Astro A20 Gen 2 Wireless  Headphones Review

They look very similar to their predecessor, the Astro A20 Wireless. They have an eye-catching color scheme along with Astro's distinctive blocky headband shape. They aren't likely to be confused for anything other than gaming headphones, especially as you can't remove their boom microphone. Note that the Xbox variant of these headphones have a green-and-white color scheme. The PlayStation variant of these headphones have a white design with blue accents.

These headphones are decently comfortable. They feel lightweight on your head and have fairly plush microfiber-lined ear cups. Unfortunately, the ear cups don't swivel, which can cause a bit of discomfort if you have large ears, as they won't fully accommodate your ear.

The Astro A20 (Gen 2)'s control scheme is passable. It's easy to use, with dedicated buttons for power on/off, EQ preset cycling, and channel mixing between game and voice audio. You can mute the mic by simply flipping it upwards. There's also an infinite scrolling wheel for volume adjustment, though it doesn't offer audio cues or physical feedback once you reach a maximum setting. There's also no way of determining the voice/game balance either.

These headphones are fairly breathable. While they don't trap as much heat as some over-ear headphones, thanks to their microfiber ear cup padding, your ears will start to get toasty during long listening sessions.

They aren't very portable. They're quite bulky, and since their ear cups don't swivel flat, they can be hard to store in a bag or pouch, though their boom mic can swivel upwards to avoid snagging on something. You also need to carry around their wireless transmitter for them to work.

These over-ears are well-built. They're mostly made of plastic with cloth ear cup padding and a silicone-like material lining the headband. On the downside, the mic isn't detachable. Still, they feel sturdy enough to survive being accidentally dropped without taking too much damage.

The Astro A20 (Gen 2) are decently stable. They won't have much trouble staying in place if you wear them while gaming, but they can fall off with vigorous head movements. Thankfully, their wireless design eliminates the risk of having an audio cable snag on another object and yanking them from your head.

• Astro A20 (Gen 2) headphones
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable
• USB wireless dongle
• Quick Start guide

When using the 'ASTRO' EQ preset, these over-ears have a somewhat excited V-shaped sound profile. Their bass range is slightly overemphasized, which can intensify the thump and rumble of sound effects in action-heavy games, but it doesn't totally overwhelm more delicate in-game dialogue or music. The exaggerated mid and treble ranges are meant to help dialogue and instruments sparkle amongst the extra bass, but it can sound harsh. Sibilants like cymbals also sound piercing. If this isn't to your liking, you can cycle through three built-in EQ presets: 'Astro', which emphasizes bass, 'Pro', which emphasizes vocals and dialogue, and 'Studio', which provides a more neutral listening experience.

These over-ears have great frequency response consistency. You won't experience too much of a deviation in bass delivery on separate occasions, but a slight drop in bass may occur if you wear glasses or have thick hair, which can interfere with their seal against your ears. Treble delivery can vary a little more noticeably depending on their fit and positioning.

These over-ears have great bass accuracy. Most of the range is overemphasized but very flat, yielding a bit of extra thump, punch, and warmth without sounding too boomy or muddy. This will please fans of action-heavy games with a lot of explosions and gunshots, like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III.

The Astro A20 (Gen 2) have impressive mid accuracy. Most of the range is fairly flat, so voices, vocals, and lead instrumentals sound full-bodied and present within the mix. However, a bump in the high-mid gives these notes a harsh, honky quality.

These over-ears have sub-par treble accuracy. The entire range is overemphasized, meaning that dialogue, vocals, and lead instruments can sound harsh and painful while higher notes, like sibilants, can have a piercing quality. Since their treble delivery can vary a little depending on their fit and positioning, your experience may vary.

