good people I'm Dimitri and today we're taking a look at the SXFI gamer
headset from creative labs the thing is I do not actually want to review this
headset until they emailed us with two big claims saying this is the best
microphone on any game a headset the commander pro microphone so let's test
out if this actually sounds the best and versus my entire gaming headset
collection and number two they claim it also has the best surround sound gaming
experience using their holographic algorithm that maps out the ear and your
head size and gives you a more personalized approach to surround sound
audio that has been specifically tuned for eSports and that to me is kind of
bizarre element in the first place because normally you don't enable
surround sound for csgo for battlefield for Call of Duty because that usually
mutes out all the important elements whereas with creative they claim with
the new battle mode it gives you the best directionality and the best
positional awareness and also takes into account the distance of audio cues so
not only does it expand your environment but does it so accurately for eSports
and so that is why I'm excited to check out the SXFi Gamer by the way the
proper way to say as SXFI Gamer is sexified gamer wing and do that so I've
been using this headset for the past week and I'm excited to share my
experience testing their claims about this being the best microphone in class
and their surround sound for eSports games alright let's check it out right
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gaming notebook you want specs that can meet the most demanding tasks like a
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you also want something that's a lightweight and easy to carry around how
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at the links below and to the extreme alright so first of all
it's pretty competitively priced at $129 so going against PC 37X Logitech G
Pro X but this being a USB type-c headset you're not relying on any sound
processing based on your motherboard based on your sound card as all the
processing is done on the headset the USBC cable here is reinforced kevlar
whatever that means I'm guessing it's pretty strong but it
does send out a bunch of cable noise directly into the ear cup so you better
not have this rub against your shirt or somewhere else around or move too
much with the headset because all that movement will be audible since there is
a USBC headset we have a USB a to use PC dongle which is pretty compact and most
likely will be attached to the actual cable when you travel or when you need
to replug it in if you don't have a type C cable available on your machine but
there is no way to actually store this with the headset so I would recommend
plugging it into the cable if you don't want to lose this we also have a 3.5
million in beside the USB type-c so you can use this headset in wired
analog operation but of course you lose out on that beautiful RGB illumination I
really like the consistency and uniformity of the illumination and
they're going after the whole spaceship x-gamer e vibes without looking kind of
stupid note quality is fine no rattling anywhere even once you stretch out the
headset to almost its maximum at 349 grams it's not exactly lightweight and
most of the padding is actually on the ear cups so there leatherette really
thick and nice soft memory foam like material unfortunately there is no
padding inside the ear cup so that means that you can feel the plastic housing on
the driver right underneath in case your ear makes contact it will not be
comfortable and number two I'm surprised at how little padding there is on the
headband and for me personally the clamping force is enough to stabilize
the headset on my head without relying too much on the headband and the
clamping force here is absolutely perfect no issues wearing this thing for
hours but do keep in mind this is a closed design so heat accumulation
inside does happen there is a bit of wiggle room on the ear cups to conform
to your head size and there is some plastic on plastic contact
I find it really interesting that the ear cups are removal yet no replacement
velour pads are included with the package which normally come with like a
gaming headset at this price point but not here let there only but overall I'd
say it's pretty good pair comfort wise and build quality wise also given the
really thick ear cushions wearing glasses with the gamer absolutely no
issues here even though this is a really low profile frame
there's no clamping anywhere it's nice all of your controls are on the left
side with the sx fi button to enable surround sound mode on/off or enable
battle mode we have a volume wheel that has no tactility whatsoever but volume
adjustment is instantaneous which is great and we have a mic mute button
below the microphone of course is removable and there is no attachable pop
filter because that is built into the microphone itself and I do appreciate
the red LED indicating when the microphone is working when it's solid
and when it's mute it does flash and red I also appreciate this LED indicator
because it has to face your mouth in order to have the best pickup because
even the slightest like it's facing down the volume pickup for the microphone
will be completely different and you'll sound way too distant and finally you
can change the illumination mode directly from the headset with the
button above the microphone giving you the preset color that you choose versus
cycle and off for a little added user experience there's an announcer voice
built-in so when you change the SXFI modes you can hear what is being enabled
or disabled and the same thing with mic on or off alright so let's begin with
the microphone test what you listening now is the commander microphone by the
SXFI Gamer first of all there is built-in site own something that is
there by default you cannot remove it aka you can hear slightly yourself like
it's not completely muted which i would say is a positive thing but normally you
have the option to adjust the site tone volume and multiple other scenarios
would USB headsets here you cannot I will say I really like the
implementation of the led when the microphone is working because otherwise
like if I position the microphone slightly down where the LED is facing my
mouth like my neck like even this would appear to be normal right but I sound a
lot more distant than if I position the facing my lips as for noise suppression
you guys can probably hear a little bit of modulation in my volume because it's
trying to suppress whatever is happening in the ambient environment which right
now is pretty quiet but if I was to try a start typing you can maybe hear a
little bit of modulation that is happening with RTX voice I think
companies are trying to scramble to see who has the best solution in terms of
like noise suppression but creative here's trying to do is deliver a more
balanced approach so it doesn't completely isolate all the keystrokes
for example and like little banging and stuff around your environment but I
think it does a good job as for the microphone quality let me know what you
think how does it sound to your ears what I'm hearing is nice bass pickup
good clarity without me sounding nasally nor too muddy I wouldn't necessarily say
it's like a broadcast quality microphone but it's definitely getting up there
next up is the Sennheiser PC37X this is my benchmark gaming microphone I think
it sounds fantastic it does have a bit more of that pop pick up even though it
has a built-in pop filter but it has great bass nice clarity great full body
sound not as nasally as other gaming microphones and now let's check out the
Logitech G Pro X and now we're listening to the G Pro X headset by Logitech and
