Introduction

The HyperX Cloud Alpha is the spiritual successor to the well-known and well-liked HyperX Cloud Gaming, an excellent gaming headset that offers a mindboggling combination of affordable price and terrific performance, both in terms of sound and microphone quality. It is in fact still one of the best choices in the sub-$100 price bracket, if not the best. With that in mind, the HyperX Cloud Alpha has some massive shoes to fill. You could also consider it a successor to the HyperX Cloud II Gaming because it borrows a lot of aesthetic and functional features from it. Not the supplied USB sound card though - the Cloud Alpha is an analogue headset, which means it comes with standard 3.5-mm plugs and offers no 7.1 surround sound support, unlike the Cloud II Gaming.



The first time I saw the HyperX Cloud Alpha in action was at the Gamescom PUBG Invitational tournament, a $350,000 competition organized by Bluehole (creators of PUBG) and ESL where the very best PUBG players in the world used it to slay their way to the grand prize. The Cloud Alpha was impossible to miss even if you're not all that good at recognizing gaming peripherals because of its distinctive red aluminum frame. The design of this headset is aggressive, and so is its marketing campaign; if you visit the HyperX's official website, you'll notice the Alpha sitting on top of heads of famous streamers, eSports professionals, and even NBA players.

HyperX clearly went all out with every possible aspect of this headset. Even though priced at $100, the Alpha isn't their most expensive or even second most expensive model - those titles belong to the Cloud Revolver and Cloud Revolver S - you'll be hard-pressed to find a good reason to buy them instead of the Cloud Alpha. HyperX equipped this closed-back, over-ear gaming headset with their new 50-millimeter dual chamber audio drivers, premium memory foam, a detachable Discord- and TeamSpeak-certified microphone, and multi-platform compatibility, spanning from PCs and consoles to mobile devices.

Specifications

• 50-mm dual chamber dynamic drivers (neodymium magnets)
• 65 Ω impedance
• 13-27,000 Hz frequency response (specified by the manufacturer)
• Closed-back, over-ear design
• In-line remote control
• Detachable, noise-cancelling microphone
• 3.5-mm connectivity (dual TRS and TRRS)
• 1.3 m + 2 m braided cable
• Weight: 336 g