[section_title title=”Software”]Software
ASUS certainly did plenty of shouting about the Sonic Studio software on the packaging so lets take a look.
So this is the Sonic Studio software, there’s a lot to cover so I will divy it up a bit to keep things concise.
Audio Enhancement:
EQ
The EQ is, well, its an EQ. As you can see there is a good frequency range to play with if you go custom or there is also a drop down menu with a good number of presets.
Bass Boost
The bass boost option is again self explanatory. I used this setting with mixed results, past halfway its sounds muffled and forced but at about a third it does help just the right amount of thump to liven games up a bit.
Voice Clarity
This option is pretty clear too, its to help with speech recognition apparently. In my experience this setting sounds thoroughly naff and should be left alone, if you need to pick out voice why not just use the Vocal EQ preset?
Compressor
The compressor is a ‘dynamics’ setting, it seems to play around with volume differences a bit. Not for me personally but your mileage may vary.
Tuning
Virtual Surround
This is your typical stereo surround trickery, I’m not into these settings personally as the headphones should be doing the work in terms of creating an immersive sound stage but its by no means bad, use at your preference.
Reverb
This is your typical sound effects panel, not something I would use or consider useful but the live one isn’t half bad.
MIC
Noise Gate
The noise gate option helps lower the sensitivity of the mic, so is useful if you have plenty of buzz going on behind you.
Perfect voice
The perfect voice is a fantastic noise cancellation feature, it really helps tune out the dull hum of a ground loop.
Otherwise the Main Settings panel is all self explanatory, at the bottom you can see a profiles box which has some presets for ASUS headsets as well as a few generic ones to get you started. The creation of a new profile isnt really very intuative and clicking on to a presest without creating a copy of your current one will erase your settings so be warned there!
On the whole I really like the Sonic Studio software, the Mic settings alone should be a godsend to those who are plagued with background noise on their mics. Lets move on and test the performance.
