Hey guys
I was thinking about buying the Astro A40TR's for my PS4 and I was wondering if I could just plug in the 3.5mm headphone jack into my PS4 Controller and use sound & mic. I don't really want to shovel out another $200 towards a mixamp, just buying this for build quality and sound.
I'm going to be using the headset on PS4 and a laptop with a 3.5mm headphone jack. - I was also wondering if it could use the mic with just a 3.5mm jack on PC, is that possible?
Thanks
It should work by plugging into the DS4. However, the quality will be greatly diminished.
Kind of like buying a Lamborghini and driving it under 60km/h
If you want good quality and are paying for it, you want to plug the headset directly into the PS4 with a USB input.
You can also get a pass-through from your TV, but it might be slightly distorted and lagged. Although a good Amp won't have those problems.
There's also Wireless/Bluetooth headsets to pair directly to the PS4 console which should remove a lot of that heavy Bluetooth Compression the DS4 controller does… but its still Bluetooth sound, which is still inferior to 3.5mm aux port, which inturn is inferior to Direct Digital connection/DAC support.
You basically need a separate box/Amp/DAC which connects to the PS4 for proper multichannel headset audio
There's a pretty good one from Astro called the MixAmp Pro 7.1
Combine it with a good headset, like a cheap Samson
And a good mic, like a Zalman
…then you have a solution that's built for Gaming PC's but it will also work on the PS4 (just make sure you Enable the Settings.)
I always use my playstation gold headset wired, but still sounds good to the point where i can hear footsteps and explosions left/right ear.
would these astro a40's sound the same? or worse
The quality of "the sound" is better when it is wired, as I said, the PS4-DS4 connection has a heavy Bluetooth compression on the audio.
And this is the audio on the controller speaker AND the controller aux port. Connecting directly from Bluetooth alleviates some of the issues, but its definitely not lossless audio.
Also if you use the PlayStation Gold headphones wired but you can't use the buttons and you don't get any surround sound. It pretty much turns into a "dumb-headset" as you lose most of the features. So if you're playing something like Call of Duty, you can't hear footsteps from the left or right.
If you want good quality and surround sound, you have to connect a headphone to your PS4's DigitalSound port. I don't know any headphones that can plug directly into one. But that MixAmp Pro I mentioned above, is a small box, that can. I personally don't have one because I instead have a Home Surround Sound hooked up, and it runs off my newish Yamaha Amp. I do have a PlayStation Wired headphone for when I want to game quietly, I plug it into my Amp and have Custom Profile for it, so it does what the MixAmp Pro does (only it uses a lot more electricity and costs more). When I'm lazy I do plug the headphone straight into the DS4 controller, but when I do the sound quality is visibly worse. Well, not visibly but you can tell.
I guess it really depends on how much of a increase in quality you want. I think you hit the law of diminishing returns when you get headphones priced higher than $200, but you really need to have it connected by a wire to get proper lossless quality… otherwise its like driving a Aston Martin with a 1 ton trailer in the back with deflated tyres.
Did you end up buying the A40?
Nope, bought a razer kraken pro v2 instead. Couldn't really decide, but the razer headset and squishy oval cups and nice comfort.
I also thought it would be a waste buying the headset alone without the mix amp - it seems like an essential…
I'd probably get the Astro A50 wireless after a while of thinking now. The good thing about Astros are there build quality and sound.
I don't have this particular headset, but from a review of the product page, it appears to have a 3.5 plug that is TRRS just like my son's headset, so yes, it will just plug into the bottom of the dual shock 4 and have both audio and mic, AFAIK.
With regards to your laptop, if your laptop is the kind with just one jack for both earphones and mic then it should work as is.
If you're connecting it to a standard PC with separate jacks for audio and mic then you'll need the Y splitter that comes in the package.