The Xbox 360 is by far the most complex of the setups because there are five cables that need to be connected including the Xbox 360 controller connection cable which all headsets not from Microsoft require right now. Another thing about the Xbox 360 setup is that you might have a cable that doesn’t have an optical out on it and you’d need to purchase one that does that. The Sharkoon does not offer any analog sound connection to the Xbox 360 like RCA jacks. So it’s optical or nothing. If you’ve got a newer Xbox 360 console there’s an optical port on the back of it. If you’ve got an older one you’ll need to make sure that it’s got a cable with optical out since there were no separate ports on the old units.

The easiest of the setups are the PC and PS3 which only require two or four pieces. On the PC you can use the adapter that splits out to 2 3.5mm and a USB plug, but as stated, it’s extremely noisy. You can also, if your computer supports it, use the optical cable and then the setup is exactly like the PS3 - headset to SCU which splits to optical and USB, four pieces in all.

Right now online the Sharkoon X-Tatic SR is retailing for $130-140 which isn’t bad for a 5.1 compatible surround sound headset that you can use on your consoles and your PC. The only thing it can’t be used with is the Wii./

OVerall, the Sharkoon X-Tatic SR is a mess of cables that need to be sorted and configured for each console you want to use it on. Essentially, here in the office it became the PS3 headset because it uses just four cables and instead of having to unplug them for us in the Xbox 360, we just use a different headset. You might not have the finances to afford two $150 headsets for your gaming or your consoles might be closer together and the jacks more readily accessible in which case this would work quite well. The only other real drawback is the quality of the sound which seems to really be lacking in the mid-range tones. For you FPS fans out there, that’s the range where the sounds of enemies approaching, breathing and a lot shooting will take place.