SteelSeries H Wireless Gaming Headset - Hardware Review

SteelSeries is at it again… The H-Wireless 7.1 Dolby-supporting surround sound headset takes the concept of "premium audio" and simply tosses it to the wind and resets the bar for what "quality" means in the world of gaming audio. I thought that when I reviewed the SteelSeries Anniversary Edition Siberia Elite headset last year that I knew what good audio sounded like; after all I have worked with some of the greatest manufacturers of audio equipment that money can buy and all of those years' worth of experience amounted to jaw-dropping when I first heard the Siberia Elites. The H-Wireless makes the Anniversary Edition Siberia Elite look like a set of bargain-bin, Cyber Monday freebie earbuds.

Circamural headphones are hard to make look good. Most tend to devolve into giant, squishy cups that are connected by some sort of funky, tacky, and/or craptastic band. Not so with the H-Wireless; the cups have a stunning leatherette that is breathable and comfortable that fit any ear-size. The exterior of the cups are sleek, clean and contain very little embellishment with naught but a small-type "SteelSeries" on them. Connecting the cups is a solid, matte black band that feels robust yet appears thin and fragile.

Simply looking at the headset brings joy to my heart and is a visually pleasing experience. The H-Wireless receiver/transceiver/mixer is small (only a few inches across) and unobtrusive and matches the reflective black of the ear cups; sitting the receiver and head-unit together on a desk full of monitors yields a work of art that is both inspiring and emotional; you may laugh but this is one incredibly attractive unit and shows that SteelSeries knows what its customers want.

For as great as the headset looks it sounds infinitely better. On the basic "balanced" setting, the headset screams quality; rich lows, gorgeous highs, and the best reproduction of mid-range audio that I have ever heard, the H-Wireless simply punches you in the ears with fluffy unicorns and magical pixie dust. Turn on the Dolby surround (assuming you have connected the fiber optic cable to your source) and you are thrown into a swirling maelstrom of stunning audio effects that, with a good source, can discombobulate you in the best of ways. Tweaking the audio output of your source, or even just cycling through the various presets in the receiver can provide varying equalizer settings that can make music, movies, games, or other forms of entertainment truly pop.

Did I mention that there is a source selector on the receiver? Because there is. I have the unit hooked up to my Xbox One as well as my computer and can quickly switch back and forth. For gaming on the Xbox I simply plug the supplied aux cable into the head unit into my headset adapter for the controller and I am off, dying time and time again in Halo 5: Guardians, yet because it sounds so darn good I just do not care. On the downside, getting the headset to work with multiple sources is not intuitive and for the first time in my memory I had to crack open the manual for the headset to determine how to get it set up … That should say something to audiophiles; if a headset needs an instruction booklet, well, it is no normal headset. The H-Wireless is everything but normal, though "perfect" is the word that comes to mind.

I cannot stress enough how rich the audio that comes out of the H-wireless is. Above the pure audio that you get, SteelSeries goes to untold lengths to ensure you, the customer, are taken care of. With a half-dozen supplied cables and even TWO lithium ion batteries (which last, incredibly, for DAYS of heavy use), SteelSeries makes sure that no matter where you go or what you are listening to, you can use the H-Wireless. The stunning design, amazing engineering, and downright spine-tingling goodness that the H-Wireless pushes from its drivers are something to truly behold.

Type	Headset
Publisher(s)	SteelSeries
Platform	PC Mac PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4 Xbox 360

Review by Robert