Turtle Beach Battle Buds (Hardware)
Official GBAtemp Review

Name: Turtle Beach Battle Buds
Item: Turtle Beach Battle Buds
Rating: 8
Author: BORTZ

Product Information:

Review Approach:

Let's get one thing straight, I don't play Battle Royale games. But I do play plenty online with friends in different looty-shooty arenas. I transitioned over from using PlayStation left ear/mic to JVC in-ear headphones/mic this past September. I would assume these Battle Buds to be a big improvement.

These Battle Buds promise to be built for Mobile gaming, the Nintendo Switch, as well as the other consoles and PC. How they are built specifically for Battle Royale games, I have no idea.

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Includes:

Turtle beach wired battle buds
Drawstring carrying pouch
Interchangeable inserts
Interchangeable stabilizers
Removable mic dongle: plugs into the left ear
Instructions for PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PS4, and Mobile setup
Free Sticker
Clay Desiccant (free snack)

The Battle Buds come with interchangeable ear inserts. Replacing them is easy enough. What isn't so common is the little stabilizer piece that holds the bud in your ear. The buds are a little bit heavy. I am not sure if this is just form factor or if the bud really needs to be as big as it is to house the sound driver. But either way, the buds seem to be a little heavier than I am used to. These come with a little arch that pushes up into your ear ridge. I find this a bit annoying and a tiny bit painful over long play sessions. I would have rathered they come with the over-ear hook to hold the buds in place. This might be fixed by swapping out a different sized hook, but I haven’t tried that yet.

Just from eyeballing the cord, it's about 3 or 4 feet long. Perfectly acceptable for mobile gaming or plugging into your controller with little excess to get tangled up. The cord is just a tiny bit thicker than regular headphone wire. Just a little up from where the wire splits, the left headphone wire has a chunk of plastic that houses two controls. There is a volume slider and a mute switch. The volume slider is bigger and feels solid. When lowering to extremely low levels, the sound distorts, and then cuts out of one ear, then the other, before shutting off. I find that odd, but probably something to do with the way these are wired. Not an issue per se, just an oddity. Under that, there’s the mute button. Slide up for talk, and down for mute. There is no indication whether you are muted or not, so keep that in mind. Again, I really don’t think that is an issue, but many of my friends tend to forget them they mute themselves and I haven’t seen a headset solution nor anything in software.

There is a mic attachment that makes you look like a telemarketer included. It plugs into the left earpiece. I find this slightly cumbersome since it weighs down the left battle bud more than the right, creating un-symmetrical ear strain. This is again, not a deal breaker, but something to be aware of if you notice things like that. It does have a bendy material that will allow you to re-position the mic where you desire. I keep bumping it, but I suspect that’s because I have been playing without a protruding mic for so long.

I am not an audiophile. I actively avoid expensive headphones on purpose. Some of my music is ripped from the dark days of YouTube and a little known graveyard of a website called “MySpace”. I do not frequent the actual “bottom of the barrel” in terms of listening-ware, but I tend to hover around the $20 to $25 range when it comes to earphones. I do not use over-ears. While they do tend to have a better sound to them, they make my ears hot. On top of all that, I listen to a lot of metal music. Metal is one of the genres that does not lend itself to over-ear listening very well. The way the instruments and vocals are layered as well as the drums and bass beats are so important, in ears actually have a slight advantage when delivering sound directly to the ear bones.

I immediately tested this headset against death metal music, and they delivered favorably clean results. Bass hits are punchy, guitar solos and allowed to soar, and vocals are dumped like a ton of gravel (that’s a good thing in metal music). And most importantly, double bass runs feel like a big old metal sewing machine stitching the songs together in all of its metallic glory. The box nor website lay out any sort of specs for the drivers so I don't know the specific ranges for these buds. Not that its all the important, but I would have liked to be able to compare against other budget quality ear-phones.

Even at regular listening levels, the headphones do a great job with noise isolation. But… these are not for listening to music. Well not first and foremost. The box clearly advertised them as “Battle Buds” “Built for battle royale”.

But, I don’t play battle royale games. I do, however, play a lot of shared world shooters, or “looter shooters” as they are coming to be known. And while I don’t have a lot to say about the performance, I can say that they are good if not great. Here’s the thing. I really don’t know how much you can expect from a pair of in-ear headphones when it comes to gaming. They can help you out a bit but it's not surround sound. It can mimic a sphere of sound around you, but at the end of the day, its 2 dimensional sound pretending to be 3D. And to Turtle Beach’s credit, it mostly works. It's just good "directional sound". It’s not magic or anything special, don’t get me twisted. There isn’t anything special (really) about these that makes them better for battle royale specifically. They come equipped with a good set of drivers to produce the sounds. The sounds are clear, crisp, and well defined. You can hear tells like footsteps, doors, and other general enemy sounds very well with these.

#1 In gaming audio… for $30. The box indicates that this product is specifically for Mobile Gaming | Nintendo Switch. I would say you get quality for $30. They are not amazing but not terrible either. They are good. Solid. I don’t think I can go as far as Great. Exactly what you would expect from a $30 pair of gaming buds. Maybe a little more.

Verdict

What We Liked ...

Wired (keeps cost down) with a 3.5mm headphone aux jack
Good, solid directional sound capability
Medium heft cord, not easily breakable, but not indestructible
Removable mic dongle- plugs into the left ear
Inline volume, mute, and call buttons.

What We Didn't Like ...

“Noticeably” heavier on the left bud with the mic
Slightly uncomfortable for long play sessions (too heavy, ridge)
Volume slider distorts/cuts out at low levels (nit pick)
No indication that you are muted. Again, this isn't really TB's fault, but there a chance they could have added an indicator.

out of 10

Overall

The Turtle Beach Battle Buds are a great, solid pair of headphones. If you are looking to get a better pair for a bargain price, you cannot go wrong with these. They sounds great. they offer all the perks of a more expensive headset while keeping costs low, requiring a physical 3.5mm connection. These are now my daily drivers for PlayStation 4 general gaming and chat.

Reactions: Kioku and T-hug

Kioku
May 1, 2019

Interesting... I've always wanted ear buds like these... 10 years ago. Glad they're making them at least.

Reactions: BORTZ

BORTZ
May 1, 2019

The whole review is basically saying "these headphones are solid for a pair of $30 headphones". No more, no less.

arceus
May 6, 2019

yummy clay

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