Gaming Headsets

Anatomy of a Gaming Headset

To understand what makes a good gaming headset, you need to know the core components. Typically a headset is simply headphones with an integrated microphone allowing you a clean solution for in game communication compared to a separate dedicated microphone. Usually, microphones are at the end of a flexible boom arm, but some models have them integrated within the ear cup. Beyond the base features, there are extras such as RGB lighting and in-line controls that can be on the wire or placed on an ear cup.

What Makes for the Best Gaming Headsets?

When selecting your gaming headset, the four main aspects to consider are sound quality, the microphone, comfort, and how it connects to your PC. Naturally, the headset aesthetics will influence your choice, like with colour and RGB lighting.

Sound Quality

Of all the considerations, sound quality is the most important as this is your direct connection to the gaming experience. Modern games feature immersive soundscapes with directional cues helping you to zero in on enemies around you, and your headset needs to deliver this level of separation while having a sound curve suited to gaming. Typically gaming headsets will highlight things like bass for impressive sounding explosions and effects, and a well defined mid-high range to help gamers pick up on footsteps and other audio useful to gamers. Many headsets will include equalizer tuning as part of their software to allow you to further tweak this to your own preference and games.

Many headset models offer the choice of playback in stereo, 5.1, or 7.1 Dolby surround sound. In most cases this is virtual surround sound technology playing through the stereo drivers in your headphones, but in some cases, especially in the past, headphones actually used multiple smaller drivers to simulate this on a hardware level. Thankfully virtual surround sound has greatly improved for those who prefer using this feature; and can be switched off when listening to music and other stereo optimised audio to give you the best of both worlds.

Microphones

Having a microphone is an important component of your gaming set-up. There is always the option of having a dedicated microphone, as they can provide studio-quality audio. However, over recent years, integrated microphones have come on in leaps and bounds. Unless you are looking to record professional audio, a headset mic will be perfectly adequate for gaming.

Typically the boom arms are adjustable, meaning you can place your microphone in the optimum position with ease. Whether the arm swivels on an axis or is completely malleable, you will be able to place the microphone in the best position for your voice.

The microphones, themselves, are often unidirectional. Also known as cardioid, this is where sound pick-up is very focussed, being the top of the microphone. This means the microphone will only pick up what is spoken directly into it, rather than ambient, background noise. Plus, many are now equipped with noise-cancelling technology to further boost this.

Comfort

Your gaming headset needs to be comfortable, especially during extended sessions. As such, gaming headsets have been designed to be light yet sturdy. Many contain great comfort features like padded headbands and soft ear cups mounted to a durable metal framework. What’s more, the headbands can be adjusted to fit you perfectly. Often, the ear cups consist of highly breathable fabric and/or memory foam padding, which not only keeps you cool but also conforms to the shape of your head. This creates a much better acoustic seal, thus improving the sound quality too.

Connectivity

Finally, there is your headset’s connectivity to consider. You can either opt for wired, wireless, or a combination of the two. Wired headsets interface utilising USB or a 3.5mm jack, offering a highly reliable experience. In addition to this, running out of battery is a thing of the past. The only real drawback is that you are physically attached to your gaming PC, thus not offering the freedom to keep listening to your music beyond the limit of your cable.

When it comes to wireless, there are two ways of connecting to your gaming PC. Either via 2.4GHz wireless or Bluetooth. 2.4GHz wireless connects via a dongle which you can plug into an available USB port, while Bluetooth is standard on most computers nowadays. Many headsets allow you to connect by both of these methods, although not simultaneously in most cases. Bluetooth tends to be more energy efficient in terms of battery life, whilst you can connect multiple devices via 2.4GHz with the correct dongles.

As expected, the main drawback of wireless headsets is that you need to charge them from time to time. Depending on their architecture, battery life varies from model to model, brand to brand. Charging your headset does not necessarily hinder your gaming, as many can be charged via USB-C cables.