TekRepublic TH Pro 7.1 Gaming Headset

   Moving on to a closer look at the mic, we can see that the mic boom is very flexible and that the mic has a nice amount of foam padding to help keep wind noise / interference to a minimum. The mic is unidirectional meaning that it only picks up sound from a specific side or direction of the mic. However, this just the opposite for omnidirectional mics, which can pick up sound equally from all directions of the mic.

   Also, notable is the fact that the mic and power cord are fixed to be on the left channel ear cup only. Unlike some headsets with mics that can be switched to the right side of the users head by simply just turning the headset around and repositioning the mic boom and switching the right and left channels in your sound setup. So, if your computer is on your right, the power cord either has to cross your body or be routed behind your head. Not a big deal to most folks, but to some a bit of a bother having something crossing your body while playing games.

   In the pics above you can see that the mic boom’s pivot point will only allow for approximately 135° of rotation from the 0° starting point of straight up. While this should definitely give even the largest of user heads the ability for adjustment of the mic, it still will probably not allow you to easily switch the mic to the right side of your head. As you can see by the pics above you’d need at approximately 225-270° of mic boom rotation.

   The Tek-Republic TH Pro headset also has a very nice and easy to use in-line volume and mic mute control switch. The controls are laid out where the user can easily mute his headset audio or the mic with a simple push of a button. The buttons are not too small or too big, but rather just the right size and beat the old slide to mute switch any day. You can also see in the 2nd image that each mute switch has a small blue LED light to indicate that the either the headset’s mic or audio is muted. The larger blue LED is power on indicator, when these lights are on you should definitely notice them.

   The Tek-Republic TH Pro series headset uses a USB 2.0 interface for power, audio and the mic. The power cord is 6.6 ft in length and should give you plenty of room for moving around your desk while using the headset.

   While the box lists the USB connector as being gold plated, it is worth noting that only the contacts inside the USB connector are gold plated. You can see in the picture above that the outside of the USB connector is not gold plated or colored, but with  the closeup shot above you can see just inside the silver connector that the contacts are gold.