Testing Methodology
For testing we will be testing only on the PC platform since I feel that it gives better overall sound quality. We will be examining the headsets performance in Music, Movies,and PC games.
Before running these tests, the headphones were properly burned-in, in order to bring out the full characteristics of the sound. This is done in order to allow the speakers in the headphones to burn-in since they often sound different out of the box, than when you burn them in for 20-50hrs. After the burn-in period, all tests were conducted.
Music
Music testing is done with the Diablo 3 headset being driven its on-headset USB sound card, all music is formatted in FLAC at 256kbs bitrate. Different music albums were used in order to get a feel for how the set would perform on different music genres.
The first album I used was Aly & Fila – Rising sun which is a Trance/ Techno album.Pounding beats is a good way to describe this headset, at high volumes the bass can be a bit overwhelming. Mids come in very good at all volumes. Highs are crisp and clear at all but the highest volumes.The soundscape is also better than previous Steelseries headsets, I’m not sure if its due to the more open nature of the headphones but it works well. If you are looking for headphones that rock your socks off these are definately it.
Next up is the Folk album Bring Me your Love by City & Colour. This album is used in order to give a good sense of the mids and highs, as well as some input on the finer details in guitar chords and other sounds. If I had one word to describe the combo of this album and headset is muddy. Mids have an oddly muddy sound, lows and highs come in clear but mids just sound off for some reason. Its not terrible, but it is something you will notice if you pay attention. Fine details and the soundscape are good, but again those mids really hurt the performance in this album.
I thought I would switch things up and move away from the Pennywise album and go for the A.F.I. Album Art of Drowning. Faster beats seem to be the demise of these cans.When bass is paired with mids and highs at the same time it causes everything to be slightly muddy but not that bad. Slower songs dont appear to have this issue, but with the type of music those moments come very rarely.
Finally we took a look at the Rap album K.O.D. by Tech N9ne. Everything was great on these cans through this album. Bass was pounding but not overwhelming, mids came through clear, and highs were also crisp. These headphones work great for rap music and surpass the performance of previously reviewed Steelseries headsets.
Movies/ Video
Lots of people use their headphones when they watch movies or their favorite TV shows. Testing is done by watching Blue-Ray rips of the following series at 720p or 1080p on the VLC media player.
Life-
This BBC/ Discovery channel is simply stunning visually and audio-wise. These headphones do not limit the quality of Life at all. Small details such as crunching grass or swimming fish come in very clearly.There were instances while closing my eyes and listening where I thought something was behind me from the clarity of the cans. Not all is perfect though, there are times when listening with high volumes when sounds blend and become unclear. Generally though as long as you aren’t at the highest volumes you should be fine.
Band of Brothers –
Being quite an amazing series, Band of Brothers was a perfect fit for a war experience. Small details stick out very well, footsteps, the crackling of a fire, distant gun shots are all very detailed. Larger sounds like exploding artillery and gunfire come in very crisp as well. When it comes to directional sound it is very easy to tell which direction explosions are in and where gunfire comes from which adds in another level to the already awesome experience.Theis headset will add another level of immersion to an already awesome viewing experience.
But lets move onto what these cans are marketed for, gaming.
