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November 30, 2009

Travel Day – NYC to Minneapolis

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 8:28 am

The time has come! The Acting Company 2010 tour is kicking off, at least for me and Nick today.

If the WordPress 2.0 client for iPhone doesn’t suck as much as 1.x, and doesn’t eat posts anymore (which in my experience it does not), I will be blogging intermittently throughout our travel.

8:20am

I am now all packed up, and just waiting for 8:45am when I have scheduled my ride to the airport. While waiting, and sweating, I was thinking how unfortunate it is to have to choose between dressing for 50 degrees or 30 degrees. Then I was like, “Well, the natural solution would be to dress for 40 degrees.” And then I was like, “Huh!” So I unlocked my suitcase and swapped out which shirt I was wearing. And now I’m back to waiting. Stay tuned for more shocking discoveries.

8:46am

In car. Much more successful pickup than last year.

10:05am

At JFK with Nick, sitting at our gate.

11:06am

Still waiting to board. Nick and I are having a friendly competition to see whose blog may get on the Guthrie’s homepage during our stay there. So we started googling appropriate search terms, and neither of us came up in the first 100 results. This will require some work.

2:06pm, Central Time

We have been picked up at the airport. We didn’t know which company manager to expect, and as it turns out we got both – making a 1:1 ratio of company management to arriving guests. We feel special.

2:28pm

Dropping our stuff at the apartments. I’m in my old apartment, so it really feels like coming home.

5:30pm

Groceries unpacked, had a little to eat. Suitcase partially unpacked. Nick is going to cook us dinner. I have my usual Minneapolis sinus headache, so I’m gonna lie down until then.


November 29, 2009

A Cautionary Tale of Laundry Miscalculation

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 5:32 pm

Today is the day before I leave, and is also laundry day.

I have planned my departure in minute detail for about a month. I thought I had a brilliant plan. Here it is:

1. Pick which clothes are going on the road
2. Stop wearing those clothes as much as possible
3. Neatly pile clothes on couch
4. Wear other clothes that are not going on the road
5. On the day before departure, wash all dirty clothes, the few that are going on the road can then be packed, the rest are nice and clean to be put away
6. Profit

I realized today that this plan is TERRIBLE!

There are two essential flaws:

1. Some of my clothes that are going on the road (nicer shirts, silk underwear) can’t or shouldn’t be put in the dryer. Washing them 18 hours before departure doesn’t leave them much time to dry.

2. Why am I paying $3 and going up and down 5 flights of stairs all day? I have done this ass-backwards. All this week I should have been wearing the clothes that are going on the road, then packing the dirty ones in the expansive dirty laundry compartment of my suitcase, and then doing them for free in the laundry room adjacent to my bedroom in Minneapolis.

I am a damn fool, that’s why.


November 28, 2009

Departure

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 5:24 pm

I find myself trying to make a weird mental shift today. My big task for the day is basically to tie up my loose ends: to mail my completed contract and paperwork to The Acting Company office, to mail that contract and a couple others to Equity, to drop off a friend’s borrowed belongings at his theatre, and to pick up my last Phantom paycheck and say goodbye to the folks there.

When these things are complete, I will have done all the tasks that need to be done before I can leave (short of actually packing my suitcase and locking it for the trip).

My Sunday will involve a final half-load of laundry, and then packing my suitcase with everything except the things I need to use overnight. The remainder of the day will be spent on more work on the stage management database (priorities are the wallet cards, and a layout where you tell it which actors you have and it provides a list of all the scenes you can rehearse.). I want to arrive with as much work done as possible, but that’s not something that depends on which city I’m in, and there are still four days in Minneapolis to complete that kind of work.

So the mental shift that’s happening started out as a kind of detachment. What I think it is is my mind’s attempt to begin seeing New York as another stop on the road, one that has an end date, and just like any other, gives way to a new city waiting to be explored. So trying to see New York not as home base, but as a place that must be left because there’s a show to be done elsewhere is part of that mental leap into touring. I’ve had a pay-per-ride MetroCard for a week now, which always makes me feel like an outsider, so that’s been a subconscious part of the transition. I scheduled my car service pickup today. That was a little weird, too. But I felt good when the lady asked if I needed to schedule a return pickup, and I said, “No.” Off the top of my head, I couldn’t even tell you the date I’ll be back, and it won’t be on a plane.

No matter how much I enjoy any city on tour, I am always looking forward to the next one because it’s a whole new set of experiences. I’m starting to feel that urge of, “OK, let’s just get going!” and I guess that’s a good thing.


November 26, 2009

Rorscharch Test

I call this: computers,gaming,mac,On the Road Again,tech,theatre — Posted by KP @ 4:30 am

Screen shot 2009-11-26 at 3.10.52 AM

What does this look like to you?

If you said Luigi driving a Model T, you may be an 80s gamer.

What is it really?
It’s the desktop icon of a PDF with all the plans for Romeo and Juliet. By default on a Mac the icon is a miniaturized version of whatever the front page of the document is.

So is our production set in the Mushroom Kingdom in the early 1900s?
Well no, now that you mention it, I’m kind of disappointed that it’s not.

Here’s a bigger version of how that image got to look like Luigi behind the wheel of a car:

Screen shot 2009-11-26 at 3.15.12 AM

It’s been driving me crazy all day. I keep wondering what that icon on my desktop that so clearly is Luigi driving a car is doing there, when I’m trying to keep only things work-related in front of me. Finally I looked at it and actually realized that what I’m looking at is the Guthrie’s McGuire stage and our set being scaled down to approximately 1/1680th of its actual size.
(disclaimer: I suck at math. I really suck at math. And I don’t have the scale drawings with me).


November 25, 2009

Putting on Plays – Serious Business

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 10:25 pm

You know in the climactic scene in 42nd Street (which incidentally happens at least 40 minutes before the end of the show), when Julian Marsh begs Peggy Sawyer to do his show, and finally she declares “I’ll do it!” and a giant production number breaks out…?

Well the part they don’t musicalize is Peggy spending the next hour filling out all the paperwork to make the “I’ll do it!” official.

If they did, it would have a lot of choruses of Peggy repeatedly writing her name, address, and social security number.

But the good news is that aside from my hand being about to fall off, and having nearly succumbed to death by boredom, I am now officially the PSM for The Acting Company’s 2010 tour.


November 23, 2009

WHAT? I’m sorry Calendar, I Can’t Hear You!

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 4:27 am

A Conversation

Screen shot 2009-11-23 at 3.28.09 AM
My calendar is trying to tell me something. Something about next Monday, and I’m like, “Dude, Calendar, I don’t have a job, I have, like, nothing to do all month. So why are you so concerned with how I divide the hours of the day between sleep, playing online games, and building the stage management database? I have, like, forever!”

And my calendar’s like, “Blah blah blah Thanksgiving.”

And I’m like, “Yeah, I know, Thanksgiving is like, in a week or something. I’ll figure out what time my train is the night before.”

And my calendar’s like, “You know, Thanksgiving is actually Christmas in your world. So… presents…”

And I’m like, “No, Calendar, you see, Thanksgiving is Christmas for me! I intend to buy all my Christmas presents at the Mall of America once I have money, and then ship them home, so Christmas for my family is, like, Christmas.”

And Calendar starts to say, “Well, actually you should leave yourself about a week, cause remember what happened last year when you tried to mail them on a Saturday…” and I’m like, “Just shut up, I got that, OK?”

Which then returns us to the subject of next week. And finally I’m like, “Alright already, WTF is next week!?”

My calendar throws me a pitying look, and is like, “November 30th. November 30th is next week. It’s actually a week from today.”

And I’m like, “No it’s not.”

And it’s like, “See, look, here’s this month. Here’s today. Here’s next week. See it’s the 23rd. And the 30th is like, seven days later. And you still have to deal with Thanksgiving, so those aren’t even real days.”

And I’m like, “Shit.”

So…

I’ve actually been pretty well packed for a while. Most of my clothes are folded in piles on my couch. I’m getting some more clothes for Christmas (aka Thanksgiving), so I’m waiting on making final arrangements. All of my non-clothes stuff is in my suitcase if it’s not needed. I have a database just for keeping track of everything I plan to tour with, and which compartment of which bag it should be in. My apartment has remained consistently clean since Inventing Avi closed. So really, I could pick up and go to Minneapolis at any moment.

The work side of things is taking a little longer. First there’s the big issue of the stage management database. It’s new, although I got to test out some parts of it on Avi, so I want to be way ahead of myself to find any problems that pop up. Most of it has been built since Avi closed, and there are still a few more things that haven’t been done at all (like the rehearsal report, which shouldn’t take too long now that the show report is done and working beautifully).

