Closer Examination, Build Quality, and Comfort

The XPG PRECOG Studio is built around a suspended headband design. The inner headband is attached to the outer one with wires, which allow it to stretch as necessary, depending on the size of your head. It carries the entire weight of the headset, and it saves you from the hassle of adjusting the "height" of the ear pads, since you simply put the headset on, and the inner headband adjusts as necessary. The padding on the inner headband is fairly thin, but both its tension and weight distribution are good, so it causes no discomfort on the area where it comes into contact with the head.


The removable ear pads are filled with foam and wrapped in cloth, with a pleather inner layer. They have a rectangular shape and hefty dimensions, meaning they should surround most users' ears completely. This was certainly true in my case. There are left and right channel markings inside the ear cups, although the affixed microphone gives you quick information about the proper orientation of the headset. As you probably know, cloth ear pads are more breathable, meaning there's less heat accumulating around the ears. However, they leak more sound in both directions than (p)leather ear pads, and because of that generally result in a less bassy sound signature, too. We'll get back to that in the sound quality section of this review. As far as wearing comfort is concerned, the PRECOG Studio fares well. Soft materials, moderate weight, and a reasonable lateral clamping force all result in a headset that can be worn for multiple hours at a time with no issues.


The build quality is by far the worst aspect of the PRECOG Studio. The ear cup hangers, as well as ear cups themselves, are made of cheap plastic. The entire headset feels cheap to touch, and even cheaper whenever you try to readjust it on your head. If there's nothing playing while you're doing that, you'll hear the entire thing straining like an old boat on rough seas. The headset isn't completely rigid, but I wouldn't dare to flex it past the point shown on the photo above. Don't get me wrong, it's not like the PRECOG Studio seems like it could fall apart for no reason. However, if I had to guess how many table-height drops it could endure, I'd say – not too many.


The ear cups can be rotated by 90° inwards.


The left ear cup offers a volume dial and a microphone mute switch. Both the audio cable and the microphone are affixed to it, which isn't ideal.


The omnidirectional microphone has a rubberized arm, which has no trouble staying in whichever position you bend it to. There's no pop filter supplied, but since omnidirectional microphones are generally less sensitive to plosives, this isn't a big issue; more so when considering the PRECOG Studio's friendly price tag.


As I've mentioned in the introduction, the rubberized, 2-meter long cable is terminated with a standard 3.5-mm microphone plug, and a 4.4-mm balanced Pentaconn audio connector.


While you can certainly use your own headphone amplifier to power the PRECOG Studio should you have one with a 4.4-mm balanced output, the idea is that you'll use the supplied dongle, which effectively turns the PRECOG Studio into a USB headset. According to technical specifications, the dongle is equipped with the ESS ES9260Q DAC chip, and a pair of ESS Sabre 9601K amplifiers. It offers USB-C connectivity, and you also get a USB-C to USB Type-A adapter inside the box.