Audio Performance

I'll split the audio performance analysis into two parts—gaming and music. Even though the headset produces the same sound regardless of what it's being used for, you won't necessarily look for the same things while annihilating your virtual opponents as you will when listening to your favorite tunes.

Open-back headsets such as the Sennheiser GSP 550 are generally more pleasant to use than closed-back ones because they offer a wider soundstage with better stereo imaging. They have a couple of advantages in terms of practicality, too. Firstly, you can clearly hear your own voice while talking, which prevents you from shouting, sounding nasal, or having a feeling of "pressure" in your head. Just as importantly, your ears won't be as prone to sweating since the openness of the ear cups increases airflow. The only downside of the open-back design is massive and unavoidable leakage of sound. Everyone around you will hear what you're listening to, and any remotely loud sound sources in your vicinity will mess with your ability to properly hear your games, movies, or music.

Gaming

First of all, to my ears, the Sennheiser GSP 550 doesn't sound identical to the GSP 500 or GSP 600. That might strike you as odd, especially when you consider that their technical specifications are exactly the same, but it does make sense. Even though all three are based on the same pair of dynamic speaker drivers, the GSP 550 is equipped with its own sound card, which definitely isn't the same as the one you're going to use to drive the GSP 500/600. In my case, the supplied USB sound card performs worse than any other sound card or an external audio interface I own and use, including the integrated audio on my motherboard (granted, it's a high-end audio chip, the ROG SupremeFX S1220). Because of that, the sound I was getting from the GSP 550 was significantly less airy and somewhat less natural than with the GSP 500. There was also a massive difference in the volume level I was able to achieve.

The latter is, as far as I'm concerned, the biggest drawback of the sound card supplied with the GSP 550. It strikes me as slightly underpowered for driving the headset's speaker drivers. As I'm typing this, I'm listening to music with the volume set to 100—that's as high as it can go. The sound card is maxed out, pushed to its limits, but the GSP 550 never becomes too loud. Quite the opposite—in many situations, I'd like it to go even louder, both when playing games and listening to music. Don't get me wrong, the headset generally isn't too quiet to be usable, but for those moments when the best part of your favorite song is coming up and you just want to blast it LOUD, it will leave you hanging. There are things you can do to remedy this to a certain extent, such as downloading and installing Equalizer APO (available here), but this isn't something you should have to deal with after spending a hefty $250 on a gaming headset. Just as importantly, not everyone will be tech-savvy enough to properly use Equalizer APO.

Even though I just told you that the GSP 550 doesn't sound as good as the GSP 500 in my case, let's make one thing clear: it still sounds better than most other gaming headsets on the market. It shares DNA with the GSP 500/600, after all. When gaming, that means you'll have an easy time figuring out where your enemies are rushing or shooting from. Both the mid and high range are detailed and filled with auditory cues, and the bass, while deep and voluminous, never loses control, so it doesn't overpower the midrange. The overall sound signature is on the warm side of things, which works equally well for pretty much every videogame genre.


One interesting feature of the supplied sound card is that it introduces itself to Windows as two separate playback devices, Sennheiser Communication Audio and Sennheiser Main Audio. This gives you the welcome option of assigning the entire communication with your teammates to a dedicated audio channel that remains untouched if you decide to use the 7.1 surround sound. If you select Sennheiser Main Audio as your output device in Discord and use the surround sound feature, voices of friends will be presented in surround as well, and that could potentially make them harder to hear and understand, which setting Sennheiser Communication Audio as your output device in Discord prevents. The game will be processed in 7.1 virtual surround, but the voices of your teammates will be played in regular stereo.

Passive noise isolation is, of course, next to nonexistent. You'll be able to hear everything around you, including the things you do want to hear (your own voice) and don't (loud PC fans, mashing of your mechanical keyboard, annoying pets, and family members). Also, everyone around you will clearly hear what you're listening to, be it music or assault rifles in your favorite shooter, which is something you definitely have to be fully aware of before splurging on this headset. Open-back headsets (and headphones) require a dedicated, quiet room.

Music

The sound characteristics of the Sennheiser GSP 550 work well for music. The bass is rich and well-controlled, and the vocals and instruments generally sound clean and crisp without turning too harsh or annoying. The soundstage is by no means massive; if anything, it's narrower than you'd expect from an open-back design, although still wider than what you normally get from a gaming headset with completely sealed ear cups. I found the limited maximum volume even more of an issue with music because I simply wanted to hear more of the warm, inherently pleasant sound signature of this headset, but was ultimately unable to. The GSP 550 feels like it's being held back by its sound card, which isn't something I have an easy time accepting.


The sound card is limited to 16-bit/48 kHz playback and comes with a rudimentary software driver. The driver offers a system-wide equalizer, but its functionality is limited to choosing between four presets: Off, Music, Esport, and Game. The Music preset adds a certain amount of bass, but cuts down on the mid and high range, making everything sound "smoother", but less detailed. The Game preset is quite similar, but with less bass than the Music preset. The Esport preset completely kills the bass in order to remove it as a potential distraction. Overall, after a lot of switching between Off and Music, I ultimately settled on not using the equalizer, which results in the best overall sound quality. It should also be noted that the headset subjectively sounds the loudest with the equalizer set to Off.


Other features of the driver include a 7.1 surround sound toggle, microphone noise reduction toggle, and the sidetone function that can be set to Off, Low, Mid, or High. Sidetone reproduces everything picked up by the microphone through the headphones in real time. While very nice to have, this functionality is made redundant by the open-back design of the headset's earcups.

7.1 Virtual Surround Sound

The sound card the Sennheiser GSP 550 comes with supports 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound. Most of my testing of the surround sound performance was done in Battlefield V, a game well known for its superb audio production. The surround sound is toggled on either by pressing a button on the in-line remote control or inside the Sennheiser software driver.

The surround sound feature is implemented well enough to be completely usable in a wide variety of titles and genres, but don't expect miracles. I didn't really get the sense that I was completely immersed in the sound, and that it came at me from all sides. Everything did sound wider though, with an increased sense of scale. Sennheiser successfully avoided adding too much reverb to the sound or making it tinny and muddy. The clarity and bass are still very much present, which means your games will continue to sound explosive and fun, and you won't lose the ability to pinpoint the location of your enemies, things that often get lost in lesser virtual surround sound technologies (or poorer implementations). You can even use the same four equalizer settings in the Sennheiser software driver; Music, Esport, Game, and Off. Just don't expect to get the overall surround sound quality and immersiveness of the Sennheiser Binaural Rendering Engine, which is what Sennheiser uses for surround sound in their GSX 1000 USB sound card (reviewed here).