Here's the sitch, you've been gaming
for a couple of years now
and your trust to the old headset
is getting a little tired.
Sounds like a perfect time to upgrade
to a wireless gaming headset.
So today, we're taking a deep dive
into five popular gaming headsets
to see which one's worth your hard earned greenbacks.
This is a purse Colin, this is a huge wallet.
The GeForce RTX 2070 Tri Frozer
offers a triple fan thermal design,
eight gigs of GDDR6 memory,
and memory speeds of up to 14 gigabit per second.
Check it out at the link in the video description.
(upbeat techno music)
Let's start with SteelSeries and the Arctis 7.
For about 120 bucks on Amazon, this is one of the more
affordable headsets in the lineup today.
Out of the box, it comes with your required charging
and audio input cables, as well as a remote receiver pod
to increase your wireless range, this thing.
The range on these things is the best
of any of the headphones we tested in our lineup.
It made it way outside the building
and nearly across the whole parking lot
before dropping the signal.
Not bad.
On the back of this receiver,
there is both a line in and a line out.
You can use in for audio from
a second source like your phone
and out for your computer speakers,
which will automatically turn off
when you turn on your wireless headphones.
So, no more messing with the playback device's menu.
Huge win!
Moving onto the listening experience,
the Arctis 7's perform very okay.
Although there's a noticeable drop-off
at the upper and lower ends of the frequency range.
Something that's easy enough
to account for with the Steel Series Engine Software EQ.
For gaming, the 7.1 virtualization is very good,
with clear directionality to enemy movements in game,
but as far chat is concerned, well,
the microphone exists, but it's not gonna win any awards.
It does feature a nifty retraction mechanism though.
So that's nice I guess.
The headband offers a lot of adjustment,
but the pressure around the ears is a bit strong,
particularly for longer sessions.
Overall, the Arctis 7's didn't
impress us too much, hot take.
But they're definitely passable.
Moving on.
Feast your eyes on this, the Corsair Virtuoso Wireless RGB.
RGB.
They're pretty expensive but they got the looks to match.
Check out the subtle RGB in the machine aluminium accents.
The big ear cuffs are comfy
and actually didn't end up getting too hot during use
which is something that occasionally
can be a problem with leatherette cups.
There's also a fully removable microphone.
A nice touch if you have a stand mounted microphone
for streaming, for example.
The range is reported to be 60 feet
but our tests put it closer to 20-25 feet,
which actually is the worst of the bunch
but I am happy to see USB-C making an appearance here.
In fact, you may have noticed USB-C
making another appearance here at "lttstore.com".
Okay, as for gaming, the Virtuoso RGB's have great imaging.
This makes it super easy to focus in on targets you hear.
However, the sound profile is all over the place.
The bass drops off toward the end of the range,
but is weirdly jacked up in the low mid-range.
So it's really boomy out of the box.
However, the Clear Chat EQ preset
in the companion IQ software
actually does a remarkable job of remedying this.
And with some additional tweaking,
we ended up really pleased with the headset as a whole.
Good job Corsair.
Maybe just throw a better tune on this thing
out the box and yeah, happiness.
Next up we have the most expensive headset in the lineup.
The Astro A50.
The big appeal with the A50's
is the fancy wireless charging cradle/dock ordeal.
Not only does it charging a snap, literally,
there's also a huge array
of IO on the back, including optical.
But watch out because other than the micro-b charging port,
there's no IO on the headset at all.
So you cannot connect it to any other devices
unless you use the dock.
That applies to wireless or wired.
Our A50s are PC and PS4 compatible
and there's also a PC/Xbox version
if that's your consol of choice.
As for how they sound though, well look,
they sound good, okay?
Quite good actually.
They have a nice, clear response through
the entire range, particularly up top
but they aren't actually the best sounding headset
in this list in our opinion.
And for the price these command,
that's a major sin in my eyes anyway.
This is really comfortable though.
I really, really want to love them.
They are really comfortable.
They're easy to use day to day
and the fact that there's an Xbox version is awesome.
You don't always see that.
By the way, we're working on a video
where we check out all the different game streaming services
that are coming out now, like GeForce Now, Project xCloud,
and PS Now, so make sure you're subscribed
so you don't miss out.
But for gaming specifically, I'm gonna have to recommend
my next set of headphones,
incidentally from the parent company of Astro, Logitech.
The Logitech G935's.
Let's get one thing out of the way here first.
The G935's from Logitech are not perfect.
The creak a little on the twist
and they're relatively big design may not be for everybody.
So why is this our favorite headset of the bunch?
Well they're priced incredibly well.
They're comfortable with these big plush ear cups
and they just sound fantastic.
The 50 mm drivers make their presence known
with a full and deep low range
while still doing pretty well up top,
with only a mild drop off in the very high end of the range
and with a mild EQ tune up, they sound
just stellar with music.
When it comes to gaming however,
make sure to use the profile switching feature
to enable surround sound.
The DTS codec and surround sound emulation
do an incredible job imaging in-games.
Just be aware the processing affects music
to a degree that is noticeable
but as long as you're actually using
the automatic switching, you're good to go.
The G-hub software gives you a ton of options
for programming the three G buttons
on the back of the headset for lighting, sound
or IO presets and of course there's RGB.
Even though, it's all on the back of the headset
where it's not visible to your stream viewers or audience
and if no one can see your RGB, does it really exist?
Features like the tip-up microphone mute are great to see
as are the hidden dongle cowdy
and user replaceable battery.
Finally, we have the HyperX Cloud Flight.
Wow, are these headphones over amplified.
The highs are way over modulated
and so is the upper bass range with the
noticeable dip in the mids
and since the 270 megabyte software actually contains
nothing useful, the only way to make these sound better
was to install Equalizer APO,
a free equalizer which actually got them
to a totally reasonable level.
Very listenable, that doesn't mean ill forgive the
lack of effort HyperX put into the overall
user and listening experience here though.
For a measly $94 relative
to all the other ones in the group, I can understand it
but it feels like an incomplete product
and our similarly priced other options here
are just better buys.
Podium time, our gold medal goes to these
creaky Logitech G935's as the best value
especially with a good EQ applied.
Speaking of equalizers, if you click through to
our forum post below, all of the custom equalizer tunes
Colin did to these headphones for this video
will be posted for you guys to try out
and if you've never equalized your levels before,
we say, give it a shot, you'll be impressed
and it's not that hard.
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- Thanks for watching guys,
if you wanna see just how high-end
audio reproduction goes, check out our experience
with the Abyss Diana headphones.
We'll have that link at the end screen for ya
which is right here.
This stuff is 40 grand, watch it, Linus cries.
He said he wouldn't cry but I knew he cried.