Microphone Performance

The noise-canceling microphone of the Sennheiser GSP 500 was tested by connecting it to an external USB sound card, Creative's cheap Sound Blaster E1 ($50). For the test, I turned off all the software features and post processing that could affect the sound of the microphone. To review the microphone's sound and compare it to similar headsets, I used the Adam A7X speakers and Shure SRH840 headphones, both 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. Testing was done in Discord, Skype, and Audacity, and I also used Audacity to record sound from the microphones. 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 was made with the Rode NT-USB, a high-quality studio microphone:



This is the sound recorded by using the microphone the Sennheiser GSP 500 is supplied with:



The microphone capsule is quite obviously the same as with the GSP 600. Meaning, it's not the very best-sounding microphone Sennheiser even built into a gaming headset—that of the Game One still sounds better, more natural to me—but it's still excellent. My voice has a good amount of depth, it's clear, and no excessive compression is present. This microphone can safely be used not only for Discord and in-game voice chat, but streaming and other more demanding tasks. You can compare it to the microphone of the GSP 600, Game One, and Beyerdynamic's MMX 300 2nd Gen, yet another expensive gaming headset with a terrific microphone, by listening to samples below. I didn't bother including samples from other gaming headsets I tested (you can still check them out on our SoundCloud profile) because the comparison simply wouldn't be fair. Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic are in a class of their own when it comes to gaming headset microphones. I did throw in a V-Moda BoomPro sample (affixed to the HyperX Cloud Alpha for the purpose of this test), which is a terrific $30 microphone that can be attached to any pair of headphones with a detachable cable (and a 3.5-mm port).






The Game One's microphone sounds a bit airier, like it's doing a bit less noise cancellation in the background. Other than that, the microphone of the GSP 500 is up there with the best of them.