While the market is already full of different gaming headsets, Cooler Master has decided that none of the offerings are enough to satisfy the professional gamer and has released another contender into the fray. Enter the CM Storm Pulse-R, a brand new gaming headset by Cooler Master. How well does it perform? Let’s find out!
Looks
The latest of Cooler Master’s range of gaming headsets, Cooler Master has attempted to blend rugged and futuristic designs together in the CM Storm Pulse-R, utilizing mainly a mix of straight lines with rounded off edges and exposed screws to achieve its semi-rugged look while a touch of brushed aluminum on the headband and earcups along with LED lighting brings a slight futuristic feel to the headset.
Cable-wise, Cooler Master has certainly did a good job in choosing braided cables, allowing for better durability than regular rubber cables while also enhancing the headset’s looks. It is important to note that the connectors on the Pulse-R’s standard cable is designed for a PC and will require an adapter if one still wishes to use the microphone on a smartphone or tablet – after all, its a gaming headset designed for the PC.
Sadly though, despite the excellent cabling choice, Cooler Master has gone for a DIY-unfriendly route of utilizing proprietary connector on the headset’s end so as to include a USB plug on the computer’s side. This means that anyone looking to DIY or purchase aftermarket cables to suit their needs or have damaged the original cable won’t be able to do so.
Potential buyers who thinks that the USB port gives the headset additional functionality be warned – the inclusion of the proprietary connector to accommodate the USB plug was purely for powering the white LEDs on the headset and not for USB-based Digital/Analog Converters nor Active Noise Cancellation despite already including a USB plug on the headset.
That being said, Cooler Master has still left a rather interesting DIY feature on the headset: the large screws on each side of the headset aren’t just there for show. Each pair of screws hold down the earcup’s large aluminum earplates, allowing for a quick removal of the earplates for painting and other DIY customizations of the user’s liking without having to risk accidental damage to the headset itself.
Functionality and Comfort
Next up, lets have a go at using the CM Storm Pulse-R. Starting with the headset itself, the adjustable headband was rather short, fitting just a tad bit on the tight side on our relatively average sized heads during testing and makes us wonder if it does fit on larger heads.
Despite that, the earcups were rather well-made – while its rather interestingly shaped earcups may look uncomfortable, it was well-padded and conformed well to our ears to provide an excellent passive noise-cancelling seal that managed to block out quite a large amount of external noises. A really nice touch from Cooler Master was the “loose” fitting of the earcups to the headset, allowing the earcups to slightly rotate and align itself to the wearer’s ears.
Moving on to the controls, Cooler Master has included a volume and microphone control on the cabling of the CM Storm Pulse-R, with a microphone on/off switch on one side and variable volume control on the other. While both controls were well-built, the volume control was certainly designed on the loose side for quick adjustment and may be prone to unintended volume changes if bumped into.
As for the microphone itself, it was certainly disappointing to find that it appeared to be an afterthought, with a relatively hard to fit microphone port for plugging the included microphone in. What’s worse, the microphone’s boom was rather stiff and thus its mouthpiece couldn’t be positioned closer to the wearer’s mouth easily. In addition, the microphone tends to rotate on its port’s axis and occasionally would spin away from the wearer’s face.
Sound
Being optimized for gaming use, the CM Storm Pulse-R certainly isn’t of audiophile quality, with its output tuned to better suit gaming effects at the cost of sound accuracy. Voices registered loud and clear while explosions certainly have a “boomy” effect to them. The microphone on the CM Storm Pulse-R did fare acceptably, with communication being heard clearly with the exception of some wind noise.
Isolation-wise, the CM Storm Pulse-R provided decent passive isolation that isn’t the most impressive, but certainly blocked out a large amount of sound and provided decent noise isolation from external noise. The only issue? Cables. Movement of the cables on the CM Storm Pulse-R provided a rather noticeable distraction as it caused the headset to have a “whoop-whoop” noise.
What Cooler Master could have added could be virtual surround sound. While the stereo output of the CM Storm Pulse-R was acceptable, virtual surround sound could have been an excellent addition to the headset to aid FPS games in locating the enemy.
For the audiophiles, this is certainly not the headset to look for. While the highs were acceptable, the CM Storm Pulse-R lacked mids and had muddy and overpowering lows. It also sounded a little unnatural and metallic and had a small soundstage while providing little sound separation.
Conclusion
The CM Storm Pulse-R is without a doubt an above-average quality gaming headset albeit for its quirky microphone. With its audio output well-adapted towards bringing an immersive gaming experience and also capable of handling movies and cutscenes decently, it is certainly a product highly suited for gamers looking to improve their audio experience in gaming. However, those who are in the market for a budget audiophile headset, stay well away – being a headset optimized for gaming, the CM Storm Pulse-R has sacrificed certain aspects of audio accuracy to better suit audio requirements for gaming and would be a relatively average headset for music enjoyment.
Pros:
Audio output is well tuned for gaming use
Customizable aluminum earplates to suit one’s personality
Built-in volume controls
Cons:
Microphone appears to be an afterthought
Proprietary connectors
Read More: http://vr-zone.com/articles/hold-cm-...lay/57098.html
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