A few little things I love:

  • Show report practically writes itself. Put in the date and it fills in all the venue info and lets you select the time of the performance based on the scheduled performances for that day.
  • 1-click sending of the report that creates a PDF, pastes a plain text report into the body of the email and sends to a list based on a checkbox in their contact profile.
  • Venue profile contains a tab that embeds the Wikipedia page for the town the theatre is in (generated dynamically based on the theatre’s address).
  • Rehearsal schedule planner that turns colors to let you know when you’re violating Equity rules, or aren’t using all your allotted time.

The main problem I’m having now is that we still don’t have a final script, so once I finish the reports and a little bit of tidying, I will quickly run out of things I can do until I have the data pertaining to the show itself. There are a number of things I want to expand later, but I’m trying to keep focused on the things that need to be done to start rehearsal, and then the things that need to be done to start touring, and then all the goodies later.


November 20, 2009

Unemployment Sucks. Employment Sucks More.

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 9:54 pm

OK, so you may recall I’ve had the month of November off between gigs. Naturally I tried to file for unemployment so that it would start as soon as I needed it. Despite what everybody says about filing the week before your job ends so your waiting week is the week you’re working, I was unable to get that to work. I think maybe those people do it by lying.

Anyway, I patiently waited my waiting week (so now I’m down to three claimable weeks). A few hours after I filed my claim I got a call to work at Phantom the following night. I called back to the unemployment office to make sure that this wouldn’t screw up my claim. The lady told me as long as I wasn’t making more than $405, I should be OK. This made sense, and as far as I can tell, she was right.

The following week, one of the stage managers at Phantom was sick, and I worked Wednesday and Thursday night. Working two performances when on unemployment is kind of disappointing because it juuuust puts you over the $405, so you don’t get any extra money that week. But hey, you’re working, right? Cool.

So I dutifully filed for my first real week of unemployment, and reported that I had made too much money. At this point, I realize that I’m now going to get a payment for no more than two of the four weeks I will have been unemployed, but still, if I end up not subbing a lot during those weeks, I will need that money.

So today I get a letter saying that because I made too much money during my first week of eligibility, my entire claim is not valid and I would have to start over with another waiting week. Well at this point I’m basically out of time. By the time I saw any money I would be on contract with The Acting Company anyway.

So what we have here is that despite the fact that I was unemployed for four consecutive weeks, the fact that I found employment within a certain 30-hour period within that time means that I will not see a dime for any of it.

Once again proving my opinion on unemployment “insurance”: There are two ways to avoid problems getting your money. Either

1) Be fully employed all the time
2) If you’re not employed full time, don’t take any jobs at all

It never ceases to amaze me how much the system punishes people who find occasional employment while awaiting their next job. Isn’t that something the government would want to encourage, so that people aren’t just waiting for a handout?

I used to think that people who turned down work while on unemployment were just being lazy because they realized they could make roughly the same amount working or not working. My entire experience (including my previous claim) is that if you work at all, you will come out with less money. And given the fact that you’re unemployed and all, you probably really need that money. Thank God I have a decent credit limit on my Visa, or I’d be royally screwed right now. And I have a tour lined up, which I was hoping I could use to save up for a new computer next year. As it is, it’s going to take a couple months just to dig myself out of the BS from this fall.

That being said, while I didn’t realize the chaos that my working that week would cause, if I had to do it over again, I still would have to take the work, due to the nature of the job. “Sorry, I’m on unemployment” is not an appropriate response when someone needs you to call a Broadway show in 3 hours. I just wish the state would consider why “Sorry, I’m on unemployment” is such a common statement, and it’s not just because people want to be sitting around leeching off the government. It’s a matter of survival.


November 17, 2009

Packing for Stage Management

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 2:36 am

Tomorrow is the big day for me and Nick. Not the day we leave, not the day we pack our shirts, socks, and portable gaming devices. No, this is stage management packing day.

It’s a two-part process. Because we’re rehearsing at the Guthrie for a month before our truck gets there, we need to get a lot of our supplies there without having our road box. Yes, I did walk into the GM’s office and ask if shipping the road box whole was a possibility, and to her credit, she did not laugh in my face. But nevertheless, it was financially impractical, so we will have to do what we did last year, and ship a cardboard box of our most needed supplies through the regular channels that people use to ship things that don’t weigh hundreds of pounds.

