Performance

Judging the performance of a headset is hard to do because there are so many variables. What I have tried to do is go through a lot of different tunes and listened for the slightest variation to the sound. I used an X-Fi Extreme Music for all of my tests with all of the enhancements turned off to avoid interference from them. For sonic reference I have the Sennheiser HD 595 and the new SteelSeries headband headset.

To start off with I fired up CounterStrike:Source to see if the directional sound was any good. And it did function pretty well considering the low price of the headset. When compared to similar headsets in the same price tier it performed equally well in many aspects, but had better reproduction of special effects in game. The midrange was more natural than on the SteelSeries Headband headset which is a plus in FPS games.

The bass is O.K. but not that controlled and the mids are a bit muddy and imprecise compared to my Sennheiser HD 595s which is a high-end headphone. The mediocre sound of the headset is pretty normal for entry level headsets so if you want a better sounding pair headphones you should probably try and get a couple of semi-budget headphones and not a headset. Generally the price(performance is a lot better with those than with something branded as a "gaming headset". Of course you have to do without the microphone, but those can be bought pretty cheap.

As for the microphone it is pretty darn good. It was clear and did not produce any unwanted sounds during my tests which is a definite plus. The sensitivity of it is normal and the sound quality is good. The boom is easy to reposition for optimal pickup.

Just to test the musicality of the headset I listened to some of my favorite tunes, but was sadly a bit disappointed with the sound quality. It is clear that the headset is not aimed for people looking for a decent sounding headset. The overall sound definition was not that good either and it was not that precise. Compared to similar offerings it sounds pretty good, not overwhelming or anything like that just "good" which is what one would expect from a headset that only costs $ 79.99.