These headphones have satisfactory peaks and dips performance. There are some deviations from the sound profile, meaning the headphones struggle to control their sound profile. A peak in the low bass range adds extra thump and rumble to some mixes. Meanwhile, a dip in the low-mid affects the left driver more prominently and thins out dialogue, vocals, and lead instruments. Spikes in the low-treble range make vocals and lead instruments from the left driver sound harsh, while the peak in the mid-treble affects the right driver more, giving sibilants a piercing, painful quality.

We encountered issues in testing the Astro A20 (Gen 2)'s stereo imaging performance. The results obtained are not indicative of the headphones' real-world performance, and we are currently investigating the cause of this discrepancy. While we haven't evaluated their performance accurately in this regard, other comparable Astro headsets, like the Astro A20 Wireless, generally deliver great stereo imaging performance, resulting in the accurate placement of objects like voices and footsteps within the stereo image.

These over-ears have a decent passive soundstage. Even though they're closed-back headphones, their soundstage feels fairly open, wide, and natural. However, your audio will seem to come from inside your head rather than from speakers placed in the room around you.

They have good weighted harmonic distortion performance. There's a bit of distortion at moderate listening volumes in the low-mid range. However, it only affects the right ear at moderate volume, and the spikes are a bit hard to hear with real-life content as they affect a narrow portion of the frequency range.

These are the settings used to test the Astro A20 (Gen 2). Our results are only valid in this configuration.

These gaming headphones have terrible noise isolation performance. They filter out almost no ambient noise across the bass and mid ranges, so you'll hear the low rumble of passing trucks from an open window as well as chatter from people nearby. They do a better job of isolating you from higher-pitched background noise, like the hum of an AC unit, but their performance is still sub-par.

The Astro A20 (Gen 2) have poor audio leakage performance. Audio bleed is mostly concentrated from the mid to treble range, which sounds somewhat thin. However, if you're gaming at high volumes and in a shared place like a living room, others around you can hear it.

The flippable boom mic delivers mediocre recording quality. Recorded speech sounds thin and muffled but fairly natural and mostly free of distortion.

The boom mic's noise handling performance is good. Even if you're talking to teammates in a noisy environment like a shared living room, your voice will be clear and easy to follow. If you're looking for gaming headphones with even better noise handling performance, try the ROCCAT Syn Pro Air Wireless.

These over-ears have a great overall battery performance. The manufacturer advertises them to last fifteen hours continuously, exceeding the older Astro A20 Wireless' roughly 14-hour battery life. While we measured over that, it's important to note that battery life varies depending on your usage, including your volume level and mic use. That said, there's a built-in auto-off timer, which turns the headphones off after ten minutes. They don't support passive playback, but you can use them while charging via their USB cable.

These over-ears don't support any wired connections. They come with a USB-A to USB-C cable for charging.

Although we measured very high negative latency when we first tested these headphones, we've improved our latency methodology. Our results better reflect the headphones' capabilities and what you can expect with your own unit. As a result, the Astro A20 (Gen 2) have quite low latency, so you can game without worrying about lip sync issues.

Whether you have the PlayStation, Xbox, or PlayStation variant of these headphones, you can wirelessly connect them to your PC with full audio and mic support.

These headphones' PC and PlayStation variants can wirelessly connect to PlayStation consoles using their dongle. If you have the Xbox variant, you won't be able to connect them to this console.

The PlayStation and PC variants of the Astro A20 (Gen 2) aren't compatible with Xbox consoles. However, the 'Green/White' variant comes with a dongle that's compatible with Xbox consoles and PCs.

These over-ears come with a wireless USB dongle. It's either compatible with PlayStation consoles and PCs or Xbox consoles and PCs, depending on the variant. However, you can always purchase an additional dongle with the compatibility you want down the road. As we tested the PlayStation variant, a white indicator light showed that the dongle was in PC compatibility mode. However, pressing the button on its top surface turned the light to a solid blue, denoting it was in PlayStation compatibility mode.

Note: Our dongle was stuck in PlayStation compatibility mode during testing, and it took several re-pairing attempts to revert it to the PC compatibility mode.