Astro A40 TR Headset + MixAmp Pro 2017  Headphones Review

The Astro A40 are very similar in design to the Astro A50, but they have a different color scheme and are wired headphones. They look and feel like gaming headphones with their bulky and flashy design, which won’t be great for outdoor use. On the upside, you can remove the mic on the A40, which you couldn’t do on the A50. These headphones look well-made and sturdy, but definitely stand out. The PS4 model variant is black, while the white model is compatible with Xbox One.

The Astro A40 Xbox One are very comfortable headphones to wear during long gaming sessions. Like the Astro A50, the cups are large and spacious, which means most ear sizes should fit in. They are a bit heavy, but the soft ear cup and headband padding distribute the pressure well. Some may feel fatigue after a while due to their weight, but they do feel a bit less tight than the A50, which some may prefer.

The A40 MixAmp have good gaming controls, but they don’t offer call and music management, which shouldn’t be an issue for most gamers. They come with an in-line remote that only has a mic-mute button, which is connected to the MixAmp, which offers multiple controls. You get a volume knob and a channel mixing one which has a notch in the middle, for an equal 50/50 mix between game and chat audio. The MixAmp also allows you to cycle through the EQ presets and enable/disable Dolby Surround Sound. The power button also allows you to switch between console and PC mode. The buttons are easy to use and offer good feedback, but the volume knob doesn’t feel as nice as the Turtle Beach Elite Pro 2 SuperAmp.

Even if the Astro A40 are technically open-back headphones, they trap as much heat as the closed-back Astro A50. However, the difference in temperature overall is not too drastic and won’t be too warm. The pads still create a good seal around the ears, which obstructs a decent amount of airflow. These are not sports headphones and won’t be a good option to work out with, but this shouldn’t be too big of a problem when gaming.

The Astro A40 TR Xbox One are very bulky gaming headphones. They are not very portable, but they do not need to be used with the MixAmp and you can detach the mic if you ever want to use them outside. The cups don’t fold into a more compact format, but they do swivel to lay flat, which makes it easier to slide them in a bag. These gaming headphones won’t be very outdoor-friendly and should stay around your gaming setup most of the time.

The Astro A40 do not come with a case or a pouch.

The Astro A40 TR MixAmp Pro are very well-built gaming headphones. The materials used are premium and the overall build feels sturdy. The cups are dense and should survive a few accidental drops without too much damage. However, like the Astro A50, the headband is somewhat open and a little hollow with only a plastic mid-section resting on the head. It's flexible but doesn't feel as resistant as a regular headband, especially those with a metal frame.

These headphones are not very stable and won't be ideal for anything but casual listening sessions and gaming. They're not too tight on the head and the ear cups are bulky and heavy, which causes the headphones to sway a lot if you use them while doing any physical activities. This means they won't be suitable to go jogging with as they are not designed for that use.

• Astro A40 TR headphones
• MixAmp Pro
• USB to micro-USB cable
• 1/8” TRRS cable
• Optical cable
• Daisy chain cable
• Manuals

The frequency response consistency is sub-par. Their bass delivery is inconsistent across our human subjects and the maximum deviation at 20Hz is about 6dB. If you have a lot of hair between the headphones and your ears, or have glasses that are not flush to your temple, then you may experience a noticeable drop in bass. In the treble range, we measured more than 9dB of deviation under 10kHz, which is not good and will be noticeable as well.

The bass range performance of the A40 is decent. The LFE (low-frequency extension) is down at 10Hz, which is excellent. The response throughout the range is very flat, but it is noticeably overemphasized. There’s an average of 4dB over our target curve in the response. This will result in excess thump and rumble, which some may like, but will also make the sound noticeably boomy and muddy. Overall, the bass of the A40 is overdone, and there is a small mismatch between our drivers in the low-bass.

Also, their bass delivery varies noticeably across users and is sensitive to the quality of the fit, seal, and whether you wear glasses. The response here represents the average bass response, and your experience may vary.

The A40’s mid-range is excellent. The response throughout the range is virtually flawless after 400Hz and follows our target curve very well. There is a small 1.6dB bump in low-mid, which is the continuation of the overemphasis in high-bass. This will result lightly make the vocals and lead instruments thick and cluttered, but this won’t be too noticeable. Overall, vocals and leads will be accurately reproduced.

The treble performance of the A40 is just okay. The response throughout the range is noticeably under our target curve. This results in a bit of lack in brightness and detail on vocals and leads. However, not everyone experiences treble frequencies the same way, so your listening experience may differ, especially since they don’t deliver sound consistently across different users.

