Steelseries Siberia 200 Gaming Headset Review
Peter Donnell / 9 years ago
A Closer Look
The headset its self is quite similar in terms of design to previous Siberia headsets, and that’s just fine as far as we’re concerned because it still looks as pretty as it ever did.
The drivers have a closed back design, despite their appearance, as well as leather ear pads, so you can hear very little ambient noise. Those powerful 50mm drivers can work pretty hard and will help block as much noise as you want, so long as you don’t mind the higher volumes and the closed back design helps tighten up the lower end frequencies quite nicely. The hard-wired cable is attached on the left side, and there’s a little snug in the ear cup so that the microphone can be retracted out-of-the-way when not required. This is great for use MP3 players, as you can hide the mic and use these as normal headphones.
There’s a small pivot on the ear cup mounting arm, which allows for a much more accurate fit on the side of your head. The drivers have an around-the-ear fit, and as with previous Siberia headsets, the lightweight design combined with the plentiful padding means they’re extremely comfortable.
This is helped even further with the lightweight headband, and wide soft fabric covered inner headband. This is mounted on small springs at the side and auto adjusts to your head, meaning you don’t have too much about with sliders and it’s incredibly comfortable to wear compared to rigid headbands.
The drivers are nice and powerful, giving a good max volume that will help dull out any noisy crowds, but still manages to keep a wonderfully balanced sound. The base is thick, details and crystal clear without overpowering the rest of the soundscape. The mids are nicely detailed and the treble is spot on, giving a well-rounded sound across the whole volume range, making them great for kicking back and listening to your favourite albums. Of course, this is a gaming headset at its core, but that same balanced sound carries through movies, music and gaming just as well.
Playing a few rounds of Battlefield 4, and an awful lot of Fallout 4 with this headset was a lot of fun. The sound is great and really helps bring out the finer details in the soundscape, from enemy footsteps to the ambient noises that can often get lost in the mix on normal desktop or TV speakers.
The real star is the fold away microphone, it’s not the best microphone in the world, but for this budget level, it’s pretty fantastic; crystal clear sound, it doesn’t pick up too much ambient noise and it works really well for team chat as well as it does for day-to-day Skype calls. I hooked the headset into my mobile, and it’s a good microphone for making a few phone calls too.
Overall, great build quality, performance and style. This may not look hugely different from previous Siberia headsets, but it’s still another welcome addition to their range.