Creative SXFI Gamer Headset Review

Performance

The biggest things for me when wearing a headset is being comfortable. I have sore hands, I have a leg pain, the last thing I want it earache too. Fortunately for Creative, I love how this headset feels. I’ve been using the Theater set for a long time now, and this feels broadly the same to me, which is great. Thick and soft padding distributes the weight really well around your ears.

What’s more, it creates a good air seal too, locking the sound in and blocking out ambient noise to great effect. That’s important too, as the drivers are closed-back, so keeping that air pressure locked in is important here.

The headband is fully adjustable with a durable metal friction slider. What’s really cool is that I have a big head! No wait, that’s not cool. However, rarely do I find a headset that fits me even on the maximum. But The Gamer fits at just #8 on the slider, which goes up to a Beldar Conehead ready #11!

There’s a rubber gasket mounting the ear cup to the driver housing too. This allows it to move around a little to provide a more comfortable fit around your ear.

Then we have the lovely RGB lighting effects too. They can be adjusted using the light button on the headset or through the software. It’s easy to turn it on and off with either too. What I do like is that it’s subtle. It’s more of a pastel colour the doesn’t project light. It’s a tasteful way to do it.

As for the sound quality, well I can safely say that Creatives hard work has paid off yet again! SXFI technology works as well as it does on my other Creative products, which is to say that it’s an utterly convincing reproduction of various speaker configurations.

The tricky part is getting it set up. Their app isn’t the best, but once it’s done, you don’t really need to go back into it. You need to take a picture of your ear and face and line it up with the overlay. It’s easy enough, but best you have someone else take the pictures. You then upload that profile to the headset through the desktop app. Again, it’s a bit clunky and Bluetooth would have been welcome. It’s worth it though, as SXFI is something I’m very fond of. I show it off to people much like I did my VR stuff when I invested in that!

The sound quality of the Gamer is pretty fantastic though, easily comparable with the more expensive Theater model. I think the Theater has a “bigger” sound, but not by much. The Gamer has a really rich mid and treble too. What really sets it apart is the gaming profile “Battle Mode” as it’s not quite a EQ boost FPS cheat mode, but just makes games really pop in general, it sounds fantastic.

Playing Elder Scrolls Online, stand in the middle of Deeshan main city, turn the game’s music off and close your eyes. Set your PC to 7.1 surround and just hear the chaos running around you. That being said, SXFI even sounds fantastic playing mono, stereo and 5.1 mixes. It puts the speakers where they should be in a well-configured sound stage rather than just sounding like its piping it right into your ears from left and right.

The microphone is pretty fantastic too. I did a few discord calls and it’s a clear step up from the general chat microphone on the Theater.