So, a new gaming headset has come out that claims that it has the best sound for fps due to “battle mode” lots of claims here. Not sure how it sounds but its not on the market
mixed reviews saying its fantastic and others saying its meh. I watched some videos with it and honesly the mic is pretty damn impressive for a gamers headset
some reviews on it
Placed an order on this gaming headset(its on backorder). From what I have heard from it so far I am pretty impressed but I won’t know truly for sure less it’s with me in person.
Hey @Falenkor, did these finally ship to you? Looks like they are now showing in stock on the the Creative website.
Hmm? Oh, yeah I actually have them in a case sitting in the corner. Can give my thoughts probably tomorrow if you’d like.
Cool, yea i’m interested in hearing your thoughts, but no rush man.
Alright, was able to get my thoughts together on this one. So lets begin yeah?
Build quality, cables, and connections: Build quality is made of what appears to be a rather strong plastic… nothing all too rickety but nothing too special in this regard. Headband lacks padding by an extreme amount and is noticeable for me as I can feel the plastic. Pads are quite literally a knuckle and a half wide and do not completely envelop my ears properly causing issues I had to shift it a lot and just deal with discomfort as people sometimes have small ears like this. I had figured a pad swap was in order to perhaps alter this however upon studying this I realized that the pads are a turnable snap in place style I thought i was going to perhaps rip the pad trying to turn these as there really isn’t a great way of going about it however, noticing the this plastic ring is glued firmed inside that pad and no alternatives are available leaves me rather irritated as I know not a single person with an ear size like this. RGB is rather pretty probably the best rgb I have seen on a headset and overall looks very “game-y”. Cables 3.5mm - 3.5mm standard however usb appears to be made of a sort of braid they claim these are kevlar but I see nothing special honestly and the length is piss poor unless you are using a controller input or close up on your pc if your a couch pc gamer though your SOL without an extension that plus the fact that my units 3.5mm connection appears to be defective and just left buzzing sounds in the ear cups refusing to even turn on. usb-c connection boots it right up and turns the rgb on however there was still a faint buzzing in the left ear which left me concerned… I didn’t hear it in my games or music but when it was silence it was blatantly there and very annoying more so since I couldn’t just use my dac seeing how the 3.5mm was shot. Rating 4 / 10 advice to creative lengthen the cable, make sure your shit isn’t defective please, use a less sproing-y cable.
Soundstage: Relatively narrow until you turn on the “artificial” “Sxfi mode” on. Honestly, I really want to be very honest here… if you think this sounds good with that sxfi mode on I worry for you… it sounds like absolute shit and produces a very artificial enviroment it just sounds like a very piss poor 7.1 virtual surround sound. SXFI Battle Mode ah okay so this is one of the selling points before I get into this let me start by saying… okay creative? Seriously, if your going to sell a headset to the US market please make sure they can actually properly pronounce the modes of the headphone? SUXKUIFIEED mode and Bou - - ttel mode sound just awful and I honestly want to smack you one for that I had to triple take what I was hearing at first and it doesn’t help there is no users manual only this piece of paper stating to go online to download their software. Anyway, so battle mode is fairly respectable it does indeed feel like it opens up that sound and I can give it some modicum of respect as it’s not particularly bad… would I use it for music hell no but for FPS this actually does help open it up to be a more respectable soundstage despite virtualized. Do this mode beat out a true open back? Definitely, resoundingly, NO. It’s respectable enough to have me state I would like to see something like that more in gaming headsets though in order to open their sound up for more larger fps games. Rating wise… its not bad particularly I mean theres plenty of narrow soundstages that are good for gaming(6xx looking at you) however the fact that this headset relies pretty much exclusively on a piece of software that can potentially be easily added to a free software like dolby atmos and hesuvi is rather annoying and for that I will give this a middle ground 5 / 10 for not bad but definitely needs improvement and not to rely on software so much actually tune and design your headphone better instead of relying on the niche of “gamer” brand to sell your product creative could do well to learn from beyerdynamic here when it came to mmx300 and tygr 300 r.
Imaging: I noticed some slight inaccuracies here and there while gaming with it nothing too major but it got me killed a few times which was rather annoying other than that it’s alright. In its price bracket? I will give this a 4 / 10 rating from me as there are better here for cheaper
Seperation: Huge lacking point here… when I put music through this one it sounds like there was virtually zero seperation in most of my songs as though they skipped this entirely in the sake of gaming and it caused a ton of sounds to blend and mix together into a very weird sort of amalgamation it honestly sounded downright awful due to this… while you can get away with a more narrow - medium level battlefield in like fps I would not recommend this headphone for music due to how this made things sound here. 1 / 10 rating from me
Comfort: so-so. The pads are thick enough but no where near wide enough here. Clamping force seems relatively moderate which is rather unusual for me in the case of an actual gaming headset. Weight appears to be distributed pretty evenly. Honestly if they would fix the pads the comfort wouldn’t be too bad on this one at all or at the very least sell the adapters or something to let us fix it ourselves. For me personally? 3/10
Software: Okay so this was an interesting selling point. So the software upon downloading can actually go upon your ear design and shape the sound. It works incredibly well honestly and doesn’t sound too bad. Equalization is simple enough and doesn’t sound bad. I will give this one an 9/10 for creative ingenuity, ease of access, and not obliterating the sound from using it.
