Closer Examination

First and foremost, the Sennheiser GSP 600 is a massive headset. Its earcups are huge, and the same could be said for the headband. When you put it on your head, there's enough room between your head and the headband for it to fit your hand, which should give you a good idea about the size of the GSP 600. It's quite weighty as well, sitting at a hefty 395 grams, but comfort isn't an issue at all. We'll get back to that on the next page of this review. This isn't a headset you'll feel comfortable using outside of your home simply because you'd look like an alien.


Compared to the visually neutral Game Zero and Game One gaming headsets, the aesthetics of the GSP 600 can be considered somewhat aggressive. Sennheiser opted for a combination of robust, flexible plastic and a couple of metal parts, such as the silver element that connects the ear cup to the headband and the red ring that surrounds the joint of the pivotable microphone. Two additional red stripes can be seen on the arm of the microphone. As a result, there's no mistaking the GSP 600 for anything other than a gaming headset.


The right ear cup contains a large wheel that acts as a volume dial. Its circular motion is silent and quite refined, so I had no trouble making even the tiniest of volume adjustments. If you rotate it all the way in a counterclockwise direction, the sound will be completely muted. It's a great volume dial—accurate and easily accessible.


Staying true to their gaming headset design, Sennheiser integrated the microphone-mute function into the microphone itself. If you don't want it to pick up any sound at all, you can simply pivot it upward. The first photo shows the exact position of where a faint "click" can be felt and heard, which will tell you that the microphone has been muted. When you want to use it again, you only have to pull it down until it lands in front of your mouth and start talking. The microphone's range of motion has been implemented in a similar fashion to that of the volume dial, both in terms of smoothness and accuracy. Once you put it where you want it to be, it will stay in that exact position until you manually change it.


The arm and head of the microphone look pretty much exactly the same as they did on the Game One. The microphone capsule seems to be quite large, and I'm expecting it to sound great. As a reminder, the Game One comes with one of the best microphones that were ever built into a gaming headset. In the microphone-performance section of this review, we'll analyze if the microphone of the GSP 600 manages to match it in quality. Just by inspecting it visually, things do look promising.


One feature that wasn't previously present on Sennheiser's gaming headsets was the ability to adjust the tension of the headband, which, as a result, changes the clamping force. There are two sliders that can be moved from left and right. By moving them, you actually change the tension of the "invisible" inner, metal headband the sliders are attached to. The tightness of the grip increases as you increase the distance between the sliders. Meaning, if you want the headset to be as loose as possible, which was my preferred setting—one that resulted in fantastic wearing comfort—the sliders should be positioned as close as possible, as pictured in the second photo above. We already saw this exact solution on the Turtle Beach Elite Pro Tournament. It worked great there, and it works great in the case of the Sennheiser GSP 600 as well.


The braided cable is detachable, but you won't have an easy time using just any audio cable you have laying around in its place. The hole with the connector is quite deep, and the connector itself is 2.5-mm instead of the more common 3.5-mm. In other words, Sennheiser wants you to use their own cables.


Two cables are supplied with the headset. One is 2.5 meters long and terminates in a pair of 3.5-mm 3-pole TRS plugs. That's the one you'll use for devices that have separate microphone input and headphone output, such as the integrated sound card of your PC. The second cable is 1.5 meters long and terminates in a single 3.5-mm 4-pole TRRS plug; it is supposed to be used for consoles, mobile devices, laptops, and other devices with combined audio input and output.