Many people have heard of SteelSeries products; designed upwards and downwards for professional gamers, everything SteelSeries makes caters to the buyers who want the very best, quality they can get for their activities. The first release of the 5H left the gaming crowd a bit sore; if you're one of the people who purchased one of the first edition headsets chances are you know what we mean. Many gamers were complaining about all sorts of issues that they didn't expect from a company with a track record and reputation like SteelSeries. As a result, SteelSeries went back into the lab and took the feedback with them in order to create an improved headset and thus we arrive at the 5Hv2. Read on to find out what the SteelSound 5Hv2 Gaming Headset brings to the gaming crowd.

Product:	SteelSound 5Hv2 Professional Gaming Headset
Manufacturer:	SteelSeries
Common Price:	$119.95 USD
Where to Buy:	Check Here
Details:	Tough and Stylish design Easy Transportation Tough cable design Extendable Microphone Respectable Sound Quality

First Impressions

Arriving on the doorstep in a brown box from DHL, the SteelSound 5Hv2 made its entrance to the reviewing bench. Upon opening the box, a clear plastic case was revealed, containing the reviewing subject within.

The headset is carried in a rather nice looking box. With the headphones fitted on a velvet surfaced plastic container and firmly twist-tied into place, you immediately get an impression of premium quality when you get your hands on the packaging. On the backside of the packaging you can find out additional specification information and a humorous “Frag You!” slogan.

Build Quality

The SteelSound 5Hv2, in general, has stellar construction quality. With a good grip on your head, you won’t have to worry about them sliding around.

For transportation purposes, the headset can be dismantled into three pieces, allowing them to be flat packed like a piece of Swedish furniture. Anyone who’s taken their headphones places probably knows the pain of having a set break in their bag.

The wire, rather than being made of thin rubber like most, is made out of nylon cord much like a shoelace, providing substantial durability.

In a very intelligent move, SteelSeries chose to provide a shorter length of wire for the headphones themselves, with an optional extension cord, making it very easy to use the minimum amount of cable possible, and in many cases eliminating the chance for you to run over the cable with your chair. While excellent, the cable end attached to the headphone could benefit from four to six additional inches.

The phone elements are my favorite parts of the set. With their long padding and large size, they cover the ear fully without pressing it against your head (unless you happen to have above average ear size). This is the first headphone set I have used that I can stand leaving on for an extended period of time. Comfort, an often overlooked concept, is critical when you plan to do something for an extended period of time, and makes a marked improvement over SteelSeries' previous generation 5H, which did not have such comfort catering features.

Sound Quality

Of course, this is the most critical aspect of any audio producing item. For raw quality, they are respectable. If they were designed for music listening, it would be safe to say that you’d be better of spending money on something else. However, catering to the gaming crowd, the SteelSound 5Hv2 has an ace up its sleeve.

The value of this headset doesn’t come from the raw audio quality, it’s the precision and distinctiveness this set brings to the lineup. It is remarkably easy to pinpoint footsteps, listen to panning audio, and figure out where on earth that gunfire is coming from – invaluable for any first person shooter, and entertaining for almost every other game out there.

The microphone itself is a marked improvement over the previous iteration.

Summary

If you’re looking for a comfortable, solid, and clear edge to your gaming, I cannot help but recommend the SteelSound 5Hv2. With the distinct sound pinpointing, good fit, sturdy wire, and other intelligent features of this headset, your gaming will benefit. You won’t have to replace headphones as often, you won’t have sore ears after a long time, and you’ll have an easier time figuring out where that person is hiding in Counterstrike. The second release of this headset is leagues above the first as SteelSeries took care to fix some of the things that gamers were complaining about.

For these reasons, I give this headset our Gold Award. This piece is in my opinion, excellent. The only downside to speak of is price.

Final note: We were unable to test the microphone of this particular sample due to a defective shipment. After contacting SteelSeries, we have not heard of any prior cases of microphone failure. Theres a chance of failure in all electronics products, and we cannot help but presume this is one of those cases. Despite this, the sheer quality of the other functional components prevents points from being detracted from this product; the microphone would have to be worse than the $10.00 models you can pick up and discount retail chains to change our opinion of this product.