Do you have some cash burning a hole in your pocket? Are you looking to buy a piece of overpriced tech that solves a problem that isn’t really a problem? Great! Because today I’m reviewing the Corsair ST100, a stand where you can hang your headphones for the ultra-low price of just £70. Did I mention it’s also a USB hub, a 7.1 DAC for your 3.5mm audio connection and that it has customizable RGB lighting? So let’s review the most frivolous piece of tech I think I’ve ever covered.
Oh, the freedom of having no wires attached to you yet still being able to chat with friends or listen to music while wandering around naked in your own home clutching a bowl of coco-pops like it’s the only thing left in your life worth anything. Yup, the wireless age is a golden one, or at the very least a yellowish tinged one. Since I reviewed it I’ve been using the Arctis 5, a wonderful wired headset that had great sound and didn’t break the bank. But now I’ve got my grubby mitts on its bigger brother. There are no strings on the Arctis 7, it’s cord has been cut. But is it any good?
Review sample provided free of charge by Roccat. The wonderful thing about a fantastic headset is that lovely comforting feel it can provide, the sense that you’re isolated from the hustle and bustle of the outside world, able to ignore all the yelling and shouting and screaming and […]
Having done very well so far with their Cloud line-up the folk over at HyperX have decided to have a stab at creating a wireless headset so that you can happily amble around your house oblivious to the cries of your attention-starved family while listening to music. Good times. Or at least, that was what I initially thought but as it turns out the Cloud Flight, which retails for around £120, isn’t very good for ignoring those people in your life that you feel obligated to be around. It is, however, rather good at gaming.
Audio is something long looked over by all except the die-hards, but now we’re finally starting to see some appreciation for sound with digital streaming companies slowly but surely abandoning the horribly low quality 256kbps compression methods, while the introduction of Blu-ray and now 4k Blu-ray discs has resulted in a marked improvement for films and games. The reason I mention this is that the Roccat Khan claims to be the world’s first “Hi-Res Audio” headset, something usually defined as being 16 bit / 44.1KHz. It’s a meaningless statement for most consumers while audiophiles are all too used to dealing with how to get the best audio possible. As such the Japanese Audio Society (JAS) and the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) have created a certification for what they deem to be Hi-Res Audio, and the Roccat Khan meets the criteria.
Damn but do I love me a good headset! Don’t get me wrong, I adore my speaker system, but there’s something awesome about slipping on a headset and tuning the outside world out, revelling in the sense of isolation that padded ear cups can provide. Not to mention a good pair of cans can help you appreciate one of the most under-appreciated aspects of videogames – the sound design.
It’s the graphics that tend to get all of the attention as people lavish praise upon the art style, the level of pure technical prowess on display, the lighting and the colors. We tend to put the emphasis on what we can see, which is a shame because well-done audio is just as important when it comes to creating a gaming masterpiece or a fantastic movie. And what makes wonderful audio design even better? A good set of speakers or headphones, of course.
For some people a stack of colossal speakers and an amplifier the size of Wales is not a viable option, and we shall pity those people because they will never know the joys of listening to Back in Black at a volume so loud France has begun complaining. […]
The Siberia 200 might look rather familiar, and that’s because it’s a relaunch (kind of) of Steelseries’ much loved Siberia V2, a headset that earned itself a lot of fans over the years before it was discontinued in favour of the radically different V3. Steelseries haven’t opted to change […]
Reviewing the Game One from Sennheiser after having just tackled their Game Zero model is a difficult task indeed as they’re incredibly alike, meaning I’ve already said many of the things that could be talked about here. Still, there are so differences worth chatting about, starting with the […]
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