Plantronics is the headphone and mobile phone accessories division of Altec Lansing, a brand that's well known for the quality of its audio products.  Let's see if the .Audio 995 can live up to the reputation.

Plastic fantastic and soft rubber

Despite being well put together, this headset doesn't make a great first impression with its mixture of glossy and matte black plastics and silver paintwork that's of rather dubious quality.  It's the same with the USB key, which is neither refined or attractive.  Likewise with the padding around the top of the headphones: it's quite a firm foam covered in fake leather.  We've seen classier choices.  Only the matte plastic does well, and it's smooth finish feels pleasant to the touch.

Up to this point, the promises made by this product really didn't stand up to our scrutiny.  Sure, there was never any hope we'd find a real pair of headphones inside, but …

There are buttons on the outside that allow you to control the volume in Windows, as well as playing music in iTunes or Windows Media Player.  You can pause the track you're listening to or start it up again or move to the next one … but it's impossible to skip back to the previous track.  There just isn't a control for it.

One last point in this section--and a good one this time--is that the headset links up with the USB transmitter almost straight away, and you don't need to do anything other than switching it on.

Audio quality that matches the looks

Let's be frank: the sound produced by the .Audio just isn't very good.  It's only as good as other headsets for chatting online.  It echoes as if you're in a cave, lacks definition with absolutely no attention paid to the frequencies used by the human voice.  Whether it's for games, movies, or music, you should look elsewhere.

The wireless system doesn't transit the sound very well.  Even with a direct line of sight with no obstacles, the headset loses the signals after 15 m.  Products using Kleer technology, though, can keep going over several floors of the same building.

Once you push the flexible part of the microphone into its rigid support, you lose sound from the microphone.  It's all very good, but not very useful if you're right-handed and likely to bump into it.  You need to be careful the first few times you use it!

In short, this is a headset that can be reserved for conference call over VOIP if you want to be able to move away from your computer … but not too far!  For anything else, we've seen much better, and for a lot less money.