Gadgetory

what's up everyone Eber here with hard-working axe and virtual 7.1 gaming headsets are an interesting topic to discuss particularly because some gaming brands do them right whereas others just add that as a marketing label to their flagship gaming headsets yet they still don't offer a surround and immersive gaming experience I say this because I have received a pair in the office and it's this guy right over here the Strix ROG fusion 500 it's the new kid on the block from Asus and they've added features like a virtual 7.1 surround feature RGB lining that's that's still a thing here and it also comes in this interesting design and it costs a hundred and eighty dollars so I actually decided to compare this pair to another pair that I had here in the studio that cost a hundred and fifty dollars so thirty dollars cheaper then the fusion 500 and this this guy right over here the HyperX rover s gaming headset and I've done a full review on the channel so if you're interested you can check it out right over here it's actually one of my favorite pairs here in the office and I just wanted to compare and see what you're really getting for in terms of value when it comes to a surround sound gaming headset because let's face it some I mean a lot of you guys might not like the whole surreal or the surround experience or some of you really appreciate the wider soundstage that you get when you enable which will sound point one surround sound so we're gonna find out which one of these headsets actually deliver a good experience in fact are they actually surround so let's find out right after this the new master liquid ml aiu liquid coolers from coolermaster come in both 120 and 240 millimeter variants now with addressable RGB LEDs both the fans and the pump that can be controlled via this hub with options to adjust the lighting effects and speed along with the ability to control them through the respective mother board software check out the ML 120 and ML 240 are a iOS down below alright so kicking things off for the design and I think asus has certainly taken an interesting approach in the department with the fusion 500 I think they're trying or I think it's trying really hard to stand out from the competition with these plastic mirror finishes on the ear cups and I have to mention that they're seriously a fingerprint magnet plus it can scratch up ease long-term use so I'd handle this headset with caution and of course we cannot forget to mention the ROG branding they're pretty much visible throughout the headset I mean they've even managed to imprint that on the ear cuffs so the attention to detail here is appreciated but it's not my taste in fact if you're looking for a strong gaming headset with a minimalist design approach then this is certainly not it because it definitely looks gay Murray I mean I would love to hear your thoughts on the design of the Strix 500 in the comments the steel sliders are great they're well defined and they do lock in place once you've adjusted it to your convenience setting and to quickly go over the RGB lighting on this headset is located on the rear side of the ear cup the colors are nice and subtle the the diffusion is very consistent and it looks really nice but I just don't understand implementing that on the gaming headset because when you're wearing them you really can't see them and most importantly you're paying that extra premium cost for this headset just with the added implementation of the feature of RGB lining so that's something to consider I might see this feature being beneficial for you know eSports players perhaps in that arena but that's just my take Asus has included a driver software to adjust the lighting controls or the lighting effects on this headset but oddly enough there are only three to four effects that you can play around with which includes static breathing color cycling and the last one being the music or an effect that reacts to your music another glitch that I had with this driver software is I was not able to actually change the color of the lining on this headset because customizable control was completely greyed out so it didn't just make any sense you only have the option to set it to a white color option and that was pretty much it just just make any sense so I'd say I mean from a software perspective it's just completely broken Asus could fix it with a software update but as of right now I just solely cannot rely on customizing lighting again with this headset because it's just it's broken now asu's has also implemented bluetooth on the Strix fusion 500 and before you start thinking then that's pretty that's an awesome feature for audio streaming you are wrong because that isn't for audio in fact it's a no it's a functionality that can be used to adjust the lighting effects through your smart phone so what do you have to do is tap on the left ear cup - you have to hold on it to activate bluetooth paired up with your smart phone and then you'll be able to adjust lighting through the aura app that you have to download from the Play Store again a complete pointless feature in my opinion it just doesn't make any sense you really don't need it I feel like Asus is just shoving a bunch of features at your face that you really don't need and then they decide to charge you 180 bucks so yeah it just again doesn't make any sense switching over to the revolver s and this one looks like a typical gaming headset the ear cups features soft - rubberized material that don't look too aggressive or flashy compared to the glossy mirror finish you go at the fusion 500 the self adjusting headband is personally not my favorite as the metal frame can still cause annoying reverberations when it gets in contact with anything