Headphones, eh? It's one area when form seems to have totally taken over from function.
These days what you wear in your ears tends to give away more about you than what you stick on your feet. Plush pair of BOSE QuietComfort Noise Cancelling 3s? That man travels business class.
Spindly Sennheiser Adidas PMXs? Here's a guy who takes his cycling seriously. Monster Beats by Dr Dre? Still lives with his mum. You get the idea. Lack of functionality isn't an accusation you could levy at the wireless a, though, billed as it as 'the ultimate entertainment headset'.
Designed with on-the-move gaming and movie watching in mind as much as listening to music and taking phone calls, the EVO ZxR comes with a list of features that sound more suited to the sales pitch for a new high-end TV. 'Crytalizer' technology allows you to reverse engineer audio, taking a poor, crappy, compressed MP3 back to near CD quality.
Crystal Voice Focus utilises two microphones, one to trap the speaker’s voice the other to erase ambient noise, meaning you can take calls without having to bellow on the bus. And Surround Sound transforms stereo audio input into 3D Surround Sound and, in doing so, takes in-transit DVD watching to the next level. Built-in Near-Field Communication (NFC) means you need only tap your Bluetooth-enabled smart device onto the headset once to establish a connection.
Despite the potential extra weight of all these added whistles and bells the set we tested felt comfortable, was easy enough to set-up and delivered some wallopingly powerful sound across both audio and video. Sure, they're big and red and have the name of a 1980s-coined computer sound card emblazoned on the outside (and contained inside, hence all the clever tech) but if you can't cut a dash in a pair of cans, what's the point?
Creative Labs Sound Blaster EVO ZxR will be released in August, priced £249.99
