Digital Trends

Ezonics ESound 5.1

February 25th, 2004 | by Jeff Fila

Design and Function

The design of the ESound 5.1 surround headphones by Ezonics is quite different than the others. The ESound utilizes a USB connection with an inline 5.1 decoder so a 5.1 channel sound card is not needed — in fact, a sound card isn't even needed at all. It decodes six-channel audio from games or movies that are compatible with the AC3 or AC97 standards. USB has some great advantages over the analog solutions, including the fact that you don't have to unplug your speakers to get the ESound to work. Other six-channel solutions require three inputs — front, rear and sub — and unless you have two of each input you have to unplug your speakers in order to listen to headphones. Since most new computers have a USB port in the front, you can just leave your analog speakers plugged in and easily connect to a USB port.

To get real six-channel sound, the ESound incorporates three independent sound chambers on each side, a design which is patented in several countries including the U.S., Canada, Australia and the E.U. The chambers are oriented so that sound is coming from the direction that it was meant to come from.

Weighing in at about five ounces, the ESound headphones are light and comfortable. The earpieces are made of a soft pleather material with an almost rubberized foam feel to them. However, while we found them to be quite comfortable, they may be a bit on the small side for some people. The earpieces also did a good job of blocking out external sounds.

The unit is an over-the-head design and there are two bands that connect the earpieces together. The headband is flexible and adjustable, which makes it easy to find a good fit, even for the largest of craniums.

With a 10-foot cord, the ESound headphones should reach just about anywhere. We found the cord to be actually too long at times as it got wound around legs and chairs and entangled with other wires, however, we'd much prefer a cord that is too long than too short.

Inline on the cord is the on-board surround sound engine. It is about 4-feet from the USB plug, which makes it so the weight of the unit is not pulling on the headphones. Inside this unit is where all the magic happens. The sound processing unit is about four inches long and features a red-LED that turns on and illuminates the Ezonics logo when plugged into a USB port.

Because of the USB interface and the on-board processing, the ESound is plug-and-play compatible with Mac OSX and Windows XP, 2000, ME, or 98SE. Windows 98SE requires a driver, but the other operating systems work right out of the box.

We tested the ESound using a Compaq Presario 2.4GHz Pentium 4 laptop, a home-built system based on an AMD Athlon XP 2800 Barton and nForce2 motherboard, and an Apple G5 1.6GHz. The PCs were both loaded with Windows XP and configuring the ESound was as easy as plugging it in and waiting a few seconds for the drivers to install. The Apple G5 was just as easy to install, however, we didn't have any Mac games that support 5.1 audio and QuickTime, Apple's default DVD player, also does not support Dolby Digital audio.

We really wanted to take the processing unit and the earpieces apart to get some pictures and a better understanding of what's going on in there, but they were put together so well that we felt we'd break the unit if we tried too hard. Ezonics did provide us with a stock photo to use and it clearly shows the separate sound chambers.

Inside the ESound headhpones. Note the three distinctive sound chambers.