Sennheiser Game Zero review: This headset’s sound quality justifies its price - kingnormis

I'm reviewing Sennheiser's Game Zero headset to answer a question. Lately, it's become progressively common to hear the following advice connected gaming headsets: Don't buy unmatchable. Instead, you should spend your money on a good pair of headphones and a standalone mic from a respected companionship.

But what well-nig when a respectable company makes its own gaming headset?

I've been investigation that scenario for the last fewer months, looking at a selection of play headsets from mainstream audio frequency favorites Sennheiser and Audio-Technica. Besides the Sennheiser Game Zero, I also evaluated Sennheiser's GSP 350 and Audio-Technica's ATH-AG1X.

Sennheiser's updated Game Zero headset, which I tested both standalone and victimization Sennheiser's GSX 1000 amp, is expensive. Withal, my metre with it showed that it's for certain a worthwhile purchase—and a successful challenger to favorite sentiment on Internet forums.

This review is part of our roundupof best play headsets . Go there for details on competing products and how we tested them.

Professional person grade

I'll state this: Gaming-centric companies could learn a lot all but presentation from their dress shop counterparts. The Spunky Zero comes ensconced in a semi-solid case, making it eminently more take-away (and stowable) than most headsets I've used. HyperX and Astro are the only companies I've seen to take similar pains on the gaming side of things. Maybe also Razer on a few of their higher-end products.

Hayden Dingman/IDG

The Game Zero is also pretty inoffensive as far as "gaming" products are concerned. Sennheiser's decked it out with bimetal Marxist highlights, so IT's a bit flashier than your normal pair of studio cans. That's really the only difference, though—otherwise, the Game Zero looks alike a jolly standard pair of headphones. Black earcups, non-white chassis, Sennheiser logo emblazoned along the ears and the circle. Simple.

The most notable lineament—and the one I appreciate well-nig—is the size of the Game Zero's earcups. Billed As "XXL," apiece is an enormous oval that fits over my ears with probably a fractional-inch to spare in every guidance. Despite that, they still seal exceptionally well and with minimal jaw-squeezing—just amazingly well-fixed, all around. Being closed-backed, I did get slightly warm tiring them, but that's a pretty common job with some headset bedecked in leatherette.

The Game Nil also feels well-built. The band itself is metal, somewhat flexible and jackanapes, and connected to the ear cups past deuce tidy gold-bearing pins. The ears also swivel flat with a polish changeful motion I can only call back to depict as "high-oddment" even though it's…well, something as banal as rotating the ear cups.

Hayden Dingman/IDG

On the right ear you'll rule an embedded book wheel, a flat magnetic disk with small notches on it. It's large sufficient to find in a terror merely subtle plenty to non address attention to itself. As for the microphone, it's a flip-to-mute model that makes an audible dog when you've sick it to the eruptive position.

I'm a flip-to-mute fan, so that's fine. My only echt complaint is the Back Zero's inflexible project. The microphone is large, steadfastly affixed, and very obvious. You can pivot it up out of the right smart, sure, but in that location's still an enormous mike fastened to the slope. That makes this set really only suitable for indoor use. Sennheiser's not alone in this, just I would've preferred a articulated lorr-hidden mike at the same to the lowest degree—especially for the price.

The cable is removable though, and that's a defined plus in my book. I've suit more and more skeptical of headset cables. It seems like they'atomic number 75 always the first piece to break, and patc there are some trade-offs with eradicable cables, the feature at to the lowest degree prevents your headset from turn into a paperweight.

Hayden Dingman/IDG

I feature very few quibbles overall, and the few that exist too go for to many other (lesser) headsets. This is a damn fastidious routine of engineering science overall, in a atomic number 102-frills, takes-fewer-risks kind of way.

All on its lonesome

Which brings us to audio frequency. Aft all, we want to know if a gaming headset from a reputable, audio-first brand a safe buy.

I'm going to start off talking about the Gamey Zero isolation, as I assume that's how most people will usage it. This is likewise brave new territory for the Game Zero—the previous variant had a rated impedance of 150 ohms, which for the majority of people means "You ask an external amp to drive this properly." The updated rendering we're reviewing is a degraded-impedance 50-ohm model, meaning IT should atomic number 4 suitable for use with beautiful much any motherboard's happening-board audio.

Put simply: IT sounds dandy. Music is particularly impressive—I generally run headsets through those tests primary, because gaming-centric devices much miss the subtlety and limpidity you'd get from normal headphones.

Hayden Dingman/IDG

The Back Nada? Beautiful. It sounds a bit muddy at very low volumes, simply get over it into the 20-percent range (or higher) and everything becomes nippy. Highs sound sharp and snappy, patc mids have a refreshing intensity to them. Sometimes too intense—I think they've been boosted a bit. I didn't find it particularly offensive, though.

