Recently, I was forced into looking at the current gaming headset landscape after my trusty Plantronic cans met their end at the hands of an overly excited puppy. I finally settled on the HyperX Cloud Revolver headset and after a few weeks of using them I’m ready to share my thoughts.
(Disclaimer: We were not compensated in any way for this review.)
Build Quality & Design
The first thing I noticed when I pulled out the Cloud Revolvers was just how solid they are. Instead of plastic the main frame of the headset is made out of steel. This gives the entire headset a sturdy feel but they more or less disappear when they’re on your head thanks to the low weight. The only downside of the aluminum is that if you bump it the metal has a tendency to vibrate like a tuning fork.
The rest of the materials are solid, if unremarkable. Soft leather, likely synthetic, covers your ears and the plastic that makes up the cans is pretty standard stuff.
What I noticed most about the headset is the sort of “floating” headband that it uses. Instead of a heavily padded band that sits on the top of your head, it’s a band of leather that’s suspended below the frame that stretches when you wear the headset. It’s a different feel but generally I found it to be more comfortable then a more standard design.
If you’re into the quality of the packaging, I found it to be relatively high quality. The headphones were solidly secured in foam and the black and red branding was carried throughout.
Performance
I tested the headset in a variety of settings and overall the quality is…good. If you’re like me, you’ll want to keep a dedicated set of earbuds or headphones around for listening to music.
Performance is a little better with games. I tested with Skyrim: SE, Diablo 3, and Overwatch and all sounded as well as, if not better, than on my Plantronics. Unlike some other headphones (*cough* Beats *cough*) the bass isn’t blown out and the sound has a nice clarity to it. One downside is that the headset doesn’t support true surround sound; instead relying on 50mm “directional” drivers. Personally I don’t think this is a big deal but if you have to have that, these may not be for you.
There’s no active noise-cancelling with these, which makes sense considering the price point. But the padding of the cans does a great job of blocking out ambient noise. The downside of this is that I often found myself talking louder than normal, something that could’ve been alleviated if there was a voice feedback feature like my Xbox One Turtle Beach headphones have.
Finally, if you’re thinking about using these for recording audio, you may want to look elsewhere. While the detachable microphone boom is fine for chatting during a gaming session or maybe streaming, the audio quality isn’t particularly impressive. I noticed a distracting background hiss that others commented on.
Wrap-up
At $120 on Amazon, the Cloud Revolvers sit in that sweet spot above more budget oriented models and wireless enthusiast products. With solid audio performance matched with a premium build quality it’s not surprise why these headsets routinely show up on buyer guides. As long as you’re not expecting them to be your primary means of recording audio, they’re a solid buy.
Mini-review: SteelSeries Siberia 350
So before I ended up with the Cloud Revolvers I went ahead and purchased the Siberia 350s which were $10 cheaper. They were also highly recommended but when I had them in my hands I was incredibly disappointed.
The frame felt cheap, the suspension band was held by two small cables on both ear that had a tendency to lift the cans off my ears, and the mic was on a flimsy little boom. All of which could be excused if the sound quality was great…but it wasn’t. I spent two days tweaking settings but could never get it to sound like anything but a muddled mess. The only “bonus” are the LEDs in the cans that you can customize but since you ca犀利士
n’t see them…what’s the point?
Share this: