Gadgetory

this is a product that there's been a lot of buzz about online this is the SteelSeries 7h a USB pro gaming headset and what SteelSeries is going after with this particular headset is something that is not only great for gaming like there are old top-of-the-range the 5 hv 2 but also outstanding for music movies or any other use that you could want from them so this is their highest end headset to date and it is also their most expensive it's available in both a USB and non USB version the headsets are identical in both of those packages however and the only difference is whether or not it has the included SteelSeries USB soundcard so if I could get the cameraman to come and have a look I'm just gonna show you what SteelSeries has to say for themselves about this particular headset so here they show you the specifications so if you just want to zoom in on that so they can read it as long as it's focused it's good because they can pause and then hear there's a bunch of information about it as well and then let's flip around to the back so this headset does feature 50 millimeter drivers so that's quite large for a PC gaming headset it is a closed type headset but the interchangeable ear cushions and I'm going to just start unboxing the headset itself the interchangeable ear cushions actually give you an option depending what kind of a sound you prefer you can either use the okay oh these are secured on here you can either use the plethora ear cups that ship on the headset or you can actually switch to these cloth gear cups and the cloth ones are going to provide a more open sounding experience even though they are closed headphones as opposed to the pleather ones so you kind of get a little bit of customization and they do include both options in the package so I'm gonna go ahead and pull the headset off of the package because it is their most expensive and most premium product to date for a headset it does look like it okay so you've got here what compare against their previous high-end there are some similarities but also some significant differences so first of all you notice that the band for the headrest up at the top is quite a bit wider versus the old finding to be - you see that it's quite a bit wider so you're gonna get a more spread out comfortable feel up on the top of the headset itself I can tell right away that these are quite closed I can barely hear myself talking right now with these on which is great for not disturbing others late at night when you're gaming or listening to music or whatever else you happen to be doing with your headphones and I put these on the wrong way this is the way they go sorry about that so we'll have a quick look at what we've got included in terms of accessories first and then we'll have a closer look at the headset itself so here's another key difference that I noticed right off the bat long pause is that the second H actually has a mini USB cable here whereas the 5hv - has a permanently attached cord so that makes it a little bit easier to transport because they both come apart into three pieces but now the 7h can actually come apart in three pieces and keep the cable separate whereas the five hvcu came apart in two pieces but had the cable permanently attached to the one ear cup okay so the actual accessories included here we go we have the short version of the cable so here's your headphone and microphone jacks as well as your mini USB right here so this goes into the bottom of this ear cup just like that okay it doesn't well it has a bit of a clip on it but you can pull it out with a firm tug so that's no problem and the reason SteelSeries has these short cables is because if you have a supported keyboard with an audio pass-through you can actually plug them right into the keyboard have a nice short cable and keep it right on your head when you're gaming so it keeps the cord from really getting in the way and then they also include an extended audio cable so the extended audio cables if you do have to go around to the back of your computer that's a nice long cable you'll be able to go pretty much wherever you need to go with it these are gold plated connectors on both ends so you don't have to worry about that and they aren't quite clearly labeled if you want to come have a look close up here so you can see that this is the microphone it is also color-coded here but on there there's a little headphone icon and then on this one it just clearly says mic right on the connector the last piece included and this is optional so this only comes with the USB version is a USB sound card so you plug this into a USB port and then without any interaction from the sound card you can just have audio running off of USB I mean it's not the best thing in the world but if you want all of your settings configurable then and you can just move the thing from one computer to another it'll actually keep that consistency if you're if you're that much of a pro another thing that SteelSeries does provide with their software for the sound card is Virtual Surround so they say you've got Virtual Surround 7.1 you can actually configure how many speakers and exactly where you want them position so that's another thing that's pretty cool about the USB sound card and it's not an expensive adder I think it only costs another 20 bucks or so so I think that pretty much covers everything I wanted to say I'm gonna go ahead and put the headset back together really quickly here hopefully to demonstrate just how easy it is there we go that was easy oh you know what we should also show you know let's just show the headset a little bit closer up so you got your SteelSeries logo up along the top here on either side you've got these kind of metal looking steel series logos the ear cups actually rotate like this which I don't believe was a feature of the 518 - no it was not so that's going to give you a more comfortable listening experience whether your heads are whether your ears are positioned like closer to the back ear head or closer to the front the angle will adjust itself such that you can be very very comfortable also I didn't talk about the retractable mic this is a steel series staple it's existed on their high-end headsets for quite a while now but they've refined the look of a microphone a little bit it looks a more professional and less kind of like a big teardrop so that's one their thing that's cool and let me see what else I have to say about it I think that pretty much covers it I'm going to be doing probably either a separate video or or I'll do some annotations on top of this video once I have a chance to listen to it I'll be comparing it against these sennheiser HD 5 v 5s as well as the sennheiser pc 350s so thank you for checking out my video on the SteelSeries 7h USB don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips ok I missed 2 small things sorry about that first of all there is an inline volume control and mic shut off key so if I could just get the camera to have a close look here you can see it's labeled mic for the button right here and then there is a volume control slider right there very convenient and last but not least I never did take a close look at the interchangeable ear cups so you have the cloth ear cup option which is as simple as just pulling off the plethora ones that are included it should hopefully I can figure out now that I'm on the spot I've been shown this before it wasn't it wasn't difficult when I saw it so there we go just get your fingernail under there pop that up there we go and there's a little instruction here a line top with the dot on the cushion so you can see the one I pulled off has a little orange dot on it the one that I'm putting on has a little orange dot on it and it says simple as that I guess let's go ahead and put that on ok you just snap that right on so once I have that in place I can actually hear quite a lot more through my left ear then I can through my right ear and the point of that like I mentioned before is to give it a more open feeling listening experience versus an entirely closed experience because this makes a much better seal with your head then a cloth inner cup does