Spectacular visuals on your Xbox 360 are a given - on Xbox too, in its now-conventional way. However, Bill's banzai 'boxes of boffo buffness are also pretty famous for huge, surround sound audio, even though you don't necessarily get to crank it for all it's worth lest you wake the neighbors or shake the house to its foundations. Which is where the Ear Force AXT comes in.

Though gaudy as all heck, we're talking big, comfy, padded, adjustable, DJ caliber 'phones plus a boom mic, which means it's not only going to localize all that killer kabooming to your cranium, but the voice chatting as well, fully replacing that flimsy little mono headset that comes with your Xbox Live starter kit - the one that makes as much sense as an 8-track cassette deck in a Lamborghini Countache.

Compatible with both Xbox and Xbox 360, the Ear Force AXT boasts excellent clarity, even at excessive, guilty-pleasure, deaf-by-forty decibels. Plus, it simulates 5.1 surround sound fairly well, thanks to an emulator and multiple inset speakers in a spread specific to the front, center, subwoofer and rear satellite speakers of a home theater.

There are a few wires involved - the left & right RCA plugs plus an AC adapted power cord to drive the rig's amplifier - but those sit box-side with only a single cord eventually snaking out to your head (with an overly-heavy volume fader in between) - but then there's another one tethering you to the controller, wireless or otherwise, which is where the voice chat features interface.

One has to wonder why Microsoft didn't think to included wireless headset support for Xbox 360. It's not like its expensive technology, seeing as about a trillion cell phones and a billion trillion cordless home phones seem to manage it at no noticeable cost. Heck, the wireless X360 controller already uses a variant of 2.4Ghz cordless phone technology, could they just...? ...but? ...huh? Alas, wirelessly tethered it is.

Also, it doesn't help that the AXT cords, while about 10 feet long are still a little short if you want any slack, so for all their symphonic superlativeness, you're still sitting way too close to the TV, or you're snaking extension cords hither and yon. Oh well.

Still, cosmetics and tethering technicalities aside, Ear Force AXT has much more game enhancing goodness than not.