So tomorrow Nick and I are meeting at the office. To the office we will bring anything from home that we intend to ship either in the box to the Guthrie, or to put in the road box for later use in tech, or on the road. Things that are going in the cardboard box are tape measures (one from each of us), my kit, pencil case, two big binders (because life is too short to use cheap binders), and our printer, which is in the road box.

Which comes to the problem that some of the stuff we need is in the road box. So we have to make a trip to Jersey, where our road boxes are stored at Spoon Group. We will then drop off our personal headsets in the box, and maybe some other stuff, and head back to the office with the things we need to ship to the Guthrie (our printer, some special paper, sheet protectors, electric pencil sharpener, another tape measure, labler, pencils, one of the four or five first aid kits, and a few other things.)

Our road box halfway through the tour last year:

Then back at the office, we will pack up the box for the Guthrie and back slowly away while other people worry about how it gets there.

Our departure date has changed recently, we’re now going Nov. 30th instead of Dec. 1. With first rehearsal on the 4th, we now have so much time that I think we’ll wind up with our arrival day off (after getting in on one of the Guthrie’s Monday grocery runs), and then maybe even another day off if we don’t totally screw up taping the floor. I just did the measurements on the ground plan tonight, and while everything is on some funky angle, the set is largely square to itself, which I guess is an improvement from the half-circle-but-not-in-the-mathematical-sense that was the Henry / Spy set last year.

I’m still working hard to finish the new stage management database before first rehearsal. I’d feel better with more time on that, but I think I’m at least pretty far ahead in my packing. I actually have a database to track what compartment of what bag all my belongings are going to be in.


November 15, 2009

Joke of the Day

I call this: random,theatre — Posted by KP @ 5:20 am

The other night I was at Phantom, and in preparing the day’s in/out sheet was “in charge of comedy,” which is the technical term for flipping through old issues of The New Yorker and picking a funny cartoon, which will be pasted on the bottom of the sheet, copied and distributed, along with vital performance information, throughout the building in the hour-and-a-half prior to the show.

As soon as I found the below cartoon, I knew it was the one for me. I didn’t even finish looking through the issue in my hand. I was pleased to see several people specifically stop at the callboard to read the joke, and comment on it being funny.

IMG_0997

If you really must know, I blog in running shoes. Sometimes in socks.

For a few more tales of the Joke of the Day, see this post about the decorations in my Phantom calling script.


November 9, 2009

Razer Megalodon Review

I call this: computers,gaming,pc,tech — Posted by KP @ 10:18 pm

razer_megalodonI had been saving up for months so that I could get this headset before going back on the road. Why, you ask? Well for one thing, my surround headset of choice, the Medusa, was a 5.1 surround headset with analog connections — meaning it plugs into the audio out ports of your sound card, or for that matter, any regular audio equipment that accepts stereo mini plugs. I liked this option at the time because it’s compatible with all audio equipment and allows your sound card to do the heavy lifting, which is what it’s there for, after all. The other option, which the Medusa also offers, is to get it with a USB connector, in which case your computer has to figure out how the surround sounds should be sent out to your hardware, creating extra processing work. And of course, you can’t plug a USB connector into your stereo or TV. At least you couldn’t back then, what do I know about these newfangled TVs and stereos?

Then something happened that changed my mind: I started spending way more time away from home than at home, and suddenly my big fancy gaming PC was collecting dust, and I had to cobble together a way to make my laptop satisfying for gaming long-term.

My immediate solution was to connect the Medusa with its analog connections as a stereo headset to my Macbook Pro. First of all, you immediately lose the point of having such a nice headset, because the laptop (or most laptops for that matter) don’t support analog surround sound. So it’s just a really expensive stereo headset with a mic. Oh, and about the mic — the Macbook Pro’s audio-in jack is line-level, it doesn’t support unpowered mics, so you need Griffin’s iMic USB adapter or something similar. It’s a lot of crap to carry around, with no better performance than a cheap $15 USB headset from Radio Shack.

So this past summer, I bought a cheap $15 Radio Shack headset, just to carry to the theatre, and laughed when the guys I play online with said I sounded much better than on my old ($125) headset.

