Astro A10 Gen 2 Review
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Quick Summary
The A10 is a wired gaming headset that uses a 3.5 mm connection. It’s one of the best budget headsets out with decent headphone audio quality, a light build, and a great mic.
Since it's analog, it works on PS5, Xbox, PC, and even the Switch.
Microphone Audio
This is one of the best gaming headset mics on the market. The problem is on PC even at 100% volume in the Windows volume mixer settings, it's too quiet. The more you boost it with other software, the louder the noise floor gets.
On console, you probably won't notice this since it's pretty straightforward to increase the gain of the mic there.
The actual quality is pretty good though. It’s very natural with good plosive rejection. Background noise sneaks in, but it passively blocks out a good amount. It’s also flip up to mute.
Headphone Audio Quality
This has 32 mm dynamic drivers. That’s quite the step down from the 40 mm graphene and 50 mm graphene drivers on the A50 X and Logitech G Pro X 2 respectively.
The A10 sounds… budget. Tonally, I like the approach. Just like most Astro headsets, it's balanced. It doesn't have the same slicing treble as most gaming headsets these days. This is good for minimizing listening fatigue.
The detail is nice, but there's definitely limited sound separation in chaotic environments. In Black Ops 6, pinpointing footsteps - even those quieted by the Ninja perk - is still possible. However, explosions lack impact and a lot of rumbly sound cues blend together.
It's really the bass that's the issue - these drivers have a nice balanced tuning, but they're just not capable or reproducing great detail in the bass or sub-bass.
Comfort and Build Quality
The A10 has an 83 inch, 3.5 mm cable with a volume wheel. It also includes a splitter cable.
It's all plastic at 244 grams which is a nice change of pace from the trend of 360+ gram devices. The comfort and build are decent, but the issues I have are as follows:
The padding isn't very comfortable. It's cloth but it’s not really a soft cloth. The material is a bit rough with minimal cushion and give inside.
The overall headset size is too small.
The clamping force is too strong.
When combined, all of these mean the A10 feels great when you first put it on, but after about an hour the clamp and pressure gets to be annoying.
Verdict
Outside of the comfort issues, I do recommend the Astro A10 Gen 2. It has good sound, a great mic, and a decent build. Great price too.