Sound signature: without equalization this headphone is awful out the gate for competitive. Too much bass, little to no seperation, narrow sound stage, and noticeably slightly raised highs to my hearing. Personally it sounds like a subtle W signature to me like the HyperX flight is out the gate but with a bit less bass unlike the flight which is practically a damn cannon. I think creative has a ton of work to do here as the sound just isn’t enjoyable to me here. Your competing with mh751 and hyperx in this price bracket hell even the pc37x and this definitely does not even remotely stand up to them. 3 / 10 rating I think creative needs to grab it’s competition and actually sit down with realization as to what it takes to make a true competitive headphone as I listening to this shows me they are truly clueless… Perhaps get with some professional gamers and have them explain to them what is more ideal because this headphone is all over the place and doesn’t capitalize on anything outside the mic and software.
Mic Quality: honestly? Not bad at all here. I would like this mic on a few of my headsets actually so rating would be a very solid 7 / 10 as while I have heard better this one is definitely up there.
So final notes: I don’t recommend this one at all. It’s brand new, it’s pretty and shiny, it has a neat software mode that is rather nice for a closed back headset but if you sit down with it’s competition(I own hyperx flight, mh751, hyperx alphas, among a lot of others I am going to be very critical as someone who has a very wide amount of experience with the headset market) it’s blatantly obvious where this one lacks. The software itself from sxfi can be found inside the Soundblaster X3 or their tiny portable amp the only thing really special about this is the ear software and battle mode nothing else really stands out. Creative screwed this one big and I whole heartedly have to scream to please skip this unless revisions or done otherwise pick up a mh751(or 752 if you want equalization and what not) hell you could grab their new mh630 and be just fine too and that one is very comfortable. In it’s price bracket I would sooner tell you grab a modified up shp9500 or Takstar pro82 or something as they are just better pair them with a modmic or v - moda and your just fine. Of course this will definitely not be in my collection… if you ask me this things a piece of garbage in a pretty packaging.
I will note further that I honestly had some rather high hopes for this. After hearing the reviews praise this one for a gaming headset and being brand new in a great price range alongside the looks… I hoped big time this would be good… But what I heard was just rather detesting. I am very disappointed in creative. It appears anytime I try one of their products it’s very lackluster or comes with problems in one way or another after having also tried the x3 and g6 amps. My advice to a gamer within the $150 price range. Look elsewhere. If you really want a gaming headset grab something from hyperX or the mh751 / mh6-- series. If your wanting a headphone something along the lines of a shp9500, creative aurvana live, takstar pro 82, among a few others will suit you just fine
@Falenkor appreciate the review. I figured this was probably going to be the experience you would have with them. Like yourself I had picked up the Creative X3 that has the Sxfi technology and was not sold on it. I mean it did sound a little wider but with a lot of reverb and bloated bass.
Its funny I used to think I needed some VSS in games but after just leaving it off in just the few I play I found that usually the game sound engine does a much better job. I used to enjoy the Sennheiser GSX 1000 when I would play World of Warcraft, but recently I dusted it off and said “let me try this again…” and was like “nope!” I just don’t enjoy it anymore. Probably because now owning 10 plus better headphones instead of cheap and poorly made headsets, this has forever changed my own personal view.
Again, thanks for the review… sounds like they are going back I hope!
this is exactly what I received with the technology. It sounds like a bad implementation of the same software you can get out of hesuvi or dolby atmos… however games with build in dolby atmos(if I remember right even overwatch has this nowadays) sound a lot better. Hell I have seen shooters with treble increase in settings now which threw me off If i remember right that was in call of duty.
Most definitely, I used to think it was interesting till I found out the software you can get for either free or through like a $15 - $20 dongle and even then it just didn’t sound as good.
Honestly, that amp has some of the best surround sound to it that I have heard personally and even then it’s just a big nope from me lol.
I mean, Honestly if they had that “battle” excuse me bou–ttle mode feature on these for other gaming headsets that were actually worth a damn I wouldn’t mind. It did help it out quite a bit for fps despite such a narrow soundstage it gave it that feel without reverb or bloating that it’s more open and immersive which was quite nice so a bit of a breakthrough in that regard involving the software. I would definitely take that on some closed back cheaper headsets for sure.
I reached out to creative already for an immediate return on them. Explaining why I am returning them. Pretty sure I have tried almost every gaming headset worth a damn on the market at this point. Excluding the audeze gx but that’s only due to my viewpoint that at that pricepoint why the hell are you buying a gaming headset and not a full on setup? There’s just so many better headphones out there. In terms of headsets? I would gladly take a huge variety over this one from creative… Hell I would actually take a cheapo Turtle Beach that’s just how bad this thing is to me. Perhaps I should make a small compilation on what I think is good and not for gaming headsets at some point. Some just aren’t bad while others are god awful. They always want to cut corners