Steelseries Guild Wars 2 Headset Review

Steelseries has been known for putting out stylish, yet very functional gaming peripherals over the years. They have taken another step toward being more stylish with the recently launched Steelseries Flux headphones. These headphones are small and stylish much like those ones you can see people wearing all the time with that B on the sidew.

But being a company who caters toward gamers, Steelseries has taken those Flux headphones and put a twist on them. Instead of being boring colors, Steelseries has taken a step and made some Guild Wars 2 branded Flux headphones.

For more information on Steelseries and their other products, here’s a little something taken from their website.

“From day one, SteelSeries has been focused on making professional gaming gear that provide meaningful benefits to gamers of all skill-level, with the most demanding being those gamers whose lively hood depends on the performance of our products. We believe, as most gamers do, in winning, not trying! What originally began as a small two-person operation in Copenhagen back in 2001 has become a global leader in professional gaming products. SteelSeries recognized the need for superior, high-quality professional gaming gear that would give players a competitive edge. Fast-forward to today, and we’ve come a long way since our first glass mousepad. We have global offices in North America, Europe, and Asia, providing an integrated portfolio of products designed specifically for gaming. Fueling our growth is you, the gamer! “

 

The Box and Packaging

 

I think its time to go take a look at the features that are packed into these petite Guild Wars 2 headphones.

 

Features and Specifications

For more information please visit the Steelseries website

 

 

GUILD WARS 2 GAMING HEADSET The all-powerful Elder Dragons have woken from their slumber, threatening the land of Tyria. Now, heroes from the five great races of Tyria must unite, setting aside rivalry and suspicion to face the Elder Dragons together or die apart. Arm yourself with technology that was designed for action-oriented combat and hours of exploration in the dynamic world of Tyria: the Guild Wars 2 Gaming Headset. Noise control It’s no secret that concentration and immersion is essential for a great experience. Background noises can distract from the immersive exploration of a new world. The Guild Wars 2 Gaming Headset is the solution you’ve been looking for with its optimized design and SNDBlock ear cushions, drowning out the noise isn’t the only way to immerse yourself.   SNDBLOCK EAR CUSHIONS The Guild Wars 2 Gaming Headset is equipped with unique SNDBlock ear cushions that are made of both cloth and leather materials. The ear cushions provide sound isolation from an inner leather layer and comfort from the outer cloth layer.

 

 

 

A Closer Look

At first glance, the box is pretty cool. Its got a big red and black guild wars 2 logo on the front along with a vibrant picture of the actual headset. Every side of the box has Guild Wars 2 branding on it, just in case you forgot after looking at the front of the box.   The back includes some neat stuff like technical specifications, as well as some bnasic information about the headset.

Diving into the box you get the actual headset itself, a detachable cable that has a microphone built into it (which is pretty darn cool IMO), a manual and a sticker. Not a huge package of accessories but what else do you really need. I mean, you do get a cool Steelseries sticker after all.

The headset itself feels well built. One thing I really wish they changed about the headset itself is the fact that the actual headphones sit on your earrs instead of going around them. This time around they have used cloth ear pads which is fantastic in my opinion. That fake leather stuff just gets way too hot after long amounts of use. The ear pads have tons of cushon in them and attempt to provide as much comfort as possible.

The headband portion of the headset is gel-like and made of very soft rubber so that it may sit softly on the top of your head. You do have to adjust the size of the headset so that it fits properly, no auto-adjusting here. If you are looking for a headset that will fold for travel use, these things can fold to become much more compact. Perfect for flying.

 When it comes to comfort, I either have a REALLY big head or these things are not very comfortable. Due to them not having the ear-cup design where they sit around your ears and put equal pressure all over your ears lots of holding force is placed right on your ears. After more than 10 minutes soreness began to occur. It could be due to this headset being new and might go away after a few weeks of use. I did pull them outward a bit and that slightly helped with the pinching but these headphones are sure not something that I would want to wear for hours at a time.

 

 

The microphone is built into the cable that can plug into either side of the headphones. Quality on the microphone is fine, over VOIP it never had problems and came through clear.

One of the coolest features of these headphones is the ability to plug in the cable to either side of your headphones. This also allows a friend to plug their headphones into yours to listen to whatever you are listening to. No more days of giving someone an ear-bud to let them hear your music.

 

 

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 Flux Guild Wars 2  headset being driven by an Asus Xonar DX 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. All music was tested at a neutral preset on the sound card in order to show what out of the box performance is like, without catering to a individual music type since very few people only listen to a single type of music.

