A Closer Look

Looking at the Megara, it is clear that it is geared towards gamers. The device utilizes the company colors of orange and black and sports large Cougar logos on its ear buds. The right ear bud has a longer cable because you are supposed to route it around the back of your neck. For gaming purposes, this is important to avoid the cable coming down front and center, which could potentially have it get in the way of your mouse and keyboard during a heated gaming session.


The Megara earbuds are actually quite large. Cougar justifies this by mentioning the 13.5 mm drivers embedded inside each of these. However, there are design elements around the unit's exterior which don't really need to be there. A silicone hook is also present, there to secure the buds within your ear cups. While this is great, it would have been nice to have different sizes here as well in order to accommodate every user. Due to the size, the actual tip of the in-ear is angled to fit into your ear canal properly.


The nozzle is of a standard variety, so you should be able to utilize your own tips if you like. The construction quality is clean, with a fine filter on the end of the opening. Overall, the construction materials are pretty standard for an in-ear headset.


Further down the wire, you will find the Megara's control unit. It includes three buttons for music control and a second microphone besides the boom microphone. This is great since you can't use the boom microphone with your mobile device or while leaving the attachable microphone at home.

However, in Android, the RWD and FWD buttons act as volume controls, while the play/pause button can be used to forward to the next song via a double click; you can even trigger OK Google by holding it down.

In iOS, things seem to work similarly to Android, with the exception of the RWD and FWD buttons. These have no functions in iTunes, for example.

On a Macintosh, things are similar to iOS. The RWD/FWD buttons once again have no functions in iTunes, but the play button acts as a universal control. A long press triggers Siri and short presses play and pause a song. A double press forwards to the next title and a quick triple press of the play button jumps to the previous song.

The unit does not work at all on most Windows systems as the audio I/O does not necessarily support any of the functionality. In none of these environments was I able to use the RWD or FWD buttons as intended by default. There may be ways of doing so I am unaware of, but as it stands, those only work as a means to control the volume in Android.


The Cougar Megara is for gamers, so it comes equipped with a boom microphone. It is a straight piece that may not be bent and is attached to the left ear piece. You may simply unplug it if you take the Megara on the road.


The microphone at the very end juts out towards the front, which is fine considering it wouldn't be long enough to wrap around and to the front of your mouth anyways.


Cougar employs a flat orange cable since such a cable is not prone to tangling up as much as a circular one. A sturdy protective bit has been applied to the area where the cable splits to go to each ear piece, so you won't have to worry about it breaking at this point. At the very end is a straight 3.5 mm audio/microphone combo plug for you to connect the Megara to a mobile phone and utilize both audio in and output.