Microphone Performance

The microphone of the Sennheiser GSP 550 was tested with the noise reduction feature turned both on and off. To review the microphone's sound and compare it to other similar headsets, I used the Adam A7X speakers and Shure SRH840 headphones (both fall into the studio monitor category). I connected them to the Audiolab 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 the sound from the microphone. The sound was recorded with microphone sensitivity set to 100% and was not postprocessed or edited in any way.

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



This is the sound recording with the microphone the Sennheiser GSP 550 uses:




The microphone capsule is quite obviously the same as for the GSP 500/600. While excellent, it's not the absolutely best-sounding microphone Sennheiser ever built into a gaming headset—that of the Game One still sounds better, more natural to me. 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 550 is up there with the best of them. My voice has a good amount of depth, is clear, and devoid of excessive compression. This microphone can safely be used not only for Discord and in-game voice chat, but also for streaming and other more demanding tasks. It's also more than loud enough for anything you might want to use it for.

This is what the microphone sounds like with the noise-reduction feature on and off and me manically mashing my mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches in the background:




The difference isn't massive, but the noise-reduction feature does smooth out the sharpest moments of key actuation. At the same time, it doesn't do anything bad to the clarity and dynamics of my voice, so you might as well keep it on.