this headset does not feature any RGB lighting and I like that I'm moving on to comfort and I think the revolver s seemed to take the edge here because it's overall a very light frame and the signature memory foam does a really good job creating a good seal plus it's not an irritating material so I can wear this for longer periods of time the clamping force is also very minimal on this headset so from a comfort perspective I'd actually prefer the HyperX R / s / the Strix fusion 500 speaking of which for $180 I'd give it a solid 8 out of 10 in the build quality department because it's mostly constructed out of hard plastic materials and put together really well there were no signs of creaking but I will mention that this is definitely not a lightweight headset since the ear cups housed the ESS - 9018 DAC and a high quality amplifier so the drawbacks are the shells are so much bigger and heavier so this could potentially cause head fatigue over long-term use I should also mention that the clamping force on the sensor is way too high and you can tell by looking at the shape the ear cups can rotate 90 degrees unlike the revolver S but given the large gear cup design it almost chokes you and it feels really uncomfortable especially when taking shorter breaks so when you're wearing this headset you're definitely going to notice this burden that's sitting on top of you and it really is an uncomfortably tore gaming headset in the past so in my opinion I think that roller s actually gets the anterior in terms of comfort now asus has decided to implement touch controls on the fusion 500 and this is actually located on the left side of the ear cup so the user has the option to swipe back and forth to skip between tracks tap to play pause the music or swipe up and down to adjust the volume now my shoes that I had problems with the play/pause functionality because sometimes it just wouldn't work I had to replug the headset for that function to work for that feature to work particularly and the other problem that I had was the latency so when you're swiping back and forth or adjusting the volume it takes a couple of seconds to at least do that so there's a little bit of a delay when it comes to adjusting the volume but most importantly the adjustments are in four step intervals so it's definitely not accurate and I just feel like it's it's not necessary for gaming I said because it's just way too much complicated in my opinion I would have much rather prefer to volume down on the backside of the rear side of the headphone or perhaps you know a control box within the cable would have been a lot better because you know it's well within reach while they're gaming can easily adjust the volume mute the microphone to whatever you need to because with the HyperX rollover s the control box is literally with the cable so you just have to you have this one dongle that literally lets you enable virtual 7.1 surround sound just the volume adjust in microphones volume the game and of course you do have the option to mute the microphone so everything's in this one little box that's super subtle and nice and it actually takes away a lot of weight when implementing that on the actual frame of the headset do not that the Strix headset is USB powered so that means you will need a USB port for it to function it does not come with a 3.5 millimeter connectors so using this pair with your mobile device is totally out of question the fusion 300 which is the lower-tier version of the 500 comes with both a USB connector and a 3.5 millimeter and lock board and the differences are you don't get RGB lining there are no touch controls and of course there's the lack of ESS hi-fi deck the cable is braided but unfortunately it's really hard to maneuver around with given this nature expect king formation and over time the cable could actually wear off - now Asus claims at the fusion 500 is ps4 compatible but that raised a lot of questions for me because as far as I know there are not in fact I don't think there are any gaming controllers out there with a full sized type-a port so in order to experience sound you'd have to connect this directly to the console in order to experience that and that's a complete fail my opinion because if you're living if you have your ps4 you're in a living room setup then you'd have to sit directly in from the TV and that would be an unaccompanied experience whereas with the revolver as gaming had said you can plug this directly to your game controller button via the 3.5 mm audio jack and you can experience a sound right away the only compromise is that you won't be able to experience 7.1 surround sound because this dongle right here is USB powered so that's something to consider now before I get into the microphone test I do want to talk about the sound quality on both these headsets so let's kick things off with the fusion 500 and it was interesting because I want to kick things off with the stereo mode that comes by default out of the box the trebles are severely crushed meaning they're overtaken by the lower frequencies and the Mint's which really causes an unbalanced stereo imaging but when you enable the virtual 7.1 option which can be activated by pressing the button that's located on the left side of the aircraft and it actually eliminates a lot of the issues that I had with the stereo mode that comes by default without that button enabled so right now you have the higher frequencies that are obviously a lot more lifted they're a lot more clear and concise the soundstage is not as wider it expected to be but they're very powerful thanks to the inclusion of a you know ESS - say burdock or and of course the amplifier and all be high-tech audio stuff that they've jammed inside this