But the true problem I was having with life on the road was the lack of surround sound. The game I play, Battleground Europe, is very audio-dependent if you want to survive for long as infantry, and playing in stereo basically means spinning in circles to figure out where a sound is coming from based on where it sounds loudest. The way I was used to playing is that I could hear a single rifle shot and know if it was friendly or enemy, almost an exact direction, and an approximate distance. With one shot I would know exactly where the enemy was, and could turn right to him and shoot back, or move quickly to flank around him if he wasn’t visible. With stereo headphones that’s not possible at all. So I realized that the circumstances of my life required that I would need a USB headset if I ever hoped to play with surround.

It was around this time that Razer released the Megalodon — a 7.1 surround headset, powered by USB, and featuring a nice control box that allows you to adjust volume and a number of other features with just a few buttons.

I saved up all summer, and purchased it in the fall to prepare for going on the road. And now I’ve used it enough to answer all your burning questions.

Wait – first of all, what is a Megalodon?

Razer likes to name their products after fearsome animals. Sort of like how the Navy names different classes of ships after states, presidents, etc., Razer also has naming conventions. Mice are always snakes, for instance (see my review of the Mamba). Well headsets are… fish. Usually bad-ass fish. Cause nobody wants to brag about how they’re gonna frag your ass with their Goldfish.

The megalodon is a shark (thank you, Wikipedia). As you might have guessed from the name, which sounds kind of like it means “big-ass dinosaur,” it’s a prehistoric shark, a friggin’ huge prehistoric shark, which is estimated to have been up to 56ft in length.

Here’s a dude sitting in one’s mouth. RAAAAWWRR!!
585px-Carcharodon_megalodon

Are you gonna review this thing or not?

Hold your horses, you’re gonna get some educatin’ with your gaming peripheral review. OK, now I’m ready.

Setup

The Megalodon connects to your computer with a simple USB plug. According to the specs it does not require USB 2.0, but a powered USB port is recommended. I tried it in my keyboard USB port (which is USB 1.1 and connected through a hub), and it was none too happy.

You don’t have to install any drivers, they are built into the control box and will automatically configure whatever computer you plug it into. Nice, huh?

Because the headphones are USB, they don’t require a sound card, which is good if you’ve got crappy sound in your rig or laptop, or bad if you’ve got a really expensive sound card waiting to be used.

The Control Box

About four feet down the braided-fiber-covered cable from the headset is the control box, which looks kind of like an iPod that’s been attacked by a gaming device. It has a scroll wheel (which actually turns like ye olde iPode, it’s not touch-sensitive). In the center is the Select button, with a nice light-up Razer logo on it.

mega_control

On the left side is a volume meter which indicates different things depending on what mode it’s in, but usually it’s just your plain old volume.

At the top is a button that says Maelstrom. That’s Razer’s name for the technology that processes the 7.1 surround sound. You can push that button to toggle between 2.0 (stereo) and 7.1 mode, and the appropriate number will light up in blue on the left or right of the button. It will also cause the speaker icons around the box to light up, to show all seven speakers, or just the two at the top. Razer recommends listening to stereo sources in 2.0 mode, because the Maelstrom engine is apparently not helpful unless your source is 5.1 or 7.1 surround, and will just make it sound kind of funny.

There are three buttons on the bottom of the scroll wheel, all of which are mic-related:

  • Mic mute — mutes the mic, of course, and also lights up red when activated, so hopefully you’ll notice that you’re muted and not talk to yourself for 10 minutes like one of my squad leaders is fond of doing
  • Mic sens — while this button is pressed you can use the scroll wheel to adjust the mic’s sensitivity (shown on the volume meter)
  • Mic level — adjusts the volume of your mic’s output

The nice thing about these features is that when they are activated you can hear yourself in the earphones, so you can check right away how it sounds (in the business this is called sidetone, which is one of those terms that makes me feel really smart when I use it to explain what’s wrong with my comm).

Other Features

If you press the center button it will highlight each set of speakers on the control box and let you adjust their relative levels. You can’t independently set levels for left and right, only for each type: center, front, middle, rear, and bass.

There’s also a hidden, undocumented setting where you hold something while pressing something else. I can’t remember what it does, though. But when I find it I’ll add it.

These are all you get — there is no software to install, which also means no control over the finer points of your audio experience. They plug in and they work. I find that really great for being on the road, but it’s a little unnerving as a PC gamer geek. However, I have never felt a strong desire to tinker with the settings, which is more than I can say for the Medusa, which was mostly a product of my sound card (SB Audigy 2ZS) flipping the hell out every time I changed video drivers.

