Astro A20 Wireless Headphones Review

The Astro A20 have a visibly gamer-centric design. Like most Astro headphones they have square ear cups with neon color accents that give them a futuristic look. Their blocky style isn't the most versatile, however, especially since their microphone sticks out quite prominently and isn't detachable. However, if you like the gamer aesthetic, they look and feel quite premium overall. Note that we tested the Xbox One variant, which has green accents, but the PS4 variant has blue accents.

The Astro A20 are decently comfortable headphones. Their ear cups are roomy and well-padded, with a soft microfiber covering that feels nice on the skin. However, like the Astro A10, they fit a bit tight on the head since their ear cups don't swivel. They may loosen up slightly with repeated use, but, out-of-the-box, they're a bit fatiguing to wear during long gaming sessions.

The Astro A20 have an easy-to-use control scheme with a flip-to-mute mic. The channel mixing controls are conveniently located around the volume dial, which provides good feedback. The equalizer button cycles between three different EQ preset options that are customizable in the Astro Command Center software. However, there are no dedicated controls to play/pause your music.

These headphones are decently breathable thanks to their cloth padding. However, they still trap quite a bit of heat under their ear cups, so your ears can get a bit warm while gaming, especially at the end of a long tournament.

The Astro A20 are bulky gaming headphones. While they're slightly more compact than the Astro A10, they only work in range of their wireless transmitter, which makes them much less portable.

These headphones don't come with a case.

The Astro A20 are well-built headphones. They don't look quite as premium as the higher-end Astro A50 Gen 3 Wireless 2017, but they still feel like sturdy headphones. Despite being made mostly out of plastic, they feel solid enough to withstand a couple of accidental drops every now and then. While their boom mic isn't detachable, it's flexible enough to still feel quite durable.

The Astro A20 have a decently stable fit. They stay in place on your head fairly well, so you don't have to worry about them sliding around too much in the heat of battle. Their wireless design also eliminates any cables from getting in your way thanks to their wireless design. However, they're not stable enough to wear while running or working out.

• Astro A20 headphones
• Micro-USB charging cable
• Wireless base transmitter
• Micro-USB power and data cable
• Toslink optical audio cable
• Manuals

These headphones have a fairly excited default sound profile. They have lots of punchy bass, but can also sound a bit boomy. Their treble is very bright and present, which helps cut through the extra bass but also makes them sound quite piercing, especially if you're sensitive to the higher frequencies. However, these headphones also have a few different EQ preset options that you can cycle through, and you can also customize the way they sound in more detail with the Astro Command Center software.

The Astro A20 have decent frequency response consistency. They perform quite consistently in the bass range, although you might notice a slight drop in bass if you wear glasses. Their treble performance is a bit sensitive to positioning, however. Depending on how the headphones are seated on your head, they can sound a bit more, or less, sharp or piercing.

The Astro A20 have good bass accuracy. Their bass is full-bodied and punchy, but also slightly boomy. If you're playing an immersive single-player game, their extra bass can help make some sound effects more dramatic and engaging, but if you're playing a competitive FPS, you might find it a bit intense.

These headphones have excellent mid-range accuracy. Instruments and sound effects in this range are accurately positioned and present. Voices in the high-mids are a bit more distant, but the range as a whole is still very well-balanced.

The Astro A20's treble accuracy is passable. The under-emphasis in the high-mids continues into low-treble, but the rest of the range is significantly overemphasized. This means that while some frequencies lack a bit of detail, their treble still sounds very bright and present. If you're sensitive to sounds in the higher frequencies, you'll likely find these headphones sound quite sharp, piercing, or even painful to listen to.

Their peaks/dips performance is okay. The wide bump in the bass range brings some excess boominess to their sound, but it's not too bad. However, the abrupt dip in high-mid/low-treble followed by the sharp peak in mid-treble makes them sound more unbalanced in these ranges, with certain frequencies lacking detail while others sound excessively sharp.

These headphones have great imaging. Their weighted group delay is within good limits, and the graph also shows that the response never crosses the audibility threshold, indicating a tight bass and a transparent treble reproduction. Additionally, both the left and drivers of our unit are well-matched in phase and amplitude, so voices, instruments, and video game effects are accurately placed and localized in the stereo image.

The Astro A20 have a decent soundstage. The pinna activation is quite accurate, suggesting a soundstage that's relatively large and natural. It still sounds as if it's inside your head, as opposed to outside in front of you.

The Astro A20 are advertised to support Dolby Atmos and Windows Sonic 3D spatial audio on Windows PC.

The Astro A20 have great weighted harmonic distortion performance. Even at higher volumes, these headphones produce a clean and pure sound.

The test results are valid for the headphones with these settings.

The Astro A20 isolate a poor amount of noise. They don't reduce any noise in the bass range, and their mid-range isolation is barely noticeable. They reduce a bit more noise in the treble range, but it's still not great. If you're gaming in a noisy environment with these headphones, you'll hear the ambient noise seep into your audio.

Their leakage performance is sub-par. It sounds quite full and is also rather loud. You probably won't bother people in another room, but if you share your living room with family or roommates, they may overhear sound coming from these headphones.

These gaming headphones have a non-detachable boom microphone.

The Astro A20's microphone recording quality is decent. Speech recorded and transmitted with the mic sounds relatively full-bodied, but lacking in brightness and detail. Your voice should still sound fairly clear and easy-to-understand, though.

Their microphone has very good noise handling. It separates speech from ambient noise quite well, even in noisy environments like a gaming convention. However, it struggles more in extremely loud and demanding situations.

The Astro A20 have a good battery performance. They get 14 hours of battery life on a single charge and automatically power down when no music is playing. While they take quite a while to charge, you can use them with their wireless transmitter to get audio and mic support while they're charging. However, they can't be used passively with a regular audio cable.

Update 04/19/2019: We've slightly adjusted the score of the Astro Command Center to better reflect its features when compared to other gaming software and software updates.

The Astro A20 have good compatibility with the Astro Command Center. You gain access to a graphic equalizer so you can customize your own EQ presets and assign them to the equalizer button on the headset. There's also microphone tab that gives you control over the microphone's sound profile and noise gate. However, the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Wireless' Turtle Beach Audio Hub companion app, which is available on iOS and Android devices, is slightly better overall.

These headphones aren't Bluetooth compatible. If you want a gaming headset with Bluetooth support, check out the SteelSeries Arctis 3 2019 Edition Wireless.

The Astro A20 have a low latency non-Bluetooth wireless connection, making them a suitable option for gaming.

Unfortunately, these headphones don't support audio over a wired connection. You can, however, use them while charging, but they still get audio from their wireless transmitter.

Since this headset has a variant that's optimized for the Xbox One, you get full audio and microphone support with this console.

The Astro A20 come with a base transmitter that provides a wireless connection but is inferior to other models. The base connects to your console via USB and optical, but there are no other features. It doesn't work across platforms, so you can't easily switch between a PS4 and Xbox One, nor can you pair multiple headsets to a single base station.