Introduction
Creative were once the king of the desktop audio market, but in recent years, there have been so many new names come and go, that it’s been getting harder and harder for even the most established brands to maintain a larger part of the market. That’s not to say Creative fell into obscurity, if anything, they’ve always been making a lot of great products, from their impressive soundcards, to desktop speakers; I myself have a set of Creative speakers on my desk! We review a lot of great audio products here at eTeknix HQ, so I’m very happy to welcome Creative into the mix, as it’s one of the first products I’ve reviewed , so it’ll be great to see how they hold up against the rest of the market.
A great gaming headset isn’t exactly hard to find these days, there’s just so many amazing ones to choose from right now, but Creative have gone all out with their new model, packing it full of features that certainly caught my attention. We’ve got powerful 50mm FullSpectrum drivers, wireless technology via a USB dongle, with 16 hours battery life, SBX Pro Studio audio processing for fully customisable audio, 16m colour customisable LED lighting, 3D surround processing for virtual 7.1, VoiceFX, Scout Mode and more. The headset will support PC, Mac and PlayStation 4.
In the box, you’ll find the headset, obviously, a very nice quality sleeved cable for charging the headset, a detachable boom microphone and the USB dongle.
The dongle is simple enough, with a small LED indicator on the top and a pairing button on the side.
The headset is really nicely designed and while there are a lot of plastics on show, they’re of a very high quality, have a nice premium feel to them and also feel pretty tough too.
The black plastics are broken up by some glossy red highlights, which I think look really nice, although I must admit I’m not overly fond of the shape of the ear cups. However, I will point out that so long as a headset is comfortable and sounds great, I don’t care too much what it looks like.
As with most headsets, the ear cups are rotatable, which means it’ll sit comfortably around your neck between games and will also help with providing a clean fit over your ears.
The ear cups are very well padded and coated with a soft leather, so they should provide a very close fit and there’s a soft cloth backing on the drivers.
All the major controls are located on the headset, with a volume dial and microphone mute switch all being within easy reach. There’s also the USB charging socket on the bottom as well as a port for the detachable boom microphone.
The headband is incredibly robust, with a thick metal headband that locks firmly into place and adds extra durability to the whole headset.
The top of the headband is plastered in logos, should you forget which brand you’re wearing.
The padding on the interior of the headband doesn’t look much in the picture, but it’s actually pretty generously packed with memory foam and covered with soft leather to provide you with a comfortable fit and enough support to prevent the headset from slipping.
The microphone has a fully flexible and position boom, meaning you’ll have no issue finding an optical speaking position.
Overall, I think this is a very nice headset, with excellent build quality. I’m not completely taken with the design overall, I think it’s a little fat and rounded looking, but aesthetics is a very subjective matter, so let’s get on to what really matters; the performance.
