Reviews for Zalman ZM-RS6F 5.1 Surround Headphone

Cost-effective, Portable, and Really Really Neat-O

Strengths: Real 3D sound (none of this immatation surround sound :-). Fold's up well (great for taking to LAN parties or a friends hosue). Very comfortable. Long cord (not confined to a 3' area).

Weakness: Speakers can pop/crackel alittle when the bass is heavy (though bass still sounds good). Not the lightest headphones (though not as heavy as you'd expect).

All in all, these are some great headphones (considering the price tag), and they're definitely an attention grabber (I get more comments on my headphones sometimes than my computer).

Wish they had a better mic (instead of the clip on you can buy from Zalman), but then again, these are first generation (can't wait to see the next gen.) Haven't used them yet to watch movies, but from what I've read, you can really hear the bullets wizzing buy your head. I can say that they sound pretty cool in games (unfortunately I've been playing WoW a lot, so I haven't really been maximizing them to their fullest potential, but I can say that you can really tell where sounds are comming from in the game, which is pretty cool.)


I don't know if I'd recommend paying $50 for them, but I got mine for $32 and never regretted it.

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Zalman ZM-RS6F 5.1 Surround Headphone

Strengths: True 3d Sound. Great for gamers that either cant afford a good set of surround sound speakers or for people like me who are not at liberty to crank up their speakers all day and all night long.

Weakness: Seeing that these headphones may be targeting gamers, and that they are a bit expensive, an attached mic and volume / mic mute funcionality should have been included.

Bottom Line - If I would have know about these headphones when I bought my computer, I would have opted out of buying the expensive surround sound speakers and purchased these instead.

--- For the gamers: I have to say that when I first used these headphones in a FPS it was like an "I was once blind but now I see" moment. I now have a good idea of whats going on around me without having to spin around and look.

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Zalman ZM-RS6F 5.1 Surround Headphone

Strengths: Very good sound quality as well as very good construction. The headphones are light and well made. The long cord allows for freedom of movement.

Weakness: Lack of a volume control on the headphones. It would be great to control the volume at the headphones instead of having to go into the game or soundcard controls to adjust the volume.

This is my first experience with a set of headphones for computer gaming. I tried out a couple models at local stores before deciding on these. While there were some very nice higher end headphones, the price was way out of my range (over $200). These headphones are lightweight and comfortable to wear. The sound range is nice and acurately represents the direction of sound in games. I have played with Doom3, UT2004, and Call of Duty, and they headphones have been great. I am using them with a Audigy 2 6.1 sound card and am very pleased especially for the price (less than $50). I plan on buying a 5.1 external sound card for my laptop to use the headphones with it when on the go. For someone on a budget, these are very nice surround sound headphones and I would recommend them to anyone.

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Zalman ZM-RS6F 5.1 Surround Headphone

Strengths: Real Surround Sound headphones

Weakness: A volume control/mute switch on the headphone itself should make this 5 star.

Paired with my entry level SoundBlaster Live 5.1 sound card made me stay up all night. Bass is enough to make your eardrums hum afterwards. Wires are long enough for you to move. Not a noise cancelling piece, but suits well for me.

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Zalman ZM-RS6F 5.1 Surround Headphone

Strengths: The surround sound is nice in games using enviromental effects. Has a true surround sound with 6 internal speakers. Is super stylish, with a comfortable ear muffins, and a head rest.

Weakness: The headset needs to have a good sound card to work its best. but if you go into creative driver setting or whatever you card manufacture is you can set it up to work perfectly.

There are flaws in this great idea. The concept is more the reason i got the headset in the first place. its not the top of the line. but its the first of its class. and hopefully more will follow. the sound effects do work, but its hard to tell with the default settings. the back speakers are just to low for me to feel the background effects. The back speakers are either muffled or they are suppost to be that way to get the distance effect. but i found that balancing the fade in the settings to distribute the audio to the back speakers a little, is best for all around dvd and games. For audio cd and mp3 playback - i would suggest not having any back speakers play at all. the clearity is far better on the sides and front speakers. so change the balance to all forward. The only flaw that i see is that you have to switch it all the time unless you have a really high end card that supports external manual nobs for each of the 5.1 speakers. I love my headset so far. just wished it was a bit lighter as well as have some more vents my ears dont get so warm. I suggest people with large heads make the width of the band even larger then there heads. it helps release some of the pressure. Or maybe i just have a fat head either our its not perfect yet....

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Zalman ZM-RS6F 5.1 Surround Headphone

Strengths: High quality sound output. Excellent surround quality in all the games tested. Great for DVD viewing. Easy setup.

Weakness: Construction feels a little too flimsy for my taste. Music will require a bit of equalizer fiddling to counter minor mudding of sound. Not all sound devices support 5.1 Surround. Lack of microphone.

Given that I spend a lot of my free time in first person shooters, I decided to pick these up. I've decided that was a good idea, all said and done.

On opening the unique, dome-shaped packaging, I found the headphones felt a little weak on the construction. It could be that the hinges are just well designed, and move easily, without catch. However, I'm used to a bit more solid, if rigid, construction on my sound devices.

