With the headset on at a reasonable volume I was able to hear sound in the room around me. The H5 is an over-ear headset, but it isn’t noise-canceling. To tweak sound values, you’ll have to use a different software equalizer. I tested the FPS setting, which enabled virtual surround sound and amped up game sound effects, and wasn’t particularly fond of the virtual surround implementation or the unbalanced audio with over-loud sound effects. Those profiles affect Surround, Crystalizer, Bass, Smart Volume, and Dialogue Plus settings, but those values aren’t individually tweakable in the software. There are presets for four different game types, and ‘effects off.’ That’s it. Creative told me feedback from users has shown them that few people will drill down into audio settings to change how a headset sounds, and that feedback dictated the very basic tweaking options in the software. The one area where the H5 falls a bit short is with its optional Acoustic Engine Lite software. When I rotated the mic to point at the speaker, James could hear the same low background murmur as with the other mic. With the podcast playing, the ModMic didn’t show even a hint of background noise. To my surprise, James reported the sound quality very similar-slightly better with the ModMic, but only slightly. Even when I turned the microphone 180 degrees to face the speaker which was about a meter away, it only came through faintly, meaning the mic’s audio is pretty localized.Īs a comparison, I switched to chatting with a unidirectional $50 Antlion ModMic, expecting there to be a significant difference between the two. The mic came through clearly, and when the podcast was playing at a comfortable room volume, it was detectable only as faint white noise. To test the mic, I got on chat client Mumble with PC Gamer editor James and spent a few minutes talking, with and without a podcast playing out of a portable speaker behind me. ![]() I thought the mic might be another weakness for the headset, since most of the gaming headsets I’ve used in the past have had fairly poor-sounding microphones. Overall the H5 sounds well-balanced, without highs, mids or lows standing out as being exceptional or poor. I also thought the headset’s bass was on the weaker side, but once I equalized volume with the Sennheiser 598s I found the H5 to be a tiny bit bassier (admittedly, the 598s aren’t known for strong bass performance). ![]() It obviously sounded much, much better when the 3.5mm jack was properly in place. Early in my testing, I thought the H5 sounded terribly muffled and tinny turns out the detachable cable into the earcup, which is only supposed to fit in one way, half-fit in the other direction, and I had it plugged in improperly.
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