Testing

The hardware used for testing this headset included using the on-board Creative Soundblaster, in my Gigabyte M3 Sniper motherboard, and a Nexus 4 for the Android headset controls.

My testing process for headsets consists of two phases, but it depends on the headset as to what takes priority in the review. The Attitude One Almaz are primarily designed as a stylish set of headphones to carry around with you wherever you go. This meant my first test was to then listen to music something I do a lot of when writing up reviews anyway.

I have quite varied interests when it comes to music, including classical tracks, various types of rock and metal, even good old video game soundtracks this mixture is often good enough to see if a headset is up to the task.

It was a big change from using my normally excellent GAMDIAS Eros, but after a few days of getting my ears accustomed to the differing output I was very impressed by the Almaz headset and its output.

My first few tests were with acoustic songs and a play through of the brilliant Tubular Bells and while not a professional audio test, the blend and layers of different instruments in Tubular Bells is a brilliant way to test a headset. After testing more subtle music, I threw several heavy tracks at the Almaz to test its overall output, in these tests I included Trenches by Pop Evil, which has a very dirty sound and Killin It by Polar Bear Club which has a similar overall tone.

After these tests it was apparent that the Almaz has enough range to be able to handle a wide array of musical inputs, and is able to output them with brilliant clarity and slightly bass orientated output.

In games, the audio was just as balanced, wandering around Banoi again with fellow writer Dan, the Almaz translated the tense atmosphere and background noise of Dead Island perfectly. Moving into more fast paced action, In Counterstrike the Almaz once again performed admirably keeping the messy soundscape nice and clear, but still managing to give a bit of oomph to gunshots and explosions.

During my audio tests I also put the microphone attachment to the test, and in my co-op sessions with Dan and Counterstrike matches, I was really impressed with how well it functioned. With it coming across loud and clear in all occasions. I also like that it can be pivoted so you could have it on the right hand side if wanted – swapping R/L outputs naturally.

Next up I tried the headset whilst plugged into my Nexus 4, and the in line microphone much like most in line microphones was nothing spectacular but certainly not rubbish, Interestingly no matter which headset cable I used I could only use the controls to Pause/Play the music, the volume controls failed to work at all. This was still the case when using the cables that were labelled to work with iDevices only.

I can only assume something with the most recent Android OS has broken this functionality, or simply this portion of control is not compatible with my device.

Throughout all of this testing not once did the Almaz become uncomfortable, whilst the rubber grip on the headband was a tad annoying when positioning the headset initially; when it was in place I encountered no issues with the headset slipping even when shaking my head. The ear cups also remained nice and firm against each of my ears.

One thing of note is that the headband is exceptionally stiff, so much so that when I was adjusting it initially I felt that I was putting an undue amount of force into pulling them down each notch. This force was also required when resetting them back to the original position.