A gaming headset is an important purchase for all types of gamers, especially for those playing on a traditional PC setup.
It’s a valuable tool in the gamer’s arsenal, allowing you to experience accurate stereo sound and communicate with teammates easily.
However, buying a low-quality or uncomfortable headset can drastically worsen your gaming experience.
In order to help you avoid these problems, we’ve laid out a few points you should consider when buying a gaming headset:
Build Quality
This is one of the most important things to consider when buying a gaming headset, no matter how carefully you treat your peripherals.
Cheaper devices break regularly, either from being dropped or even just extended use.
Read reviews of your next potential headset to determine whether it is flimsy or has good build quality – you’d be surprised at the low build quality of some gaming headsets.
Comfort
Comfort is often overlooked in favour of aesthetic design or specifications, and this can affect your gaming experience dramatically.
Using an uncomfortable headset will cause your ears to ache and make playing for long periods arduous.
Rather test out the headset beforehand and avoid uncomfortable experiences.
Audio Quality
The importance of audio quality does not only apply to speakers, but also the headset’s microphone.
If you’re going to be using your hardset for VOIP communication, ensure that your microphone is of decent quality in order to avoid frustration and annoyance.
There is nothing worse than playing with a teammate whose microphone garbles their voice into a harsh mess of static and sporadic volume spikes.
Consider the sound quality of both your headset’s speakers and microphone if you are going to be communicating with other players.
Wires and Earcups
If you are looking for a gaming headset on a budget, rather forgo any wireless options for conventional wired headsets.
The added latency and loss in sound quality from using a wireless headset can be an issue at lower price ranges, although there are some perfectly serviceable wireless headsets in the higher price ranges.
The other choice to make is whether you prefer an open or closed headset.
Open earcups allow you to hear what is happening around you and allow others to hear what you are listening to, while closed earcups favour noise cancellation and block out ambient noise.
Closed earcups may sound slightly muffled in comparison, but filter out distracting background noises.
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When you are communicating with team mates, one of the most important things to have on a gaming headset is side-tone. Side-tone is feedback from your microphone to your headphones so that you can hear your voice when you talk. Aviation headphones have used this since radios were used in aircraft. As an ex avionics engineer I have always battled with the lack of side-tone in computer headphones. The only headset I have found that offers good side-tone is the Turtle Beach EarForce PX22. Once you have used a headset with side-tone you will demand it forever on. Side-tone should be built into every sound card as a standard.