I'm on about hour 12 of wrestling with this boat anchor. That's a dual metaphor as they are really only good for tethering a sea fairing vessel to the ocean floor and because they weigh about as much as an anchor should. Seriously, if you are prone to headaches or strain from head phones, these will incapacitate you in minutes. I've worn my Sennheiser Game Ones for three years without issue but these suckers had me taking a break within the first hour of use. I guess they got me to go outside more, so that is one pro. Anyway, I muscled through the vicegrip like strain and incredible mass of these puppies and powered them up. The setup is fairly straightforward with this hungry peripheral only needing two usb inputs to feed it. Every paid reviewer for this headset made sure to film their video with high powered studio lighting and never once switched them off. And why would you? These are just headphones, I don't care about the RGB nonsense on the side you door, stop nitpicking. Well if you switched the lights off you would notice that the included amp/controller is useless because THERE ARE NO LIGHTS THAT ILLUMINATE ANY WORDS OR EVEN INDICATE WHERE THE CONTROL ROTATING SELECTOR IS FACING. GOOD THING I NEVER PLAY WITH THE LIGHTS OFF.Then the real problems begin. 2.0 stereo sound on this is fairly decent. There is an average amount of bass with some decent highs, nothing that will transport you to another realm, but certainly enough for the average gamer to be wowed. if however you flick over to 7.1 and your balloon begins to deflate rapidly. Any sound propagation to the front of the headset sounds full of force and accuracy, the moment something comes in from the sides or rear however, and it sounds like you are listening to a pair of eaebuds a flight attendant just sold you for $14.99. I have never been more disappointed with a purchase in my brief existence on this planet. The subwoofer driver doesn't even bother to fire for sounds emanating from the rear. All you get is this tinny, underpowered 20mm driver, desperately trying to keep pace with the front and center channel.I honestly thought I had done something wrong in setting them up so I spent 3 hours fumbling through the driver software, forums, and support pages trying to get the best settings, hell even just acceptable settings. After finding no solution I attempted to post to their support forum for specific assistance. After registering and providing nearly every personal detail about myself their forms required and jumping through the registration confirmation email hoop, I attempted to make my first post. Guess what I wasn't allowed to do. That's right, you cant post on the Asus forums until you privately message a moderator and they grant you talking privilege. Holy Orwellian Hell. As of this review, my request is still unread. So, abandoned, neigh, excommunicated by this 'Republic of Gamers' I tried a bit more or tinkering with the settings. For laughs, I decided to activate my microphone to have my friends weigh in on its quality. They sat in disbelief that the sound I was making was truly coming from these nearly $300 pair of headphones. You can find at least five reviews right now on YouTube where some spineless sellouts ACTUALLY SPEAK INTO THE MICROPHONE AND THEN SAY THE QUALITY IS PRETTY GREAT. I swear people of Amazon, you have to listen to this microphone. It sounds like your yelling into a tin can tied to a greased up string filtered through a dogs intestinal tract. Their are no less than 20 pages with over 15,000 views on Asus' forums complaining about this microphone and Asus had the audacity to imply it was an isolated quality control issue despite EVERY registered owner on that forum, who by the way purchased from different areas and received products from different warehouses, reporting the exact same issue. Asus couldn't figure out the problem because they don't manufacture the headphones. They had to contact the third party vendor who didn't have any answers either. A brave or desperate man on the forums drilled a hole in the end of the microphone housing and Asus damn near offered him a job for his genius. That's right folks, they didn't put enough holes for all that voice to get into them fancy microphone things.Are you kidding me? $300 for these things and you still need me to do some light millwork on them? Is that covered in my warranty? Oh looks like you mined out your microphone from the plastic tomb we encased it in, sorry, we can't accept this in this condition. This honestly seems like some sharkish attempt at snatching up some money from the ever gullible gaming community. I mean, hey, they buy unfinished games, maybe they will buy unfinished headphones too. What a kick in the pants...