Plantronics RIG 800HS Headphones Review
Plantronics RIG 800HS Use and Final Thoughts
One thing with wireless headphones is that they tend to run out of battery at the worst time. I found the battery life on the RIG 800HS to be more than satisfactory. They advertise a 24-hour runtime on the batteries which I found to be a fairly good estimate. While I was testing the RIG 800HS, I set them to play music and started a clock. They ran the music for around 26 hours and 18 minutes before they needed to be recharged. As the battery starts to get low, there are audio prompts to let you know to charge the headset. Thankfully, if you have a long enough USB cable, you can charge the headset while still gaming, or take advantage of the quick charge function that charges the headset for 3 hours of use in 30 minutes!
Plantronics knows alot about microphones, their expertise in headphones and microphones shows. When testing the microphone in games and Skype I didn’t have to raise my voice in order for everybody to hear me. My teammates were able to hear me clearly and didn’t run into any issues. I was a little concerned over the length of the microphone boom, as it ends about two inches from the corner of my mouth, thankfully this wasn’t an issue since the microphone was sensitive enough to pick up my voice while speaking at a normal volume level.
While Plantronics lists the RIG 800HS as being designed for the Playstation 4, using the USB transceiver with optical cable, you should be able to use them on most devices that provides audio over a USB port or has an audio optical connection. When connecting to a Windows 10 system, no additional drivers or software are necessary.
Let’s take a moment and think about the most important part of headphones; the sound quality. Everybody hears things differently, so realistically, the best thing to do is to try them out yourself, my ears aren’t the greatest at picking out different audio flaws, so when I listen to headphones, I’m looking for the audio to be clear, good bass without any vibration distortion, and for there to be no pops or other distortion at high volume levels. The RIG 800HS met my expectations for quality audio and surpassed it while gaming. While they are not 7.1 surround sound, while playing games such as Sniper Elite 4 on the PC, I was able to tell which direction sounds were coming from.
As great as the RIG 800HS sounds, there is a downside to it. First there is no included AC adapter, which isn’t a big deal as most people have plenty of them laying around, and Plantronics does include the USB to Micro-USB charge cable. However, if you plug in the USB Transceiver into a USB port, then you need an additional USB port to charge the headset; meaning you are using two USB ports otherwise you are going to be constantly unplugging the various connections. In the future, it would be good to see a USB pass-through port on the USB Transceiver.
To summarize my experince, the Plantronics RIG 800HS are some great wireless gaming headphones for the Playstation 4 or the PC (for XBox One users, the RIG 800LX is coming soon), these are worthy replacments for a pair of Logitech G930 wireless headphone. For a pair of wireless gaming headphones you usually expect to pay a bit more than standard headphones, the RIG 800HS is priced at $179.41 with free shipping, placing them in the higher price range. For that you are getting some great sounding headphones and microphone, a 24-hour battery life, quick charge capability, light weight comfort and a 1 year warranty.
Legit Bottom Line: The Plantronics RIG 800HS has everything you need in a wireless gaming headset. Audio wise I found these to sound incredible at any volume level. The microphone is sensitive enough to pick up a voice at normal speaking levels, while still being excellent and reducing background noise. If you want to wear these all day, you won’t have a problem, they are comfortable enough to wear over 12 hours and not have any issues as they are extremely light weight while still providing a 24-hour use time.