Sound Quality

Much like the original HyperX Cloud Alpha, the Cloud Alpha S is based on the dual chamber speaker driver system, where the bass is coming from one chamber and the mids and highs from another, separate chamber. Of course, all frequencies come together before reaching your ears, so you don't have to worry about hearing them separately. The general idea is to add more clarity to the sound by making the bass fat and powerful, but preventing it from spilling into the midrange. This isn't just a nice marketing tale—the Cloud Alpha S does not just sound better than most other gaming headsets in HyperX's own lineup, but also those of many direct competitors. Since the overall sound performance is so much alike to that of the original Cloud Alpha, I can only repeat what I already wrote in its review.

If I had to name one thing that strikes me as most impressive, acoustic performance-wise, I'd have to go with the sheer fullness of the sound. As soon as you fire up a game, you'll feel as though your entire head is completely encapsulated by the in-game audio. That's mostly achieved by the richness and warmth of the bass, accompanied by a detailed midrange and crisp highs. It doesn't matter which genre you prefer and mostly play as everything sounds terrific on the Cloud Alpha S. I felt similar pleasure blasting my way through Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, exchanging fire with my opponents in Apex Legends and Battlefield V, and playing games that rely more on atmosphere and dialogue.


The HyperX Cloud Alpha S isn't only fun and enjoyable to listen to, but also quite accurate in terms of spatial positioning. The soundstage is quite wide, which automatically makes it easier to figure out from where you're getting shot. Sure, you could find an even more informative gaming headset—the SteelSeries Arctis lineup comes to mind—but this headset does a great job of balancing precision and pure enjoyment.

The warmth and fullness of the sound, sheer amount and punchiness of the bass, subtlety and presence of the midrange, and clarity of the highs make the Cloud Alpha S a great choice for your music listening and movie watching sessions as well. I wasn't able to overwhelm it with songs with excessive bass, or those focusing on complex guitars and high-pitched vocals, male or female. The tuning of the 50-millimeter speaker drivers is excellent.

Thanks to the great seal it forms with the head, the Cloud Alpha S doesn't leak sound in either direction.

7.1 Virtual Surround Sound

7.1 virtual surround sound support is one of the key features separating the Cloud Alpha S from the original Cloud Alpha. However, it definitely isn't a feature that will make you buy the Alpha S over the "ordinary" Alpha. The DSP of the sound card heavily manipulates the sound to achieve a sense of spaciousness by severely boosting both the mid and high range. The effect is so prominent you'll hear background hiss where it wasn't audible before. The sound also becomes much louder and annoyingly piercing, and adopts an unpleasant artificiality.

I didn't have any fun using the 7.1 virtual surround sound on the Cloud Alpha S; it's very likely you won't either. If you consider this feature important, you should definitely look elsewhere.