The Gaming H7 Wireless Gaming Headphones try to strike the perfect balance between these different audiences by being a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to gaming audio. Let us take a look at how this model tries to accomplish this and how much it succeeds in this endeavour.
Design & Build Quality
When it comes to most gaming hardware, design is more of an aesthetic choice rather than a tangible feature. Manufacturers often use flashy LEDs and angular cuts to highlight the look, even though they don’t really serve any purpose. However, when we talk about a product that will likely sit on your head for hours on end, day-in and day-out, then suddenly function becomes a lot more important than form.
This is true for the H7 headphones as well, which feature an updated design that combines great ergonomics with high-quality materials to deliver the most comfortable fit possible. The first major change comes in the form of the stainless-steel headband, which now resides independently of the secondary head cushion that actually rests on your head. This means that not only are the headphones more durable, but you also don’t have to worry about the metal squeezing your head.
The secondary headband features multiple small cushions and features a stretchable design that allows it to stretch and accommodate a wider range of head sizes. Even with both the headbands in place, you never really feel a lot of weight on your head.
The majority of the heft is still felt in the earpieces themselves, which feature a simple rounded design and lots of cushioning. The cushion is supposedly made from a specialized cooling fabric that has softer channels in the front, positioned specifically to reduce pressure on the frames of eyeglasses, which is a nice touch for people who wear them.
The earpieces feature a nice toughened plastic that comes with a matte finish. The design is pretty plain, with the only things breaking up the smooth surface being the three physical buttons for adjusting the volume, muting or unmuting the microphone, and switching the headphones on and off. There is also a slot that hosts the detachable microphone, which comes with an extremely adjustable band.
The look is finished off with a simple thing stripe of colour that runs around the periphery of the earpieces. It is bright yellow and looks pretty tasteful. If you prefer an even more subtle look, you can always go for the completely black version.
Sound & Performance
As we mentioned above, the focus of this series is solely on gaming, and it shows in the sound performance as well. The headphones have been tuned to deliver the best output during gaming sessions, where gunshots and explosions sound extremely clear and decently loud, respectively.
The virtual surround sound feature is great at letting you feel where the gunshots are coming from, although it does become a bit muddled if there are too many voices intermixed. This is because the headphones feature a special software tweak to enhance the vocal parts of the audio, which occurs both for the audio that you hear as well as your own speaking voice. This means that other parts of the soundstage have to fight to get hearing space.
This isn’t that much of a problem during gaming when you actually need this type of performance but it does create some problems with audio quality and listening experience with other forms of audio like music and movies. So, if you were thinking of using these headphones for music only, then we would recommend picking something else.
Other than that, the listening experience is pretty decent and loud. Asus is sticking with its well-known 53mm ASUS Essence drivers to do the heavy lifting. They boast a metal cover for purer sound with less distortion and are housed in an airtight chamber for an immersive audio experience. All in all, it is a decent mid-range listening experience tuned for a specific audience and their needs.
Of course, you can try and use the Armoury II software to tweak it further, with options to easily tune everything, from equalization (EQ) to 7.1-speaker level balancing. You even get custom audio profiles for different game types and scenarios, such as first-person shooters and racing, although they don’t really create that much of a difference.
One part of the software experience that does make a big difference is the automatic off-sensors built into the headphones. These turn off the mic and even the headphones themselves off, if you haven’t been using them actively for a certain period of time in order to save battery. This means that you might find yourself having to turn them back on after every few minutes of silence. Depending on your patience levels and listening preferences, this can either be the ultimate hassle-free feature or a deal-breaker.
We wish we could turn this feature off completely since the headphones already get a decent enough battery backup of over 15+ hours. Even if turning these sensors off means losing one or two hours off the top, it won’t make that much of a difference. We hope Asus fixes this in a future software update, as it is one of the only annoying niggles in a piece of hardware that is otherwise pretty well worth the asking price.