Aside from a few hiccups of trying to get my sound hardware to actually use 5.1 Surround, the headphones themselves have been mostly headache free.

Gaming is where this baby really shines. During game play figuring out which direction sound was originating was quite obvious. Since enraging neighbors with sounds of explosions and screams of the dying is fairly difficult to avoid with any other sound system of the same capabilities at the moment, these are good for having your body-rending gaming experiences, without causing those around you to wish those same events on you.

Music, on the other hand, was where these headphones have some problems.
Given the quality of the product so far, I'm inclined to say its more likely that they show up existing problems with your music, but anything under, say, 192kbps encoding tends to show defects in the audio fairly clearly.
Additionally, the sound is, call it a little muddy, if you don't adjust your equalizer settings to compensate. Still, given that I'm normally stuck playing with headphones about 1/6th the size, the overall distortion isn't too bad, and nearly vanishes once compensated for.

The Zalman Thetre-6 Surroundsound Headphones:

Overall:
If your willing to do a little bit of compensation with your EQ, most of the distortion goes away.
Gamers will almost certainly love these, even though there is no integrated microphone, that can be overcome with a separate, standalone mic.
True Audiophiles will probably dislike the sound output on these due to the (mostly) minor distortion, but if you don't mind that, these make a great upgrade.
If your used to tiny, over-the-ear style headphones, you'll probably never notice the main difficulties these headphones have.
Great buy, I give it four stars.

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Zalman ZM-RS6F 5.1 Surround Headphone

Strengths: 6 speakers embedded, excellent sound fidelity, not kind of virtual surround like sony and others, other extendable accessories available.

Weakness: none yet.

Amazing...I bought a different brand(says MM Gear)and a gift package packaged with 5.1 headphone and sound card, not Zalman one cuase it says MM Gear is the original manufacturer of Zalman and their price is better. Anyway, I bought it for my DVD movies and games, but I have never expected this surround sound quality at headphone. It is really really cool... 6 speakers really work individually very well and reproduce the original sounds as DTS or Dolby wants. I think it is better than cheap 6 speaker system cause I do not lose any small tiny sound from this headphone and really I can enjoy everyting with full 5.1 surround sound even at midnight.

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great headphones

Strengths: Crisp sound, foldable, mobile, and traps sound by filtering outside noise.

Weakness: None

Reasonable pricing for a headphone that can replace speakers and help give you that edge in order to own people. Especially reliable in halflife2 type games. This didnt cost me an arm and a leg and Is great because you can hear any creak in the games. True 5.1 setup and I love it!

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Not yet a replacement for Dolby Headphone

Strengths: None I can find.

Weakness: Audio quality is 'peaky' in the mid range. No volume control. Rather fragile.

I purchased the Zalman to replace an old set of Awia headphones that were physically breaking down but the sound quality was still good.

I was disappointed with the sound quality of the Zalman compared to my old Awia's. Using the Awia with Dolby Headphone produced better spacial and tonal quality than using the Zalman in 5.1 mode. The Zalman was less comfortable to wear and produced a poor ear seal. Listening to the poor sound quality proved to be annoying after a few minutes of use.

I have abandoned the Zalman phones and returned to my venerable Awia's.

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Zalman ZM-RS6F 5.1 Surround Headphone

Strengths: Nice construction. Real surround sound.

Weakness: None.

I have been using this for 3 days I am very impressed with the surround sound reproduction and the sound quality. Nicely packaged. These give a new dimension when watching DVD movies and gaming.

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good overall

Strengths: size and comfort. good sound. good price.

Weakness: none so far.

Althoug major manufacturers like bose, creative and logitech have not introduced the 5.1 headphones, smaller compannies like zalman and kinyo have som "ok" product. still hope that more competing product will come soon.

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Awesome Headphonrd

Strengths: Truly a surround sound experience...created by 6 speakers and not by cheap software. I noticed my efficiency in BF2 go up significantly after these. I knew exactly where helicopters and jets were, even though I could not see them.

Weakness: Padding on top of headphones could be more comfortable and takes a while to get used to. These are not designed for listening to music. Microphone is has good pick up, annoying positioning, broke fast.

I will never go back. I've owned my pair for about 18 months now and am more impressed all the time. The surround sound is hardware based, not software based, and thus it is high-quality and real. Works even with old games like Deus Ex. I would recommend these to anyone who has a 5.1 sound card. I don't even own a pair of speakers anymore because of these. For what you get, I believe the price is well worth it. I've dropped them a number of times and they've never failed me yet. I've used them in Battlefield 2 for more than a year and have the ability to hear a grenade clink behind me and run for cover instead of having to look around only to find that it's sitting at my feet and wasted 2 seconds trying to find it...or worse, running towards it trying to get away. Definite Buy

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Just Great

Strengths: Great sound quality and price

Weakness: Little flimsy

Great pair of headphones id recommend them to any one. Play Css and Team fortress classic love these havent tryed a dvd yet but im def going to. Go Get them

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Zalman ZM-RS6F

Testseek.com has collected 26 expert reviews for Zalman ZM-RS6F and the average expert rating is 75 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use Testseek.com to see all ratings, product awards and conclusions.

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