Cyborg F.R.E.Q. 5 Stereo Gaming Headset PC Review

Once setup it was time to get to testing the set, for my first test I connected them to the PC using the USB cable, installation was quick and windows found the drivers automatically, so no problems there.

For testing I picked my usual selection of demanding music ranging from classical music right through to some Norwegian doom metal and some eclectic jazz fusion guitar albums, a demanding set of sounds for any speaker set if there ever was one. Fortunately the the F.R.E.Q.5  held up really well throughout the music test, although on its basic settings the performance was quite flat, not bad, but just an equal balance on the EQ, something you generally don’t find in a lot of headsets these days are they always do “something” with the EQ before it gets to your ears, this didn’t seem to be the case here. While I’m not normally a fan of “EQ” mode switches, likely since I never find one that works well enough to justify its use, I was stunned with the EQ button on the F.R.E.Q.5 since actually performs really well, giving a good selection of powerful equalisation options.

Gaming performance was equally good, I always test gaming headsets out using Battlefield 3 and Skyrim, as they both offer a great mix of powerful sound effects, subtle ambient background noise as well as music that really tests the full range of a headset, sound quality on both was right where you would expect it to be for a £100+ headset, and I certainly have no complains on the sound quality throughout this test.

As for movies, the headset still goes from strength to strength, I found them to be really comfortable over long gaming sessions and as such I had no trouble wearing them for a couple of hours while watching a movie, Die Hard 3 definitely had a good kick to it after a couple of presses of the EQ button.

For the microphone test I chose the well known Skype application and after a 3 hour conference call between four people, the headset and the microphone didn’t miss a beat, audio was crystal clear on this end and after 3 months of my colleagues complaining about my low quality headset it was nice to hear no complaints about quality for once.

While I did test the headset with an MP3 player, performance was identical to that of the PC tests I performed.