Thermaltake eSports Shock One PC Headset Review

Opening the box we see everything that comes with the headset, we can see the set its self, the microphone (which isn’t removable), both sets of ear pads, the soft fake leather ones and the fabric ones, the attached controller cable, the manual and the driver disc, so all fairly straight forward stuff here, but its everything you need, so lets break it all down and take a closer look at the contents.

One of the first things I noticed when initially handling the Shock One is the build quality and feel of the set, both of which I have to admit are not fantastic, the plastics used in its construction feel really cheap to touch and hollow, not unlike a lot of headsets in this price range I might add, but that’s hardly justification for the choice of materials used either.  It would have been nice to have a tougher build and clean up some of the joints / glue points on this set, this would have made a massive difference to the overall quality without effecting the price to much, either way its not something I’m going to linger on much given it does sport a firm feature list for its price range, but we’ll test audio features out in a moment too.

Just above the ear piece you can see the left and right folding joints for the headset, which help you store them away a little better, as well as adjust the fit to your head a little more, which is handy given the actual headset its self is massive, Thermaltake definitely haven’t researched the word “ergonomics” when designing this one, but on the plus side, the cheaper plastics are fairly light, so the set doesn’t feel overly massive when your wearing it.

The ear piece covers are interchangeable, with a set of soft leather-like fittings and some soft fabric ones both included in the box, they clip off easily with a light tug and its really easy to snap on the next set, while I didn’t find either one better or worse than the others it’s a nice feature to have, its all a matter of preference, I settled with the fabric ones either way as I liked the look of them more.

On the side you can see the folding microphone, which can be adjusted up and down only, while it does have a lot of bend and flex to it thanks to its rubber construction, it does slowly straighten its self back again, this is most likely just a feature that prevents you from snapping it off rather than for adjusting its distance from your face, it does however fold up nicely out of the way with ease, but I would have liked to have been able to move it horizontally also, being able adjust the distance from my face as well as the hight while gaming, again thought, this is really a minor issue.