You’ll have to find the switch and flick it up or down several times to your desired level (You’ll hear a tone in the headphones to indicate that you’ve gone up or down). If you want to quickly change volume, it’s not going to happen. I have a set of Bluetooth workout headphones that have the same sort of mechanic so I was used to it, and one thing is for certain- it isn’t quick. The controls are set up as switches, even the volume. If my wife were in the same room I could easily carry a conversation with her with these on (and no sound playing, mind you)- I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that’s good or bad ? Controls: I can turn on my iPhone 4 and hear it playing a song on speaker down to about 1/5th volume perfectly fine, not much noise blocking at all.
I have 11 high RPM NZXT fans in my PC (Sits on my desk) and a mechanical keyboard and can still hear it all with the Plantronics Gamecom 780’s. Once on and adjusted there isn’t as much noise cancellation as I’d hoped. Some may like the simplicity offered, some may want more.
The software has different settings for Music/Movies and Games, and an option to enable or disable Dolby. I had to go into the Windows sound settings to set them to 7.1, they defaulted to 5.1. Once the software was installed I plugged them into one of my front USB ports.
A sticker attached to the headphones said to install the software before plugging them in, so that’s what I did.
Installation was easy enough, downloaded the latest driver (release 2) from the gamecom/plantronics website and ran the installer. The headband was quite comfortable and I’m not sure if it’s because my ears were taking so much of the weight or what, but they felt very light on the top of my head even though I certainly never felt like they were going to slip off. The mic adjusts to go pretty much where-ever you need it, so no problems there. The ears are a bit small (or maybe mine are huge) and this causes the cups to sit on my ear lobes and upper cartilage (more the lobes then the tops, but pressure on both for sure), and after extended periods causes my ears to get incredibly hot and generally uncomfortable. The whole set adjusts easily for my gigantic noggin, so it’ll definitely fit yours. I’d feel pretty confident accidently dropping these at a LAN and having them turn out A-Okay, though I didn’t perform any sort of drop test! Adjust-ability and Comfort: The ear cups are kind of square with a suede or velvet texture. Will go well with anyone trying to pull off a black and red color scheme for sure. The cord I’m not a huge fan of and would have preferred something braided, but there are no real problems with the one provided. No rattling or anything when shaken, quite solid in all honesty. The Plantronics Gamecom 780’s feel very sturdy.