Plantronics RIG Gaming Headset review

TL;DR: The RIG headset is a tremendous value for the money and is more comfortable and better sounding than all of the competitors that I've tried in the same price range. It is incredibly versatile, and totally worth your money if you game on PC/Xbox/PS3. For best results, use the SPDIF optical audio.

I very much recommend it. There are some pretty good photos of the device on Amazon, and you can purchase it there:

Plantronics RIG gaming headset at Amazon.com

Aesthetics:
The RIG headset is a beautiful piece of kit. It's comfortable, uses high quality materials with a high quality feel, and is really comfortable. The headband is adjustable, and the ear cups fold flat, with floating hinges. I got the white headset, and I'm quite smitten.

The digital receiver is nice looking and feels well put together without calling attention to itself. I like it's compact size and efficient use of space for the various knobs, dials and buttons on it.

The Receiver:
The digital receiver is a round device which is about the same size, height and shape as one of the RIG headset ear cups. The Xbox 360 headset cable input and the RIG headset output ports are on one side, and a USB connector (for power and PC/ps3 audio), 1/8 inch stereo cable and S/PDIF digital optical audio input are on the other side. It has one other feature that bears special mention: there is a 4 pole mobile phone/audio player input that you can use to mix the audio output from your phone (and phone conversations) into whatever else you have your RIG connected to. There's a big button in the center of the device that you can use to physically toggle the microphone output between going to your phone and the gaming device of choice.

The main volume control dominates the outside, and the receiver has a few buttons on it. The buttons toggle the mobile/gaming mic output as well as having a multifunction button for your phone (play/pause, call/end call), a mute button for the mic and a button to toggle between the three EQ modes. Overall it's minimalistic, and perfectly textured. It's not going to work as a desk centerpiece but it looks good without calling a lot of attention to itself.

Audio performance:
The RIG headset itself has a wonderfully accurate sound reproduction profile. I'm sure it's possible to do better, but from my experience you'd have to pay many times more to get anything like a noticeable improvement.

The receiver has three EQ modes included, however. The first is "Pure" and it's just a flat EQ profile. The next is "Intensify" and this basically just boosts the bass tones of the audio. The final one is "Seismic" and it makes all the aspects of the audio sharper without being harsh. Highs and mid tones and quieter parts of the music and audio generally become more pronounced. I found it to be quite likable. I prefer flat EQ preferences, but the Seismic is probably something I'll use from time to time.

Intensify and Seismic both change the way things sound in a noticeable way, but without going too far.

Included accessories:
The headset comes with:

• the headset itself
• a boom mic cable (no button)
• an in-line mic cable (with button for mobile phones)
• an Xbox 360 microphone cable
• an RCA to 1/8 inch stereo (with RCA passthrough in case you use that for your other audio)
• and the digital receiver. The USB power/input, 1/8" input, and 1/8" mobile phone input are all permanently attached to the receiver as mentioned above.

The interchangeable cables are all flat and this makes it a lot harder to tangle them, which is appreciated.

Notes:
Nothing is perfect, and the RIG is no exception, so let me list some things you should be aware of. I wouldn't call any of them to be a problem, but they might make it so they aren't precisely what you need, depending on your use case.

• The cables for the headset itself which are used to connect it to the receiver or other sources are interchangeable and can be disconnected, but the cables are not currently available for purchase separately. I imagine you could buy them if you opened a support case with Plantronics, however.
• The input cables on the back of the receiver are permanently attached. If you take care of them, they are well made and won't fail you, but it's worth noting.
• The optical audio in accepts up to 96kHz PCM input, but only in stereo. Apparently 5.1 or 7.1 surround is not accepted. I had a problem with this on my Xbox until I changed the output from Surround to Stereo. It worked fine after that. I still had positional audio as this was handled by the Xbox's audio processing (just like it is on my PC), it just didn't have to do crazy tricks to down sample the multichannel audio for use with the headset. This is different than my Astro A40 and it's receiver, but not a problem in my eyes, since everything else about the RIG is superior to the A40 (build, audio, aesthetics, price… Everything).
• The headset has an open ear design. In most situations this won't even be something worth mentioning, but if you use the RIG in a loud environment, you'll be able to hear the outside noise.

Final Thoughts:

The RIG is a great value. It has all the options to do everything you could want with a headset.  It looks good, it has great components that give you great sound, it allows you to use it as a mobile headset while up and about, and even lets you take calls or mix in audio from your mobile device while you are playing games from your PC/Xbox/PS3.

I can recommend the RIG without reservation.

(One final thing to note in the interest of full disclosure:
I got my RIG well ahead of the release because I won it in a raffle at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. The Expo ended on September 2nd, which is the day I won the raffle. So, I did get it for free, but if I hadn't won it in the raffle, I had planned fully on pre-ordering the device based on my impressions of the device from the booth as well as comparisons I made with other headset hardware I've tried).