Introduction

The Cooler Master MasterPulse MH320 is the company's newest and least expensive over-ear gaming headset. Coming in at $40, it clearly aims for gamers on a tight budget, but still promises to deliver everything you might expect from a nice gaming headset - a steel frame, foldable bi-directional boom microphone, comfortable pair of ear cushions, and module with a volume dial and microphone mute button.



Headsets in this price range usually don't come with their own USB sound cards. You're expected to connect them to your motherboard's integrated sound card. The CoolerMaster MasterPulse MH320 is no exception. Connectivity-wise, you can only plug it into your desktop PC, as it's equipped with a separate 3.5-mm headphone and microphone plug and doesn't include a dual TRS-to-TRRS adapter that would let you pair it with a console or a laptop with a combined TRRS audio input/output option.

For a headset of this price, it's admirable that the MasterPulse MH320 uses a dual-headband design, which usually results in exceptional comfort. It's equally nice to see a steel outer headband. When you're looking to spend less than $50 on a gaming headset, you sort of expect it to be made entirely out of plastic. If it can back this up with decent sound and microphone quality, we might be looking at a very nice budget friendly product. Let's find out if that's the case!

Specifications

• 40 mm dynamic driver (neodymium magnet)
• 32 Ω impedance
• 20-20,000 Hz frequency response (specified by the manufacturer)
• Closed-back, over-ear design
• Bi-directional, foldable boom microphone
• In-line volume dial and microphone mute button
• 1.9 m rubberized cable
• Weight: 250 g

The Package

The Cooler Master MasterPulse MH320 comes in a very simple black box. The front of the box showcases the headset and mentions the soft leather and so-called self-adjusting headband. If we're being honest, the ear cushions and inner headband are actually covered in pleather (faux leather). Another picture of the headset has been placed on to the left side of the box.


The rear of the box contains nothing but a list of key features in eight different languages. The right side of the box also puts a strong emphasis on multilingual texts which cite the name of the headset and URL of Cooler Master's homepage. I'm not sure if 23 different languages are needed to get that message across.


Inside the box, you'll find nothing but the headset itself, encased in plastic, and a small booklet that doubles as a user manual and warranty card. Oddly enough, even though the official specifications claims the cable to be 2.1 m long, my measuring tape claims otherwise - it's only 1.9 m long and, as such, fairly short.

Overall, the packaging of the Cooler Master MasterPluse MH320 won't turn many heads, but I actually like its understated looks. The box protects its contents properly.