As a company, we do professional cinematography, video production and photography. Having excellent headphones when shooting on set is essential for ending up with a great product. Interestingly, premium gaming headphones are often some of the highest quality headphones - especially with a mic - that you can get.
So I recently purchased the Razer brand Thresher Ultimate model of headphones with a built in mic.
I was disappointed.
Here's the things that I noticed immediately:
There is a subtle hissing noise. Even Beats Solo 3 headphones didn't have that sound. It's a sound headphones and speakers make when they're getting electricity that is powering the headphones. It's unprofessional and distracting and can result in false positives whether you're listening to your recording or playing a game.
They also have a tingy sound to them. It's usually only noticeable when listening on a lower volume or the particular sound coming through at a precise moment is a high frequency (high pitch) sound without bass. This is probably occurring because the headphones have multiple speakers in them and are concave to fit those speakers and create a depth of field. But it seems that these were designed by a computer manufacturer not an audio engineering team, unfortunately.
The noise cancelling is weak on it. In my case, I think it was primarily because the phones weren't worn in to the shape of my head so there was a little room for exterior sound to creep in. I could just be imagining that but I don't feel that way about my Beats or Sony headphones.
Lastly for the sound-quality items, I did surround sound tests using Dolby official YouTube video that I've used on my Bose 7.1 system and found that while the front and mid left and right channels we're great, the rear surround channels didn't feel behind me. Which is the main benefit of 7.1 over 5.1 of even stereo frankly. So I was disappointed about that.
4 hours to charge from empty! If my small phone can fast charge in 15-30 minutes, these should have fast charging as well.
I knew this before buying them, but I had that I have to plug them in. Especially with a micro-USB instead of a reversible USB-C connector. If they added a Qi receiver in the top of the headphone, and a transmitter in the dock, then when you hung them up it could charge them wirelessly.
The charging dock / hanger also requires assembly... This is surprising to me. I don't see any benefit to doing this. Not a sound-quality issue, but annoying. It is plastic, flimsy and felt like it could break.
The ear pieces swing all the way out one way, and not at all the other. I don't understand that design logic - it seems they would have a reason but it's unclear to me.
Overall, especially compared to Sony or Beats premium lines, it seems these are likely to snap somewhere. This is pure conjecture, but that's how it feels, despite their heavy weight.
Now, these are great headphones despite these things. And I paid $350 for my previous Beats - which were not 7.1 surround but the sound quality was fantastic, feel was great, and they were sturdy and quick to charge.
In the end I decided to return them. And will be trying some other brands. We'll
