Microphone Performance

The boom microphone of the Rosewill RGH-3300 was tested by connecting it to the Asus ROG STRIX X99 Gaming motherboard. It uses an integrated sound card with Realtek's ALC1150 audio codec, including a number of software tweaks for suppressing ambient noise and adding various effects. All of the software tweaks were turned off for this test in order to obtain the microphone's raw, unmodified sound. I also used an external USB sound card, Creative's cheap Sound Blaster E1 ($42), and again turned off all the software features that could affect the sound of the microphone.

To review the microphone's sound and to compare it to other similar headsets, I used the Adam A7X speakers and Shure SRH840 headphones, being studio monitors, connected to Audiolab's M-DAC, a high quality digital-to-analog converter that functions as an external sound card when connected to a PC. The testing was done in Discord, TeamSpeak, Skype, and Audacity, and I also used Audacity to record sound from the microphone. The sound was recorded with microphone sensitivity set to 100% and was not post-processed or edited in any way.

For reference, this voice recording has been made with the Rode NT-USB, a high-quality studio microphone:



This is the sound recorded by using the boom microphone the Rosewill RGH-3300 is supplied with:




I have no complaints about the microphone quality at all. My voice does sound a bit thin and telephonic, but this is a "feature" of most gaming headsets, even those being sold for a much higher price. Take, for example, the Razer Kraken Pro V2:




The difference is present - the Kraken's microphone does sound a bit better, but the difference is by no means significant.

With that in mind, the microphone quality of the Rosewill RGH-3300 can only be rated as good. It's clear and sufficiently loud, and my Discord buddies didn't have any trouble understanding what I was saying. When you're buying a $35 gaming headset, that's all you really expect. It does pick up a fair amount of static noise from the system. Using an external USB sound card, even a very cheap one, will help with that.

The box claims that the microphone sports some sort of a noise cancellation. I did notice that the Cherry MX Red switches on my keyboard were a bit quieter while simultaneously talking and typing (or gaming), but I could still hear them.