headset the problem is that I was actually not able to experience surround sound with the button enabled because the soundstage is a lot more closer to me compared to being far away so for example in battlefield one when you're firing gunshots or hearing explosions in the background or even walking through the gameplay you won't be surrounded by those audio cues but you will get a good sense of positional awareness because it's after all a stereo experience at least that's what I think when compared to the role or s that expands your soundstage creates this surround experience and you know you can hear the environment a lot more in a new again a wider space when you're driving or when you're writing a helicopter or where you're in a game play when you're firing gunshots it's a lot more immersive with that on the HyperX rover s when compared to the infusion 500 so that's something that I found to be really odd again from a sound quality perspective these sound fantastic because the stereo imaging once you enable that 7.1 button is great because it kind of I'm not sure if you kind of understand what I'm getting to but it just it kind of creates this amazing stereo experience rather than rather than being surround the last thing to talk about is the microphone quality of the fusion 500 as you can see the boom microphone is nonrenewable so it comes with the headset and that's there's actually a little compartment on the left ear cup where you can just simply swivel to store this microphone the good thing is that it actually mutes when you're swiveling so that's pretty convenient the odd part is that you don't have controls to your gain levels when it comes to microphone which is a little bit disappointing but coming back to the quality my voice sounds you know it it doesn't sound as booming it sounds a little bit on the shallower side there's not a lot of definition with my bass because my voice certainly does have quite a bit of bass but you really can't pick that up with this headset it almost feels like the microphone is just a little bit distant from you and I think it probably has to do with the orientation of the actual mic of this on this headset but the other thing is that it actually doesn't have any noise canceling characteristics so if I'm typing on a mechanical keyboard you can certainly or the microphone really does a pretty terrible job isolating that and it picks up those sounds so yeah overall I mean it's definitely there when it comes to the game levels is certainly clear I mean the person on the other end shouldn't have a problem listening to me but again love to hear your thoughts on the quality of the fusion 500 and so right now you're listening to the HyperX Bravo s gaming headset as you can tell it's actually a lot more better I mean there's a little bit of processing going on the background but I think that has to do with noise cancelling characteristics and as you can see when I'm typing on the mechanical keyboard featuring Cherry MX blue switches it does a really good job isolating that noise and of course my voice do certainly does have a little bit of a bass there's a lot more it's just a little bit boom ear in my opinion I'm sure this would be perfect for twitch streaming or even Skype calls in general I think the person on the other end shouldn't have a problem at all listening to you I'd love to hear your thoughts on the comparison which one do you prefer let me know the comments down below so to conclude this Pearson I'm just gonna be very honest I don't think you should spend $180 on the fusion 500 because it's a confusing headset because for one the touch controls they just don't make any sense they don't function the RGB lining with the software it just doesn't work the design is not personally my favorite but I mean some of you might pouch for that and there's also the whole part with comfort because it said it's a very heavy gaming headset there's a lot of things packed inside this frame because you've got the high 5 DAC as well as the amplifier and it's overall just a bulky headset with a lot of features but from a sound perspective again the stereo imaging is fantastic I don't think you'll have any issues with that but my concern is that I was actually not able to experience surround sound with this headset and I was a little bit disappointed with that you know again headphone reviews are subjective but that's just my take on the fusion 500 now when you look at something like the revolver s from HyperX I think this had to delivers a fantastic experience for 150 bucks I'll be in the amplification when it comes to the stereo imaging is a lot lower than what you'll find on the fusion 500 but if you're looking for a gaming headset with a really good surround experience especially when it comes to feeling the gunshots and if you want to feel that you're in the environment you should definitely consider the rover s because it's a great pair so that about wraps up this comparison between the Strix fusion 500 and the HyperX Robert s gaming headset now if you had a budget of around $200 to spend on a virtual 7.1 store on gimme headset would you actually consider the fusion 500 or would you save a lot less and pick the a rollover S or are there any alternatives that you might be interested in love to know your thoughts in the comments down below I mean bar with harbor connects thank you so much for watching a links to purchase these headsets will be in the description down below make sure to check out our new boot sequence channel where we have content regarding tech news and all that kind of stuff and of course you can watch some relevant content over here again thanks so much for watching and we'll see you in the next one that's that has to happen