The Hardware

The main difference between these headphones and the Medusa (well basically between the Medusa and any other gaming headphones I know of) is that the Medusa creates surround sound by actually having three separate speakers in each earpiece. Most other headsets use software to figure out how to balance each sound to trick your ear into perceiving its correct direction. I thought the Medusas were pretty amazing, but the Megalodon does a nice job of indicating direction, too.

The first thing I really like about these, especially for travel purposes, is that they’re very light. They look just as bulky, but the materials are very lightweight. If you have an unruly child, or perhaps just like slamming your headset on your desk when you get killed in particularly inglorious fashion, I’d wager they won’t hold up nearly as well. But if you can be a civilized gamer, the build quality seems good, if a little more delicate.

The mic is a single piece of plastic, it doesn’t bend into position. It has a little bit of flexibility in the middle, though I don’t think that allows you to keep the shape you want, it just bends enough so it doesn’t snap accidentally. My professional feeling on headset mic booms, if you really want to know, is that I prefer the ones you can bend into any shape… until they get worn out and won’t stay where you put them. The nice thing about the solid ones is that when you put them somewhere, you can trust that they’re still there the next time you have to call a cue. And I feel the same way about gaming headsets.

The headset seems to shrink down to a pretty small size for an adult head, and expands quite a bit. I don’t know how it would do with a little kid, as thankfully I don’t have any kids here to test with, so I think you’ll have to look elsewhere for opinions if you’re a really cool and/or crazy parent to buy your small child a $150 headset.

The velvet ear pads are very comfortable. The headphones don’t block out outside noise particularly well, but that’s not always a bad thing.

Accessories

One of the coolest things about this headset, that caught me completely by surprise when I opened it, is the carrying case it comes with. It has a semi-hard shell, molded to fit the headset and control box on the inside, which closes with a zipper, clam-shell style. If you stomped on it, bad things might happen, but it will definitely keep your headset safe in most travel situations, and like the headset itself, is surprisingly lightweight, so there’s no reason not to use it. I can’t wait to go on the road with this thing. I will feel better about traveling with my expensive headset, and will know that the cord won’t be getting all tangled up in my pajamas. Getting pajamas at gametime or headset at bedtime is not productive. It’s going to be a very clear distinction from now on.

mega_case

My rough scientific analysis which consisted of me stepping on a scale both holding and not-holding the case with headset in it puts its total weight at 1.5lbs. I’ve probably told you I obsess over the weight of my suitcase, so this is very good news. Incidentally, the Medusa weighs 1lb, without a case or control box.

Does it work with Mac?

appleRazer’s official answer on this is kind of, “um, maybe, we think, but we’re not sure.” What I can tell you is that you can definitely plug them in and listen to regular audio with them (you have to select them in your audio settings to make the headphones and mic the active input and output). I don’t have any surround games to play with on the Mac end right now, but on listening to a few minutes of a 5.1 DVD, it certainly sounded like it was working. Which pretty much convinced me that that’s the only way I can ever listen to a DVD on my Mac again.

Does it work with TrackIR’s TrackClip Pro?

Yes. The TrackClip Pro clips rather nicely to the headband, as shown here.

mega_trackir

Summary

Pros

  • light weight
  • simple, literally plug-and-play setup
  • awesome carrying case
  • comfortable fit
  • no soundcard required
  • easy access to volume and mic settings
  • shape is compatible with TrackIR TrackClip Pro

Cons

  • no detailed software configuration possible
  • control box adds bulk compared to simpler alternatives
  • I wish there was a simple audio out jack on the control box so I could plug in external speakers or otherwise get sound out besides using the headphones.
  • not compatible with standard audio equipment, or console gaming systems

Overall I’m very happy with it. There’s not much to play with, but I think especially on the road that will be very good. I don’t have a lot of time to play, and if I’m in a hotel at all it’s generally a new one every night. Being able to take the headset out of the bag and plug it in without worrying any more about it for the rest of the night is just what I need.

Alternatives

If the lack of software controls bothers you, there is also the Logitech G35 7.1 headset which has its own control panel and apparently some nice features. Before you get all excited, I will leave you with a picture of what it looks like:
17299.1.0


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