The first album I used was Aly & Fila – Rising sun which is a Trance/ Techno album. One thing comes to mind. Bass. Holy cow the bass on these things is extremely prounced. It is most likely due to the “closed” nature of the headphones. At times this bass can be overwhelming and lingers over higher notes. Highs and lows come in fine, but at times the mids have a bit of trouble coming through due to the intense nature of the bass in these cans.

 

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. Due to the closed nature of these headphones, the soundstage is really lacking. It feels like all of the sound is directed to your ear and is not able to fully develop. Bass once again comes in crisp, but mids and highs are not very good. You get the feeling that you are listeing to music, and not having a music expererience.

Next up we pick up the pace of the music and feature the A.F.I. Album, Art of Drowning. I have to say I am pretty impressed with these cans with this album. Where others have failed, these produce a solid sound. Lows, mids and highs all come through very well. At really high volumes things become muddy, but if you keep things below 70% there is nothing to worry about.

Finally we took a look at the Rap album K.O.D. by Tech N9ne.Bass was very pronounced throughout this whole album. It is not excessive, but it does provide a solid punch. Mids do a decent job and highs make proper appearances that do not mix. Nothing really stands out as amazing throughout the whole experience, but there are not any large mistakes either which is always good.

 

 

 

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. If this headset needed work on something it would be small details. They come through and listening/watching is indeed enjoyable but some of the smaller things don’t come through quite as good as I had hoped.

Band of Brothers –

This HBO mini-series gives a breattaking look at a group from the 101st airbourne during world war II. Gunfire and explosions came through crisp and clear with these headphones. One thing that was lacking was directional audio. I could hear which side something was coming from but the exact locataion was very hard to tell. This is likely due to the reduced soundstage which comes from these headphones being of the “closed” variety.

 

But lets move onto what these cans are marketed for, gaming. Since these headphones are made for gamers lets see how good this unit actually performs in a few games.

 

PC Gaming

This time we mixed things up once again and threw in Counterstrike:GO since it is afterall a CS:GO branded headset.

 

Counterstrike: Global Offensive

In Counterstrike positional audio is everything. Sadly these headphones come up a bit short in that category. While things are very crisp and sound good. You miss out on things that can save your butt in game. The directional audio needs work as well since it often sounds like someone is right next to you, when in fact they could be behind you or directly in front. These little differences can be the difference between life and death in CS.

 

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

A big huge immersive world is a great way to describe skyrim, the sound in the game is quite immersive as well. Skyrim was a pleasure to play with these Guild Wars 2 headphones. Since pinpoint accuracy is not needed with Skyrim these cans are more than sufficient and deliver a pleasurable performance that will leave you statisfied after a session of playing.

 

 

 

Verdict and Conclusion

Like usual the build quality of Steelseries products is quite good. The Guild Wars 2 edition headphones are no different than any other Steelseries product in that regard.

When it comes to actual performance I have to say they fall short of the competition, and even fall short of the performance from other Steelseries headphones.

They are more made to be mobile, not for sitting around during long gaming sessions or watching long movies. Comfort is mediocre at best, these headphones will pinch your head even when adjusting to give plenty of extra space.

Sound quality is certainly middle of the road. It is not the best, but it certainly is not the worst we have seen. Shopping around these cans can be forund for around $100.

To be blatantly honest, at that price I would simply avoid them unless you are dead set on having something mobile. And even in that case, a good set of IEM’s (earbuds) would perform much better.

 

 

Yes, I understand that there is cool technology under the hood. Being able to detach the headphones from the cable, and having a microphone built into the cable is really cool as well. But there are so many better alternatives at this price from Steelseries and other companies that at this time I cannot recommend getting these headphones unless you have extremely specific needs. In which case they do their job, and they stick to your head well.

 

Final words.

It seems like Steelseries has taken a step back with these headphones. While they are stylish, performance falls flat and comfort is not very good (which might improve over time). If you find yourself in a situation where you favor style over performance and comfort these are the way to go, but in any other case I would choose another route unless Steelseries decides to drop the price on these by 30-40%.

 

Good:

• Very little sound leaks out
• Mic quality is very good
• Looks great
• Ability to detach cables
• Folding capabilities for travel
• Cloth Earpads!

 

Bad:

• Headphones sit on ears instead of going around them
• Sound quality needs work
• Price
• No on-cable volume switch

 

SCORE

 
6.9/10