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Gaming headsets can be pretty expensive.
In fact, my favorite gaming headset costs over $300 - which is generally out of your
average gamer’s budget.
Sometimes you just need a gaming-oriented headset that won’t break the bank - and
I have one here for you today for under $20.
Let’s check it out.
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This is the “Model: G5” gaming headset from Afunta.
It’s designed to work with the PS4, Xbox 360, PC, and mobile devices.
For this, it has your basic green and pink mic and headphone 3.5mm audio jacks, but in
the box also comes with a 4-pole splitter for the PS4 and mobile devices, and an Xbox
360 chat adapter.
Afunta wanted to make sure you could hook this headset up to just about anything - and
with a 16 ohm impedance for its 40mm drivers, you can do just about that.
Taking a physical tour of the headset, we have just about as generic a design as possible
- which is fine.
What isn’t fine, however, is the confusing use of both matte and glossy black plastic.
While the glossy plastic should be avoided like the plague, you should at least commit
to one or the other!
Having both is just weird, and the glossy plastic should be dropped immediately.
The height adjustment is just plastic notches, but they feel surprisingly sturdy.
The ear cups swivel ever so slightly.
There’s not a ton of swivel, but there is some and that’s pretty good to have.
The rubbery plastic for the ear cups and top band - which is a solid top band, by the way
- scream cheap.
Put it on your head and it feels like you’re wearing a toy.
It feels cheap, but it doesn’t hurt or feel bad per se - it just feels cheap.
It could be worse.
You will, however, build up some heat under this headset.
The ear pads are removeable, and so you could replace them if you found compatible ones.
This will change the sound stage, however.
You have very hard to see “L” and “R” letters to indicate the left and right earcups,
with “Letton” in blue written on the right side and Model: G5 written on the mic on the
left.
The microphone has what seems to be about 160 to 170 degrees of rotation, but does NOT
rotate all the way back, so it’s not reversible.
There’s also no mic mute switch, which can be very annoying.
There’s a volume knob inline on the cable, which is decent, but not great by any means.
The cable is decently-flexible, though.
As usual, I would prefer a suspension style headset, but they do offer that in their G3
headset, so maybe that could be a good alternative, too.
I do believe it’s cheaper than this G5.
Speaking of price, did I mention this headset was only EIGHTEEN DOLLARS?
That’s not bad.
Not bad at all.
So, for that price, how do they sound?
Well, about how you might expect for under twenty bucks, but they do surprise me in some
ways.
These are closed-back headphones with a very up-close sound stage.
So for noise isolation, these are actually really, really good when the volume is high.
Even with my super loud A/C on, dishwasher going, etc.
I pretty much only hear my game.
However, channel separation is really, really bad.
It’s not super noticeable other than for specific tests, but I ran it through my Adobe
Audition 5.1 channel audio test, and the left and right channels were not separate at all.
Rear Left and Rear Right were perfectly separated, however, and rear center sounded like it was
front center.
So don’t expect this to be the most epic positioning headset you’ve ever used…
or even good for that at all.
The audio from this headset isn’t super clear, it definitely feels muddy at times.
This isn’t helped by the fact that there’s virtually no detail in the high-end.
Very disappointing.
For music, if I turn on an EQ for, the Rock EQ preset in iTunes, for example, it sounds
pretty decent, but with EQ off it just sounds really bad.
I noticed something weird with music with this headset - with general music, rock and
electronic-y dubstep-y stuff, you don’t get any high-end detail, but for music that
is purely focused on the high-end like K-Pop, you hear a lot more of it.
There’s a lot less mudding with that kind of music.
I tested out its console capabilities with the PS4, by plugging it into the PS4 controller.
While other headsets like the SteelSeries Siberia 200 play great with the controller,
this one does not get loud at all - which is odd, since the G5’s impedance is half
that of the Siberia 200.
The sound on PS4 was super muffled sounding, and the up-close sound stage means directional
positioning is downright impossible.
So this, in a nutshell, is the Model: G5 gaming headset from AFUNTA.
Or Letton.
I’m really not sure where the “Letton” came from, but it’s on the side of the headset.
It doesn’t sound great, but it costs next to nothing and is better than no headset.
Since it’s so lightweight, it stays fairly comfortable during long gaming sessions, despite
being a solid-band headset.
Thanks so much for watching my review of the AFUNTA G5 gaming headset.
If you enjoyed it, smash that like button, don’t forget to subscribe, and leave me
a comment saying whether or not you would use a eighteen dollar headset.
Also check out links in the description for my Twitter, Instagram, Patreon campaign - things
like that, and I’ll see you next time.