Yapster Blaster Sound Tests
Since I had a line of games this week that I needed to get some reviews done on it offered me a chance to truly test out the sound on the Yapster Blaster. While the Xjacker tech is aimed at pulling out the mid range so you hear the crunch of foot steps, the majority of gunfire and the wide range of other video games sounds that fall into that range more clearly, it does not sacrifice the highs and lows to do so. The bass still kicks your eardrums and the highs still tweet with clarity. With the Soniq Rush power unit attached, the sound is rich, full-bodied and in a word...superb. I don’t think my Xbox games have sounded this good. It’s a perfect match of headset and power. There are some more expensive wired headsets on the market that offer the same quality, but they’re generally limited to a single console.
I played several games including Bodycount, Crimson Alliance, Pinball FX 2, Mini Squadron and Sengoku among others. Everything sounded fantastic. The added advantage of the inline volume controls is immense as it was easy to adjust sound and mute the mic when I needed to speak to someone in the room without my XBLA companions listening in.
I suppose the best test of the unit was when I was in an XBLA game and had to quickly switch to the PC for a conference call, I just took the headset with me and it worked flawlessly for Skype on the PC. Since it is essentially a standard PC headset, I would expect nothing less from it.
Even the call clarity was excellent. Since the PC has its own amplification I didn’t pull the Xjacker unit from the receiver, so all I did was take the headset and plug it back into the amp cable and Xbox controller and I was back to gaming in no time flat.
XJacker Technical Issues Revisited
Now in my previous review of the Soniq Rush from XJacker I noted a few issues:
- USB line noise
- FM radio reception with earbuds
- Power draw even when off
So I checked these things, and spoke with Xjacker and CompuExpert about them as well. Turns out, they listened! Something very important for audiophiles in my book, but they actually listened to what I had to say on those points and here are some changes.
USB Line noise - This was addressed by 
some re-engineering and the noise level is all but gone. There is still some hiss when it gets power from the Xbox 360 USB port, but far less tahn the Soniq rush
FM radio - Along with the re-engineering they must have worked on some shielding as well since this undocumented feature (as I called it) is gone. That just shows the advance in their technology really.
Power draw when off - There was an LED on the Soniq Rush which always drew power even when off. They worked on a switchable internal circuit, so I am told that when the amp receives no signal to amplify (i.e. when the Xbox 360 is off), the amp draws a minimum current of about 5mA in a low power shutdown mode. As far as I’m concerned that’s pretty much no power draw. Also, my consoles are on a switchable power strip so when the audio receiver is turned off, they all stop drawing power from the outlet. The GDN office is green like that.
Since that previous review of the Xjacker Soniq Rush we moved into a new location. I can’t for the life of me find the exact same earbuds I used for that test, so I made do with another set, I don’t believe this affected the outcome in the end because of the re-working of the internals by Xjacker. There was no longer the ability to pick up the radio stations. There are too many variables to be sure: lack of a power level control on the amp, new location which might be further from the radio towers, new earbuds. But I strongly believe that were I in the old location it still wouldn’t work which is great for sound quality since it technically all would have been noise when using the unit for gaming, etc.
