Turtle Beach XP Seven VS Ear Force Tango?

I recently took a look at the new XP-7's, and I've had a set of Ear Force Tango's since this past Christmas (2012).

The biggest difference between the 2 headsets is that the Ear Force Tango is Bluetooth (wireless); the XP-7 is a USB connected headset. If you're looking to stay wireless, then go with the EFT or the new PX-51.. That was my primary motivation for getting mine, as my old DPX-21's were getting a bit ridiculous with the masking tape holding the mike boom and left ear band in place, and I was getting tired of the USB and TOSLINK cables. Not that the sound was bad, but after a while, cabling just gets old.

The EFT's are essentially significantly upgraded PX-5's with the Black Ops II motif. Though I didn't care about the BO2 motif, the EFT is a fantastic headset, sturdily built, with great sound as you might expect. The mike boom is a wire boom, so it's detachable and replaceable. Many TB headsets with standard booms have a problem with snapping at the connection point.

The one thing you can't do with it though is to connect it to other devices for sound; you can pair it with a phone to take incoming calls (or call out) using your headset and mike, but if you wanted to listen to music on your phone or tablet, you can't do that with the EFT.

You can do that with the XP-7 or PX-51. Essentially, the mike boom disconnects and you can hook up a mini-jack cable to it and a mobile device. Of course you can always just use TB earbuds as well for your mobile device, or just a cheap set of stereo headsets. I mean, seriously; what mobile games do you play that have Surround Sound output? TB sent me a free set of earbuds a couple of months ago, and they're pretty good for music and mobile games.

The EFT uses a dual-band N wireless transceiver, and the Surround Sound is everything you'd expect from a high-end headset. It also has some limited edition features that the XP-7 doesn't have.

The XP-7 uses memory foam for the ear cups and headband for gaming over long hours, but honestly, there's not that much foam on the headband to make that much difference. Looking at the XP-7 headband, it looks just like the EFT headband, though from the specs they're a bit lighter. But I don't feel like the EFT is too heavy even after long gaming stretches.. The EFT was a bit tight at first, but I figured it would loosen up after use, and I was correct in my assumption. It's still very comfortable after many hours of continuous playing, and though I'm too old these days to game for 20 hours straight anymore like I used to 20 years ago, I can still do 10 or more.

The EFT's LiPo battery pack is advertised to last 10 hours, and that's an accurate assessment. The charge cable included (though you can use any USB - Mini-B cable) for power is several feet long, so it's more than long enough to connect if your battery gets low and you want to keep playing. There's also an included data cable for upgrading the firmware or changing/customizing the presets.

Both headsets are programmable, and TB has the software available on their site to download if you want to customize your presets (Preset Community on the TB site).

Realistically, the new TB PX-51 is probably the better of all 3. It has mobile device connectivity via Bluetooth and cable, meaning you can also stream music to the PX-51 from a mobile device while playing if you want to. The price is about the same as the XP-7.

The primary reason for the increased price on the XP-7 is the MLG licensing. and for the EFT, the Limited Edition BO2 license and features.

Personally, while some of the XP-7 features seem great, they're just not worth giving up wireless to switch to it. It's essentially an EFT or PX-51 with an inline Dolby Signal Processor and Preset Controller, and those are already a part of the EFT and PX-51 on the ear cups. If I did switch, it would be to a PX-51, not an XP-7. It has a few more customization presets, but honestly, I only use maybe one or two of mine.

You should run the comparison feature on the TB site for each headset so you can view the differences side-by-side:

http://www.turtlebeach.com/products/headsets/ps3

Ear Force Tango