The imaging is excellent. Their weighted group delay is at 0.17, which is within very good limits. The group delay graph also shows that the entire GD response is below our audibility threshold. This ensures a tight bass and a transparent treble reproduction. Additionally, the L/R drivers of our test unit were very well-matched in amplitude and phase response, but there was some room for improvement in terms of frequency matching. Regardless, objects (like footsteps) and instruments will be located very accurately in the stereo image on these headphones. However, these results are only valid for our unit and yours may perform differently.

The Astro A40 have a decent soundstage. The PRTF graph shows a good amount of pinna activation with good accuracy. However, there's no deep 10kHz notch present. This suggests that the soundstage will be perceived to be relatively large and natural, but located inside the listener's head, as opposed to in front. Their open-back design will help make them more open-sounding than the similarly designed, but closed-back A50.

The isolation performance is bad, but it is by design since they are open-back headphones. In the bass range, they don't isolate at all. This means they will let in all the rumble of the airplane and bus engines or the sound of a subwoofer at a gaming event. In the mid-range, important for blocking out speech, they achieve about 1dB of isolation, which isn’t very noticeable. However, in the treble range, occupied by sharp sounds like S and Ts and A/C noise, they achieve about 15dB of isolation, which is sub-par.

The Astro A40 PS4 / Xbox One have a poor leakage performance, but this can be due to their open-back design. The significant portion of their leakage is between 400Hz-10kHz, which is a very broad range, spanning both mid and treble ranges. This make their leakage more full-bodied sounding than that of in-ears/earbuds and closed-back over-ears. At 100dB SPL and a foot away, their leakage will be relatively loud. The leakage averaged 56dB SPL and peaked at 80dB SPL, which is significantly higher than the noise of an average office.

The boom mic has great recording quality. The LFE (low-frequency extension) is at 20Hz, which is excellent. The HFE of 4.6kHz is decent, resulting in a speech with presence and detail, making it very clear and easy to understand. However, it does lack some openness and airiness, and will sound slightly muffled.

Update 11/11/2021: These headphones have been updated to test bench 1.5. In this update, we made changes to the way we test noise handling. We now use a subjective evaluation of our audio clips. This new method has resulted in different results than what we had reported in our previous test bench. As a result, the scoring of this box has changed, and we have updated our results.

The boom microphone has great noise handling. In our SpNR test, it achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of 58dB, which is outstanding. It indicates that this mic can isolate speech from noise even in the noisiest and demanding environments. This microphone uses a noise gate, which you can't disable, but can select between a few different sensitivity options. Note that we tested the microphone with the noise gate set to "Night" mode.

These are passive headphones that do not need a battery.

These headphones are compatible with Astro Command Center. However, some users have reported encountering severe issues when using the software, which may be due to Astro moving the software download from their site to the Microsoft Store. Unfortunately, users are unable to update the headphones' firmware, which is necessary if you want to connect them to newer consoles. They also can't access any of the software's features, making this issue a significant drawback for using these headphones.

When working correctly, the Astro A40 Command Center provides a great graphic equalizer that you can assign to the EQ button on the MixAmp, which lets you cycle between different saved presets. You can also create your own EQ presets. Furthermore, the microphone tab gives you control over the mic level and the noise gate. However, the EQ only offers 5 bands, which won’t be as customizable as the Logitech G635 and Logitech G935 Wireless with the Logitech G HUB.

These gaming headphones don’t have Bluetooth compatibility. If you want a Bluetooth-capable gaming headset, check out the Turtle Beach Elite 800, the HyperX Cloud Mix, or the SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless.

Thanks to their wired connection, the A40 practically don’t have any latency, which is great for watching video content and playing video games without any delay.

These headphones can be used with or without their USB dock. They have a normal 1/8” analog connector that will offer audio and microphone on all consoles when plugged into the controllers. Over USB and optical, you can have audio and mic on PS4 by using the PC mode of the amp, while you need to use console mode for the Xbox One.

Update 11/11/2021: We originally reported that our PC/Xbox variant had full audio and mic compatibility audio with both PS4 and Xbox One consoles. However, these headphones are console-locked, and when connected to a PS4 while using the MixAmp, the PC/Xbox variant can only receive audio. The console recognizes the mic, but it results in a high-pitched screeching noise that makes the mic unusable. However, you shouldn't experience this issue if you use the PC/PS4 variant with your PS4. We have updated our results to reflect these changes.

The Astro A40 come with a great USB dock that offers plenty of inputs and controls. They have a regular line-in audio jack, an optical input, and audio via the USB cable when plugged into your PC or console. These headphones are advertised as Xbox One or PS4 compatible, so you need to make sure you get the right variant for your console.