Sound Quality

The XPG Precog is apparently the world's first dual-driver gaming headset. In each ear cup is a standard dynamic speaker driver coupled with an electrostatic driver. Electrostatic speaker drivers weren't invented by XPG; an old, well-known technology, it is used by some high-end speaker and headphone manufacturers whose characteristics are beloved by many audiophiles. To quote Wikipedia, the sound is generated by the force exerted on a membrane suspended in an electrostatic field. Electrostatic speaker drivers have extremely low distortion, excellent frequency response, and are lightweight, but lack bass, which is exactly why they're paired with a standard dynamic driver that takes care of the low and middle frequencies.

The supplied sound card permanently attached to the braided USB-C cable offers three DSP settings: Music, 7.1, and FPS. As their names suggest, the 7.1 setting is 7.1 virtual surround sound, and FPS should but won't improve your experience in first-person shooters. The Music setting is the neutral one, where no additional DSP processing is applied. Right from the start, I strongly suggest you steer clear of both 7.1 and FPS because they won't do you any favors in terms of in-game spatial awareness and target pickup.


The 7.1 sound mode widens the sound, but does so by adding a significant amount of reverb. Because of that, everything sounds heavily processed, echoy, and sluggish. The decay is slow across the entire frequency range and vocals/voices lose their naturality and position on the soundstage—to put it simply, the XPG Precog stops being nice to listen to. Spatial positioning becomes a game of hit and miss. The 7.1 mode offered by the XPG Precog definitely won't help you win your next game of Call of Duty: Warzone, Apex Legends, or Fortnite. Switching it to FPS mode won't do that either. You'll lose any trace of bass, but without getting the benefits of a boosted mid and high range. FPS mode sounds like an another attempt at virtual surround sound, and a failed attempt at that. Aside from heavy, unnatural post-processing, a significant amount of veiling is introduced. It's hard to say what XPG tried to achieve by tuning FPS mode this way, but I can say for sure that it doesn't work as intended. Out of three available sound modes, this one is actually the worst you can possibly use for first-person shooters, or anything else really.

Music mode is what the XPG Precog is all about. One could argue that its name is deceiving—it's called "Music," but is by far the best mode for any kind of usage, be it music listening, gaming, movie watching or anything else. According to XPG, no DSP filtering is applied in this mode, which means we're getting the "pure" sound of the built-in speaker drivers.


Assessing the performance of the XPG Precog in Music mode has been a bit of a roller coaster. When I first started using it, I thought the headset sounded deep, thick, and decently detailed in the bass region, slightly boosted in the highs, but veiled, almost muffled in the mid-range. After some 10 hours of gaming and (loud) music listening, the aforementioned veil apparently lifted, as I can no longer hear it—the mid-range became clear and nicely integrated into the sound signature of the XPG Precog. It's definitely not a case of my ears (brain) simply getting used to it, if that's what you're thinking, as I'm constantly switching between various headphones. The thick, punchy bass adds a hefty amount of warmth to the overall sound of the XPG Precog, although the mids and highs do sound a bit hard and are delivered in an in-your-face manner. This works nicely for gaming. As I plowed my way through Doom Eternal, the XPG Precog treated me with massive, head-shaking explosions and did a good job of keeping up with the unspeakable intensity of id Software's latest game. It served me well in Call of Duty: Warzone and Apex Legends too, both in terms of excitement and spatial awareness—the guns were loud, and I felt like I knew where my enemies were coming and shooting me from.


When it comes to music, things aren't as stellar, as I want more naturality and subtlety than the XPG Precog is able to deliver. Don't get me wrong, various genres still sound good, just don't expect to get the dynamics or finesse you might expect from a $150 pair of headphones. The XPG Precog has an obvious in-your-face attitude in every possible way, sound quality included. The built-in speaker drivers can be pushed to extreme volumes by the provided sound card. I never felt the need to go above 40% of the total available volume range. If you find most USB gaming headsets too quiet for your taste, definitely do give this one a try (and check your hearing!), as it is one of the loudest headsets I have tested to date.


The passive sound isolation is decent albeit not perfect. At higher listening volumes, some sound will inevitably leak out. At the same time, I didn't feel any pressure in my ears or the need to talk louder than necessary, which would be the case with ear cushions that seal too tightly. Overall, XPG struck a good balance here.


XPG also implemented an additional useful feature into the Precog, although they didn't utilize it to the fullest. When connected to a PC, the headset introduces itself as two separate playback devices: the "XPG Precog Gaming Headset" and "XPG Team Chat." The idea is to make the "XPG Precog Gaming Headset" your default playback device before firing up your VoIP app of choice (Discord, Skype, TeamSpeak, etc.), going into its audio settings, and selecting the "XPG Team Chat" as the preferred playback device. By doing so, you essentially tell Windows to use one device for voice playback and a different one to playback all other sounds. You can then adjust the volume of your teammates' voices separately from the master volume, which comes in handy for when you want to make them louder without making the game louder as well. Too bad XPG didn't think of a way to make the "XPG Team Chat" volume adjustable by using the physical volume dial on the sound card. You'll have to do it manually in the Windows Volume Mixer.