Razer Tiamat 7.1 True Surround Sound Headset Review

So here it is, the Razer Tiamat 7.1 headset and the contents of the box mentioned previously. At a first glance the headset looks very impressive, so lets have a closer look.

The Razer Tiamat is a very contemporary design, with a metallic frame, clear plastic ear cups and an unusual padded headband style. As per most of Razer’s products, there are subtle Razer green highlights. From first inspection, you can see that the Tiamat is a large headset, probably to fit all those drivers in. The main body of the Tiamat is made of plastic painted in a metallic paint, again, this is probably down to reducing the weight of the headset.

To save on weight, the plastic headband frame has large cut outs. The padded headband it’self is made up of six separate pads rather than one long strip. This is also elasticated so it automatically adjusts to different head sizes.

A rather nice feature about the Tiamat is the clear ear cups, that allows you to see the audio drivers that make this headset so special. The ear cups have some flexibility where they join the main headband, which allows them to rotate slightly. You may also notice four silver discs in each corner of the ear cups, these are small magnets which we’ll talk about in more detail later.

Closer inspection of the left ear cup reveals the noise cancelling microphone. This is fully extendible as you will see in the next photo.

This is the microphone fully extended. The main boom is of a solid construction to allow it to be retracted back into the ear cup, however the mid section is flexible allowing you to bend the microphone into a better position if need be.

The ear cups themselves are faux leather covered foam that covers the whole ear (even large ears). This is to offer better background noise suppression, although it does mean less air getting to your ears, which results in hot ears!

In this photo we removed the ear cup padding to reveal the speakers in the ear cup. There are five in each ear cup, which offer full 7.1 surround sound: two front, two side, two rear, one centre and one sub.

Razer also provide you with ear cup covers for those who wish to cover up the insides of the ear cups. These are held in place by the four small magnets we mentioned earlier.

At the other end of the braided 3m cable there are the 5x 3.5mm jacks, of which at least the red/pink and the green are required (for stereo), although if you want to experience the full potential of the headset, all five will need to be connected for 7.1. The gold plated USB connection is required to power the in-line control system that we will take a look at shortly.  

Near the headset end of the cable is the in-line control system. This is a fairly large unit, but it has a rubber base to stop it sliding around. It features two dials and three buttons, which we’ll go into more detail in the next photograph.

At the top of the control unit, there is a dial that selects the speaker set to adjust the volume to. When selected, the larger dial below it adjusts the volume. The larger dial can also be pressed to mute the selected speaker set.

Below the big dial there are three buttons, mute microphone, change device and select mode (from left to right). The first button is self explanatory (mute mic), the second allows you to switch the audio to you speakers using the additional cable provided. This also supports up to 7.1 surround sound speakers. Finally, the last button lets you switch between stereo and 7.1 – more on this later.

This cable allows you to connect 7.1 surround sound speakers to the control block, so you can switch between the speakers and the headset on the fly by pressing the centre button. This is something we have never seen before, but is a great feature – now you no longer have to faff about round the back of the PC to disconnect the cables.

So, that concludes our first look at the Razer Tiamat, now lets put it to the test.