so this one with the collaboration with Blu voice the software suite is quite
powerful but the microphone I think is not capable in delivering what the
software can do in terms of changing the different equalizer settings for the
volkl pickup and it's kind of standard let me know what you think between the
three which one sounded best two years and finally let's talk about the sound
quality and whether or not the SXFI Ggamer delivers on their initial claim of
having the best FPS sound mode aka battle mode when short what battle mode
is it creates this virtual distance awareness that can give you an advantage
in knowing exactly how far certain audio keys are coming from and I think it's
still a stereo reproduction but there's some clever tweaking in here so that the
highs are boosted without it sounding crunchy while the super XFI SXFI
modes it creates a surround sound note virtual personalized
multi-channel multi-directional recreation and to be honest I lowered my
expectations when jumping into a game using battle mode but then I realized
when you disable it just how much better it is when battle mode is enabled for
FPS games like Cod bf5 csgo and escape from tarkov by default the
headset is quite neutral with a lot of power this is USB powered after all with
a little double beep when you reach maximum volume but good base nice
clarity on the high end the mid-range isn't pushed too far forward it isn't
too too close either I would say it's a really good sounding
pair for gaming by default and of course it's really important to have that
baseline covered before introducing any of the sound modes and so let me talk
about battle mode first because I think it is quite game-changing in battlefield
5 with it disabled the game almost sounds flat even though it isn't it's a
beautiful sound engine but when battle mode is enabled it's almost like
applying contrast to an image so the highs are amplified your directional
awareness becomes so much more apparent and like pinpointing exactly where
footsteps are coming from and how far they are and on what level they are so
not only do we have verticality we have very good directionality or distance
measurement with battle mode enabled now jumping into csgo I did not find battle
mode as useful there as I did with ba5 just because csgo
I mean the sound engine is good already by default in terms of being able to
hear things being able to position things within the map and so you don't
necessarily need to emphasise that anymore
and in fact I found it to kind of go the other way where it gave me less of an
enjoyable audio then when battle mode is disabled however where I think battle
mode is absolutely amazing is escape from tarkov
so in that game you have different headsets that your character can wear to
amplify different frequencies of audio inside the game and so battle mode
almost does that for you without the need to actually wear the head
that on your character in game so for EFT when battle mode is enabled I felt
like I had an advantage because the highs were boosted but not too sharp and
this isn't something that I've been able to recreate simply with EQ tweaking so
I'm not sure what they're doing in their algorithm and making sure they're
feeding the source audio and here to recreate a really good positional like
audio reproduction but it gave me full awareness of verticality distance and on
a small map like Factory I had total awareness so where enemies were coming
from as you can see by that game play and even when I went through to a larger
map like shoreline having a sniper that is shooting a kilometer away gave me
that perfect distance measurement almost like I could sense they're really far
away while the game by itself would also give you that but battle mode kind of
gives you an advantage in that sense where you don't have to boost the volume
on the headphone simply enabling battle mode gives you better clarity without it
sounding too harsh or like really tamed
and so from my experience battle mode is helpful and really busy audio engines
ba5 aft but I didn't particularly find it useful
in csgo and now let's talk about the SXFI surround sound mode and that one I'm
not entirely convinced as necessary just because there are many roadblocks along
the way to get you to actually enjoy it so first of all you need to download an
app on your phone take picture of your ear and your face and it generates a
more personalized all you experience when it comes to surround sound you need
to then install an applications for the desktop sign into your super x5 profile
and use that for the surround sound experience so the issues can begin from
the beginning I encountered multiple crashes on my iPhone and that normally
doesn't happen and also whenever I try to download the sound profile SXFI
through the desktop app it sometimes just wouldn't download it but when it
finally does work it does expand your audience and it is one of the better
surround sound modes that I've experienced still not as good as what
son Heiser does with gsx 1000 but this is like a close second what is trying to
do is recreate audio as if it was playing out of speakers in front of you
and in many situations that could be an enjoyable experience for example if you
don't feel like wearing headphones and having that almost closed sound turning
on super X Phi gives you that open sound it's still not perfect as many audio
cues and game just completely get pushed too far out and like you don't hear the
particular audio cues that you would in stereo for example the dialogue and Red
Dead Redemption to just tone it a little bit off when SXFI was enabled while
still allow me to expand the audio environment but I want to enjoy the
important elements in the game and in stereo mode you can still enjoy the
environment and its massive audio stage without SXFI alright so I think its
conclusion time and what creative have delivered here is a headset that is
trying to be soup ambitious and catering to the FPS market
to the eSports market while introducing features that are normally like shunned
upon and pushed aside when it comes to exactly that gamer style and I think
they've succeeded here with battle mode that I do not play without when it comes
to escape from tarkov the microphone quality as you heard is kind of
broadcasting not exactly there and I think they have a bit too of aggressive
modulation and volume making sure that you're heard regardless of how loud you
speak it is pretty impressive to hear the difference between personalized and
6fi profile versus it not being there and I think they're onto something but
it's gonna take a lot of convincing for people because I've been not
recommending surround sound at all and now I'm kind of flip-flopping back and I
still don't recommend it for everything but I mean battle mode is a different
thing but as sexify it's kind of cool for a certain genre of games but I
wouldn't necessarily buy this headset for that particular reason
I think creative is onto something here catering to the gaming community with
something super unconventional and maybe more gaming audio brands should follow
adding a little bit of flair to their gaming headsets so that you can have a
bit of an advantage you know it's like placing a digital crosshair from your
monitor to give you an advantage in some titles it's kind of the same thing here
almost like adding contrast to the audio environment so that things that are
important are audible and things that are not so important are muted in the
background but I think I'm done blabbering about this headset for now
thank you so much for watching let me know what you think of the audio quality
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