Hello everyone!
I wanted to give my input on the new 2013 edition of the Astro A40s with the new mixamp
First, the A40s are improved slightly. They don't sound as hollow to me as the 2011 models, and they added some bass. But if you use the "pro mode" preset on the new mixamp for CoD or whatever, they sound the same as the old ones, at least to me.
Secondly, the microphone is god awful. For some reason, it sounds fine on my PC, but on Xbox, it is literally the worst mic I have ever used on a headset. My old Turtle Beach X11s were far superior in terms of mic quality.
Finally, there seems to be a design flaw with the new removable cord. If I turn my head to the left, it puts minor strain on the cord connected to the headset, and the right earcup cuts out. They're definitely plugged in all the way. Even worse, sometimes I will have to completely unplug the wire just to get both speakers working again. I'm returning the pair I have currently to see if it was just a fluke.
On to the mixamp!
It works pretty much the same as the old mixamp, only with the addition of EQ modes. The first mode called "pro mode" basically takes away a lot of bass, and it makes things sound really empty. It might work better with another headset that has a better mid and high range than the A40s.
The second EQ mode is flat.
The third mode is a media mode, which turns up the bass and the midrange. It actually really helped the A40s mids, but it made the bass way too loud for gaming.
Finally, there's a sports mode. It makes things sound far away, like you're in a stadium. At least, that's what they were going for. I guess it's for all those people that play sports games.
The mixamp is pretty nice. They changed a lot of the ports. They took away the RCA, the orange one(the name escapes me lol) and the toslink cable. Now, they have a fiber optic port(I think). They include a cord with a fiber optic on one end and toslink on the other. Really annoyed that they changed this. They can still be daisy chained together, and there's still a port to play your own music through the mixamp.
The other new feature of the mixamp is the live streaming feature. Supposedly, it takes all the audio going through the mixamp(game audio, chat, and your mic) and streams it out to your computer. I was trying to get this to work, but there wasn't any instruction manual included with the A40s(just a quick start guide) and the people on Astro's support page weren't all that helpful anyway.
I'll update the post with some pictures of the new A40s and the mixamp if you want