AOC Gaming GH401 Wireless Gaming Headset Review

A Closer Look & Performance

First impressions go a long way, and the AOC GH401 makes a really good one. It’s a stylish design, with that classic red and black gamer style giving it some retro vibes. Actually, the black and red match the aesthetic of their new keyboard too, and I appreciate that they’re keeping their ecosystem on a similar theme to their AGON monitor series.

The headset had a nice weight to it too, it’s not overly heavy or anything, but it has a slight weight of quality to it that will help it feel more planted on your head and not just rattle around. It’s slightly oversized too, with huge ear cups that’ll have no issues going around your ears.

The oversized padding means that any weight/force will be spread over more surface area, further improving the overall comfort of the GH401. Of course, that soft faux leather finish looks great, but it’ll help create an airtight seal too. By doing so, you’re both locking the sound of the drives in, and blocking external noise out.

There’s a nice shiny cover on the sides allowing for some pivoting. I should say, that the round silver bit looks like metal, but this is a plastic cover over the real red metal arm.

There’s a notched friction slider here, allowing you to easily adjust the headband to fit. At the smallest, the headset is small enough to fit children easily enough. For me, I have to use the headset at maximum to get it to fit, but fear not, I have a very large head and few headsets actually fit me at all, so I’m glad to say this one does. With that in mind, it should fit just about anyone!

I love that exposed wire design, it looks pretty cool thanks to its red matte finish sleeving.

There’s matching red stitching on the headband too, as well as more of that lovely padding to match the ear cups.

It says the microphone is detachable, but honestly, if it is, it’s really stuck in there. I don’t want to pull it any harder as I feel perhaps it’s a mistake in the specifications saying it’s detachable. Thankfully, it has a flexible boom, so it’s never felt in my way when not using it.

Plus, there’s a built-in mute button right on the side of the ear cup. There’s also the master power button too. What I REALLY like is that these buttons have a very satisfying clicky switch in them. It’s a little detail, but a nice clicky switch really makes them feel more premium. That is until you press mute and you hear a lady say “talk mic mute” or “talk mic unmute” which just feels like it’s using two more words than it needs to “muted” and “unmuted” would do just fine.

There’s a USB-C charging port here, and while you can use the included cable, of course, any Type-C cable you have lying around will do just fine. There’s a 3.5mm jack for connecting to anything that doesn’t support the wireless dongle, and a built-in volume wheel too. Really, for a more affordable headset, the GH401 is hardly lacking in features!

AOC has equipped the GH401 headset with a pair of powerful 50mm drivers. I really do mean powerful too, as at maximum volume is just on the side of uncomfortably loud. Of course, I don’t suggest you make yourself go deaf, that would be stupid. However, if you’re dealing with a quieter audio source or media, having that extra power can certainly come in handy.

AOC claim the GH401 will give you around 17 hours of playback, I got more like 13 or 14, but I have been pushing the headset a fair bit too in some of my testing. It wouldn’t surprise me if their figures are from 50% volume, not 75-80% like I’ve been using. That’s fair enough though, and still longer than any single gaming session I’m likely to pull. Furthermore, you can charge and play, or fall back to the 3.5mm cable anytime.

There’s no fancy surround sound processing, no trick bass-bosting or anything here. Just two big and punchy 50mm drivers. The sound is surprisingly clean on the high-end with a slight warmth to the mid-range, which I feel adds a more natural sound to music and vocal parts. There’s a good low-end punch too, not overly bass-heavy though, which is good, but the closed-back drivers give it a deeper sound overall that makes for a well-rounded sound.

I actually tested these in stereo and they’re great for music, much to my surprise actually. Audiophile-grade? No, but they’re hardly lacking either. However, for movies and gaming, I used both Windows Sonic and Dolby Atmos Headphones, and both worked really well, with Dolby giving these headphones decent surround, especially while watching films (I watch a lot of films each week).

Beyond that, the microphone is bright and clear, again, nothing groundbreaking but as good as anything else in this price range, and from my end and the people on my discord channel, there are no issues with signal quality or distortion, so a thumbs up there.