Roccat Kulo Virtual Surround Gaming Headset Review

Final Thoughts

Price

Prices for the Roccat Kulo Virtual 7.1 Gaming Headset vary wildly from store to store, with some retailers having them at low at £45 and others going beyond £60! It’s well worth shopping around for a good deal and checking with your own trusted retailers first. We found them for £49.96 from CCL Computers, but again, you can find them in eBay stores, and more, for a little less.

Conclusion

I’m a little surprised with this headset, and I feel a bit of a fool for doubting its abilities as Roccat never disappointed with their audio products in the past. The Kulo is lightweight, compact and affordable given its level of features, yet offers acoustic performance that I would have expected from a much larger headset and bigger drivers, with punchy bass, a maximum volume that will give your teeth a good shaking and multiple connectivity options to suit your desktop environment.

The acoustic performance is rather good for this price range, but it’s the virtual 7.1 surround that surprised me the most. It seems every headset has this feature these days, but the Kulo is easily one of the better solutions I’ve tested for a while. It’s not quite up there with the premium headsets with Dolby and other cool processing, but for such an affordable headset it really does give you a convincing and clear effect for movies and gaming. The microphone is decent enough, nothing crazy, but more than enough for occasional team chat and Skype calls, which is about all most will really want it for anyway.

Build quality is certainly durable and while I must confess I find this headset a little tight on my head, it does tend to wear in nicely after extended use, although this is true of most headsets that use harder memory foam padding; it takes a while to break in, but it lasts a lot longer. The durable headband tends to clamp the ear cups to your head pretty tight, not a bad thing, but again, give the band a few good stretches to wear it in a little if you need to. The swappable ear pads are a welcome bonus though, and while I think the leather ones sound a little better, the softer ones are certainly more comfortable for extended use.

Pros

• Durable build quality
• Powerful and loud drivers
• Good surround processing
• 3.5mm and USB connectivity
• In-line volume controller
• Swappable ear pads
• Competitive price
• Lightweight

Cons

• Can be uncomfortable until worn in a bit
• Hard-wired microphone

Neutral

• Software could do with an update, but it still gets the job done

“The Roccat Kulo packs a great range of features, robust audio performance, and durable build quality in a compact and affordable package that’s simply hard to ignore, making it an ideal solution for those who need a multipurpose headset that doesn’t cost the Earth.”