While the analogue Mad Catz F.R.E.Q. 2 gaming headset offers quite a lot of bang for the buck, the same cannot be said of its USB-powered sibling, the F.R.E.Q. 4. Although seemingly nearly identical to the F.R.E.Q. 2, this product is plagued with various issues, which makes it very hard to recommend.

Its biggest issue is constant buzzing noise through the headphones. It's not extremely loud, but you'll hear it whenever you put the headset on, or through a quieter part of a song, movie, or game. Sound quality is otherwise fine, particularly in the spatial awareness department. The built-in speaker drivers respond well to equalization, which is done through an archaic and unintuitive software driver, so you can to an extent sculpt the sound to your personal preference. You can't, however, get rid of that annoying buzzing noise, no matter what you do.

Then there's the microphone. While completely passable in terms of voice-pickup quality, it also picks up a lot of sound from inside the headphones, which means your friends can hear themselves while you're chatting on Discord, and that translates to them eventually muting or kicking you out of their server altogether.

Some likable aspects of the F.R.E.Q. 4 definitely do exist—the dual-headband design is practical, the whole headset is fairly comfortable, and tucking the microphone away only takes a second. Unfortunately, as a whole, this product needs to go back to the drawing board. If you like its design and are willing to go down the analogue route, get the F.R.E.Q. 2 instead.