Software

The software driver is split into three categories: "Lighting," "Sound," and "7.1 Surround Sound." In the Lighting tab you can choose one of three RGB effects (color cycle, static, and breathing) or turn the RGB off. This is essentially the same function that's been assigned to the physical button on the right ear cup. Then there are sliders for the effect's speed and brightness of the LEDs. If you decide to use static or breathing effects, you'll also be able to pick their color, either from a color wheel, a couple of presets, or by manually entering their RGB values.


In the Sound tab, you'll find sliders for the headphone and microphone volume, bass, treble, and a simple 5-band system-wide equalizer. Here, you can adjust the sound in the 60, 120, 500, 1,000, and 2,000 Hz frequency range, on a scale of ±10 dB. I didn't find the equalizer particularly useful as the frequencies which I'd like to boost are those above 2 kHz, which isn't possible here. That's why I suggest you keep it flat. One thing to keep in mind: Whenever you run the software, it will automatically switch to one of the sound profiles listed in the window to the right. The factory-defined profiles, "Pop Music," "Movie," and "Gaming(Bass+)," all sound absolutely horrible. To prevent them from ever activating, select any profile, click on "Reset" (that will make the equalizer flat), click on "Add New Profile" and rename it to something understandable (I just called it "Flat"). Then simply select it. That will permanently keep the headset on said flat sound profile and ensures you're getting the most out of it. Of course, if you want to sculpt the sound with the equalizer, you can play around with the sliders and save your settings into a different profile. Just don't overdo it—nothing good will come out of going above +5 dB in any of the available frequency ranges.


The 7.1 Surround Sound section of the driver lets you manually tune the surround sound, assuming you don't like its subtlety, which I described on the previous page of this review. You'll see an image of a human head and a bunch of speakers surrounding it. By moving the sliders on the right or manually moving the speakers around the head, you'll effectively change the perceived distance of each virtual channel, thus making the sound wider but less focused, or closer and more intense, but also stuffier. To be honest, I preferred the surround sound in its default position. Pulling the virtual channels further away sounds interesting, but introduces some audible reverb, which I'm not a big fan of.

No other options are available in the software driver. What I'd definitely like to see is a microphone sidetone feature, which is always welcome when we're dealing with closed-back gaming headsets. The driver is generally decent—visually unnecessarily bulky but completely functional.