Right of the bat this is a gaming headset. Not a pair of headphones for your iPhones, iPods and iPads.
One of my first impressions of the Cyber Snipa Sonar 5.1 Championship Pro Surround Sound Headset was that it’s packaged very nicely. It comes in a very protective nylon bag within the box which means storage and portability of the headset has already been sorted before you’ve even used the product.
The headset is relatively light weight and streamlined. There is little bulk to be seen. Having said all that it’s very unattractive to look at. The whole body is made out of plastic which appears and feels to be a farley cheap, excluding the top which rests on your head thats lined with a foam material and the ear phones which are also padded. This makes me question the build quality over time. The color scheme around the exterior of the headphones is nice with the red upon black fisnish, thats one of my favourite design elements of the headset. This isn’t bluetooth it’s USB 2.0 so it’s wired which I have to say is a little annoying but I hear that sound quality will suffer if it is bluetooth. On the wire is a control for the headset allowing you to adjust the volume, centre, front and rear outputs. I found this extremely useful and easy to use.
The adjustably is all available with protruding headphones like most headsets. Once adjusted to how you like it, they’ll remain locked in that position. They feel very secure and tight on my head which is great for locking in the audio. The light weightiness of the headset and the padding on top and on the ear phones makes them also feel very comfortable. When wearing them over time for say 2 hours plus they don’t become an annoyance which I have found to be the case with other headsets in the past.
The audio quality is really good. This is kinda to be expected due to the eight individual drivers with multi directional audio response. The bass is deep, the volume is decently loud, the sound around you in a room is well and truly isolated, noises are realistically coming from different angles and the sound doesn’t feel like it’s coming from something close to your ear, there is definite distance here. The audio quality of the headphones is exceptional to put it basically but the microphone is another story. It sounds muffled and picks up my breathing, the quality of audio via a microphone within games is usually quite poor anyway so it doesn’t really matter but for things like a Skype call it needs stepping up.
I have a confession to make about this headset also. I never used it on a gaming console or a PC. I used it on my Mac which the product doesn’t actually officially support. I plugged it in and instantly my Mac told me I have a headset connected would I like to use it and with one click of the button is was all working. I loaded up Call of Duty 4 and it worked just fine. While playing that particular game I listed to some of my iTunes music and I have to say these perform exceptionally well at that task.
Overall the Cyber Snipa Sonar 5.1 Championship Pro Surround Sound Headset has superb sound quality but so superb microphone quality. The build is good now but I question what it will look like over time with the all plastic enclosure. They are very comfortable to wear and the carrying bag is also a nice addition.
