Sennheiser HD555: 15 - 28,000 Hz // http://sennheiserusa.com/newsite/pdfs/hd5..
Sennhesier HD595: 12 - 38,500Hz // http://sennheiserusa.com/newsite/pdfs/hd5..

And my beloved headphones :)
Audio Technica AD700: 5 � 30,000 Hz // http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headpho..

And no, I don't believe in the "gaming" label on headphones/headset, I'm just pointing out the facts.

www.myEG.net � facebook.com/EvilGeniuses � twitter.com/EvilGeniuses #EG | www.X3O-Gaming.com #X3O

coooool! ...

not

#7 its $250 with the AMP as well the headphoens by themselves are $199 so they are basically the sam and you might aswell get the nifty AMP if your getting it since it supports alot of features aswell as dolby and all that so i'd probably say the amp is the best bet out of the lot

#9
they charge you $20 for the logo... wow

#12 lol thats true xD never thought of that lol its abit obsurd lol

soooo pitted

#forza

#12 - I never said anything about its cost, I'm just laying out the stats for each of the headsets/headphones. Personally I feel there's almost no justification for spending that much on a "gaming headset," but that doesn't change the fact that their stats (and hopefully, performance) - without the price in mind - is on par with that of HD555's.

think i'd prefer to get a set of cans with a lower end headphone amp then this.. but then again i dont like judging things until i try them. esthetically, i think they are really nice looking and if the build quality is as good as they look i wouldnt be too dissapointed with them. honestly the freq response isnt that big of a deal, since most games bottom end is gonna get a boost at around the 20-40hz(more then likely only as low as 70hz) so you wont notice much if any difference there.. and with the highs.. who really needs to hear anything above 20khz while gaming? i think alot of you are forgetting that these are a gaming can, not something for hifi listening. you cant expect their first attempt to be able to compete with something made by grado/senny/ultrasone/beyer/AT. would have liked to see something a bit cheaper to get ppl on their bandwagon - but i guess they've got to make the money they spent on R&D back somehow.

#aa

For my xBox I find these to be just what i was looking for with a name i trust !~ Thanks for article

Now back to CoD:4

If you go to live event tournaments then you'll know why these headphones w/ amp are much better than any other headphones you can get. The noise level at tourneys is very loud making it hard for you to hear your teammates which, as you should know, communication is very important. I have a pair of HD555s (which I have enjoyed them very much), and I used them for a few tournaments, but I found it VERY much more important to hear your teammates clear rather than your in-game sound so I didn't even use them for the last 4 live national tournaments that I have been to. Really, even if these headphones aren't on par with HD555s, I'm still going to get them due to how much it will help with hearing your teammates while still having the advantage of headphones (in-game sound details and drowning out the background noise). I'm really looking forward to get my pair of Astro Gaming headphones.

#17 and #18 were you paid to say those things? lol cos it just sound liked you were doing marketing :/ other than that i will be picking up a pair anyway cos the ideas they have for the AMP is awesome, i will say though i influenced them in changing their product description :D oh yeh :P have the e-mail to prove it too lol

This comment was edited at 12/14/2007 9:34 AM

if your just getting them for the amp go with something from headphone.com - pretty sure a cmoy will sound better then the included amp

go astro :]

[HOT] www.teamhot.net

#20 but the features on that amp from astro are alot more than those expensive ones on that site, it supports xbox voice in, mp3 player in and line out from pc all at the same time :/ as well as a game and voice volume control so i could balance voice against game sound

all u need is a $9 plantronics line in splitter and it solves pretty much everything you brought up.. takes about 2 secs to go into game settings to change voice/game volumes.. and honestly its less work doing it with a mouse then having to move your hand off the mouse and adjusting the volume on th amp. not worth the extra money..

think i'd rather get a bithead with usb in.. or something like my pro-jekt mk2 amp that only cost $150 and powers my cans really well for what it costs. i'm sure they have a good or decent product that alot of ppl will be happy with, i just think your better off buying your own cans/amp for better value.. it's like building your own PC.. save money by not having some one else built it for you.

would be good if they had some reviews up(not posted on their own site of [insert progamer name here] saying "it sounds great!"). i'd be happy to post an unbiased review if any one from Astro is reading this - i'll even set-up my own gaming headset review blog... you'll just need to send me the headset and amp.

#19, no I wasn't paid, but I must admit #17 really did sound like they were. lol

#23, I am a pro gamer signed with MLG and I have used a prototype version of them. They really are awesome, that's why I'm so excited to get my own pair. I can't give you anything detailed about the sound, it's been a long while since I got to try to prototypes, but I can say that they did sound very good.

well there is a difference between what a progamer hears and what an audiophile hears. honestly i can't justify spending that much on a gaming headset because i really dont care what the quality is like aslong as i can hear the other persons footsteps or what direction theyre firing from. the freq spectrum in games isnt that great, you dont need $250 headphones for games, mine were 600 when i bought them(amp was seperate) but gaming isnt their primary purpose. there isnt a very big difference when using my Ultrasones as apposed to a $60 closed sony headphones. not because the ultrasones are crap or because the sony's are awesome but because the sound quality in games is shit.. and even if the game sounds great, who really cares.. you'll stop paying attention to the sound quality after a few mins in game.

honestly i would like to see some sort of noise cancelling feature to kill the sound of my PC, or of background noise at lans. i think thats a really important feature that alot of "gaming" headsets should have included.

if they were 100$ id buy, but 250$ nah

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