Games are all about immersing yourself into a completely different realm where you enjoy the play and all the beautiful things that an entire team of developers has endeavored to show to you. To achieve the full experience of most sophisticated, yet popular games, we have analyzed tens of gaming headsets and only picked the ones that made the gameplay significantly more enjoyable but also offered the biggest edge for competitive play.
We've compiled a List of Best Gaming Headsets in 2019
Beyerdynamic MMX-300 (2nd Gen)
Best Gaming Headset Money could Buy
Verdict
The closed-back design and large rounded velour-covered earpads provide plenty of sound isolation, but the rich audio content is committed only to you and doesn’t escape to the outside. In our tests, the overall sound felt competent, it delivers insightful auditory information, whereas the bass encompasses an extensive range that is greatly detailed and clear, which furthermore highlights the massive explosions, engines, and any other pitch in that range.
The result is impressively beautiful, with crisp sounds that are able to create a well-defined image in your mind of your surroundings when eyes are closed. Another important feature that is integrated into this set of gaming headphones, is the in-line remote control which provides total control over phone calls management, volume adjustment and the option to switch on and off the microphone sound – and so, you have a full package with futureproof build and sound.
Key Features
- X
HyperX Cloud Alpha
Best Overall Gaming Headset
Verdict
Sennheiser GSP 300
Best Budget Gaming Headset – Value for Money
With yet another reasonable priced gaming headset, the Sennheiser GSP 300 makes its way on this list for its great sound, comfort, multi-platform compatibility, and excellent workmanship. The $100 blue gaming headset is slightly cheaper than its superior: HyperX Cloud Alpha, but of enough quality to secure a much higher value/money ratio.
We’re more happy with this gaming headset’s microphone because the speaking into it outputs some of the clearest and lifelike sounds, it’s far more precise and reliable in combat and group fights than, even though it’s not detachable it’s the best microphone a gaming headset could have. But we’ve also enjoyed the memory foam earpads that feel soft and comfy just as with HyperX Cloud Alpha gaming headsets.
The sound quality is impressively good also, having excellent stereophony rendering and enriched with lots of details and an enjoyable warm sound signature, and that’s exactly how we like the sound to be reproduced in a gaming setting. Furthermore, there’s this unique serenity-like feeling that you get from wearing the headphones when you try to hear your surroundings but realize that the closed-back design and thick paddings create a quiet environment for you without noise-canceling (the headsets doesn’t include this feature though).
Verdict
Key Features
- X
Sound Blasterx H7 Tournament Edition
Runner-up
Why we like it: Not extraordinarily expensive – but also not cheap – the Sound BlasterX H7 is a fantastic gaming headset if you’re looking for something in between Beyerdynamic MMX-300 (2nd Gen) and HyperX Cloud Alpha.
The Sound BlasterX H7 has a sober appearance, a robust build, 50 mm FullSpectrum drivers, and even though its sound is nothing alike Beyerdynamic’s, it’s still incredibly balanced and natural. The drivers can punch with growling bass and crisp highs with ease highlighting most sounds in modern shooter games, whereas the virtual solution which provides a realistic 3D sound effect is perfect for passionate gamers that make great use of positional audio in an FPS game like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or Overwatch.
The 7.1 surround sound is enabled via Scout Mode, a subfeature among many other features that are customizable inside Creative’s software BlasterX Acoustic Engine which also includes a wide variety of settings. The soundstage was good, and it offered a good sense of spatiality that felt natural and easy to perceive, we also enjoyed the immersive sound that you can achieve with the Scout Mode even though is handled digitally.
Verdict
Alternatives
Even though the bass is rich, the sound of Roccat Khan Pro is at best average, and it doesn’t do a great job at pinpointing various sounds the same way GSP 300 does.
The Fnatic Duel TMA-2 does have a fantastic performing microphone and comes with a second pair of earpads, but they don’t sound too great for their price, they’re also not very comfortable for extended plays.
With Razer, we consider the Thresher Tournament Edition to be a nice budget gaming headset for Razer enthusiasts that has copious sound, yet it’s a bit heavier than most of our picks while the sound isn’t as accurate and well-reproduced as with Hyper X Cloud Alpha or Sennheiser GSP 300 – especially in the bass range. The Razer ManO’War headset has some thick round earpads that feel comfortable despite the weight of 375 g, they can operate in wireless mode and benefit of 7.1 stereo surround sound which can be further customized in a fairly intuitive software just as SoundBlasterX H7, however, the sound isn’t the most accurate and is only compatible with PC and PS4, the lack of wires also present a significant downfall in performance. Razer Kraken Pro V2 is merely a decent wired gaming headset that has a relatively good build with a good quality microphone, but an inadequate sound reproduction that lacks precision.
The Creative Sound BlasterX H5 was also a great contender with audio reproduction that we liked, their compatibility with multiple platforms is also an excellent add-on, but their comfort and microphone quality isn’t similar to GSP 300’s which are also a tad cheaper than Creative’s H5.
A pair of headphones that we enjoyed very much is the Jabra Evolve 75 on-ear headsets, although they’re largely designed for office settings and have a great mic, they’re lightweight and incredibly comfortable, they work in both wireless and wired and the sound is reproduced with fidelity, although our only issue is the price – They’re pricier than SoundBlasterX H7, but if you got the budget and want a pair of on-ear wireless gaming headsets, then you should definitely get these.
Comfort becomes very subjective when it comes to SteelSeries Arctis gaming headsets, and with Arctis 7 that depends very much on the mechanism of the ski goggle headband, the sound is fairly good, yet we weren’t fascinated by the surrounding sound effect and the EQ.
We offered some attention to several high-end wireless gaming headsets, namely: SteelSeries Arctis Pro+GameDAC, Siberia 800 (H Wireless) and Siberia 840 from SteelSeries; Astro A50 Wireless Headset, Astro A50 (2019), but also a very intriguing model with planar drivers: Audeze Mobius. They’re all high-tech quality products designed for power-users because of their heavy customizations and integrated features such as 5ghz wireless technology, or 7.1 Dolby surround sound. All of them have excellent sound performance and can be worn for long, but just Astro A50 and Siberia 800 (H Wireless) are suitable gaming headsets for competitive plays where sound displays insightful information. Audeze Mobius uses LDAC Bluetooth codec which has latency between 100 and 150 ms, whereas Siberia 840 measures 225 ms – While these are relatively low numbers, there’ll be moments when the sound is delayed (a casual gamer might find that annoying, but for a professional player that’s detrimental). Between Astro A50 and Siberia 800 (H Wireless), Siberia 800 is slightly cheaper, has more pronounced sound, the lowest wireless latency (20ms), but a less intuitive software panel with fewer options, and only average surround sound.
