ASUS STRIX Wireless Gaming Headset Review

Performance

The headset comes absolutely packed with features, and while you can plug it in and play right away, you’re really going to miss out on what it has to offer without the Sonic Studio software.

Sonic Studio is comprehensive in its features, but it can be a little hard to read on a 4K monitor as it can’t be scaled up easily. In the main control panel, you’ll find a 10-band EQ, bass boost, voice clarity, compressor, virtual surround, reverb, and much more for the drivers, as well as noise gate and perfect voice for the microphone.

Right out the box, the sound on the headset is pretty spectacular, far greater than I was expecting actually. There’s an almost menacing amount of bass response, so those of you who like your lower end punchy, you’ll be glad to know the STRIX can deliver it if you want it to. For music, the headset is fantastic, with really rich mid-tones that really bring a warmth to any music and the clarity is excellent too. However, play around with the EQ a bit, and you can really get some spectacular sounds out of the headset, some pretty bad ones too if you muck the settings up too much, but half the fun is experimenting and your results will vary based on the source material too.

The surround sound features are impressive too, allowing you to adjust each directions level to suit your taste, and offer a perfectly convincing sound for movies and gaming alike. Personally, I still prefer the more direct and thumpy sound of stereo on this headset, but I spend more time with music on my headset than I do games, so to each their own.

The microphone is pretty good, nothing crazy, but certainly competitive with other high-end headsets. I do like that there’s an adjustable noise gate in the software, though, as you can tweak it to suit your ambient noise, or even just to compensate for the sound of your own breathing, either way, the people listening on the other end will be grateful.