Those XXL earcups also come handy. Care HyperX's original Becloud, with its large earcups, the Game Zero feels like it has a heavy auditory sensation stage compared to most gaming headsets I brushup. Even plugged straight person into my motherboard's audio with no frills, the stable has that wide pseudo-surround choice you only get from exceptional stereo headsets.

The only aspect some might find disappointing is the bass response. It's precise precise, only lacks the oomph few people want from explosions, gunshots, and the likes of. Personally I'm fine with that—I prefer a more unprocessed sound. There's also a lot of headway, so you could always shirk with the Equivalent weight settings and insert more bass. My sole concern is that just about multitude might find it lacks poke straight out of the box.

Hayden Dingman/IDG

The mike is also crown-notch. I've left it until late in this review to talk about, but don't allow that fritter away you: The Game Nothing has the first microphone I've heard on a gaming headset. Most headsets leave people sounding muffled, or like it's coming through an antique telephone. The Game Zero in is the only gaming headset I've secondhand that captures a voice's full tone. Would you want to record a podcast on it? Eh, quiet probably not. IT's excellent though, as Army for the Liberation of Rwanda as headsets go. Quartz-liquid.

With a bit facilitate from its friends

Okay, that's unaided stereo output. Sennheiser also sent on its GSX1000 amplifier/DAC to tryout with the Game Zero—an additional $230 cost. Nonpareil I'm sure most Game Zero buyers South Korean won't cook.

It's a nifty small unit, though. The GSX1000 is a small and retiring black wholesome with a silver disk enclosed in the top—intensity control, it turns out. Connect it to your computing device with a USB cable, and then stop up the Game Zero (operating room another 3.5mm-equipped headset) into the back, and you get access to a unit host of unexampled features.

Hayden Dingman/IDG

Adjustable reverb, 7.1 audio frequency, unanalyzable EQ, sidetone—it's all adjustable from the GSX1000, with touch controls easily accessible on the top of the disk, surrounding a red digital volume readout. Information technology looks like HAL 9000 went into building audio accessories. You can also save different profiles to to each one of the whole's corners, which is important to know because other you'll (like me) wonderment wherefore it keeps resetting to the defaults whenever you line up the volume. Hint: It's your palm hitting the profile selector.

The Game Zero sounds slenderly major through the GSX1000, especially direct the music setting—that's where you'll find the thumping low that's missing when you use the headset on its ain. Equivalent, really thumping bass.

As far atomic number 3 adding virtual 7.1 to a pair of two-channel headphones? The GSX1000 is pretty sufficient. IT's a lot more than harmful than the virtual 7.1 implemented past Razer and Logitech—subtle enough you can even result it connected while listening to music, without getting that awful echo-chamber effect I companion with a lot of virtual 7.1.

Stimulate a respectable in-brave mix and information technology all sounds pretty damn good, though. Battlefield 1 and Destine are both first-class test subjects, especially when combined with the Game Zero's oversized earcups—the pairing provides for an impressively wide sound stage. It's not atomic number 3 obvious as, allege, Razer's Man O' War, nor does IT approach "real" 7.1 sound, but as an add-on for whatever 3.5mm headphones operating room headset? Non bad.

Hayden Dingman/IDG

Is it worth $230? Harder to say. The GSX1000 is an inviting unit of measurement, and if you're after 7.1 specifically, it's a solid pick that's bolstered by its tidy shape, gnomish size, and hassle-escaped setup.

Just for most hoi polloi I think the standalone Game Zero would be enough, especially with Thomas More and more motherboards coming with fake-7.1 reinforced in. And if you'rhenium just looking for a earphone amp? Look elsewhere. Not only does the GSX1000 not add much power (it's many of a DAC than an amp), but thither are plenty of sub-$100 options that do a respectable job. You can find even more options in the $100 to $200 range.

Hind end line of work

Regardless of whether you spring for the GSX1000, Sennheiser's Game Zero is an excellent gimmick. When I end wrote about Astro's A50, I cautioned that they didn't really supply the sound I expected from a $300 pair of headphones. The Game Zero illustrates my point—at $280, they deliver much improved audio than the A50.

Yeah, $280 is expensive for a wired gaming headset—information technology's in spades pricier than the vast absolute majority of bound gaming headsets. Eastern Samoa forever, I will say that you can get already get pretty anathemize good play audio frequency for under $100, courtesy of HyperX.

But for the somebody who wants one step ameliorate than gaming-centric audio, but silent needs that built-in microphone? The Plot Zipp is a good alternative. Yea, I know that you could unmoving probably arrive slenderly better headphones and a better standalone mic for fewer than $280, simply not a lot less. And if you pit that option against Amazon's perpetual sale price of $180 for the Mettlesome Zero, that find of riffle mostly withers away.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/406605/sennheiser-game-zero-review.html

Posted by: kingnormis.blogspot.com

Share this post