When I first opened the box for the X-Tatic headset, I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of wires that came spilling out, and I must admit that the setup for any piece of hardware felt a bit daunting at first. Provided you have the right wires and ports, you can pretty much hook the X-Tactic up to anything. The two major components that makes the setup "go" is the Sound Control Unit (SCU) and a rather large in-line controller attached to the headphones.
The in-line controller has a built-in amplifier that you can turn on and off, as well as both audio and microphone volume and mute controls. The SCU acts more or less as an adapter between all of the devices. This is what will take in a digital or analogue signal and pipe it to your SR headphones or even normal analogue ones. This device also lets you switch between several listening modes like Dolby ProLogic II, Dolby Headphone and basic Music Mode. It has a USB port to receive power and a switch to turn 3D Stereo on and off.
So how does it all fit together? Thankfully, four sets of hook-up instructions also come with the hardware, and they each show what pieces are needed and how the come together for each of the major types of hardware it can be used for.
For instance, in order to hook it up to an Xbox 360, the most complicated setup, you need to attach the removable microphone to the headset, plug the Xbox 360 Microphone Connector to the controller and the volume controller on the headphone's cable. You then plug that cable into the SCU. From there, you plug a USB cable and an optical cable into your 360 and the SCU. Since the older 360's don't have a Digital Optical port, you may need to get some output cables that have the necessary port. If you have a Slim, on the other hand, the port is provided for you.
Other setups like the PS3 and Tablet PC (i.e. iPad) configurations are only slightly less complicated. In these cases, you are only missing the cable that plugs into your controller. At least for the PS3, you have a built-in optical audio out port no matter which version of the console you happen to own. For the tablet devices that don't have digital optical out, the X-Tatic SR Gaming Headset box contains a basic 3.5 mm stereo connection wire and you will plug the USB power cable into a wall plug that has a USB port on it. This isn't included, but if you have an iPad or similar, you probably already have one laying about.
There are two different ways to hook the SR Gaming Headset to a PC. The simplest solution, and the best one for laptops or other "on the go" scenarios, uses a splitter that you plug directly into the headphone's cable. This splitter results in a USB port, and two 3.5 mm jacks, one for headphones and one for microphone. The other setup uses the SCU and is meant to be a more permanent setup much like the PS3 and 360 varieties. Here, you would hook everything up like it was a PS3, provided you have an optical out, of course. If not, the SCU can be switched to analogue and you can use the standard 3.5 mm wire mentioned above with Tablet PCs.
Like I said, the headphones are very flexible as far as their setup is concerned. Provided you have the right wires and ports, you can pretty much hook the X-Tactic up to anything. Of course, the biggest question with any set of headphones is the sound quality.
