 The Pulsar headset from CMStorm by Cooler Master feels heavier than it actually is and I was actually surprised to find out that it only weighs about 8% more than Corsair's Vengeance 1400. Click, click. INTRO MUSIC Hotspot Shield Service makes your internet browsing safer, more secure, and fully private. Click now to learn more. Maybe it's the higher density of the materials used, but the Pulsar feels solidly built, which makes sense because compared to other gaming headsets in this price range, they're a bit physically smaller and Cooler Master is using a lot of metal in their construction, notably here in the headband and here, as well as here on the side of the earcups. Overall build quality I'd say is a strong point and size adjustment is among the smoothest I've encountered with granular control and a nice satisfying click for each notch. The earcups clamped a little bit too tight for me out of the box, but a redeeming quality is that the smallest earcups that house the Pulsar's 42mm drivers have very supple pleather covering on them and the foam on them is nice and thick. As long as you don't have big ears, this should be a very comfortable headset once you break it in. Unfortunately though, there are some negative things that I need to bring up about them physically. First up, I'm not a fan of large beefy boom mics in general because they look kind of goofy and they tend to be difficult to position anywhere but directly in front of your mouth, where plosives are more prominent. And I'm also not a fan of detachable mics because they tend to get lost. When you put both of these things together, you end up with an implementation that is particularly unappealing to me, because the microphone position is difficult to make fine adjustments to while you're wearing it, which you'd think would be a non-issue because you can just, you know, set it once and kind of forget it, right? Well then, what about this? This is something gamers do. I can't fold it up and now the boom mic is hanging right in my face when I'm wearing my headset around my neck, so I'll either have to move it, meaning to readjust it I'll need to take the headset off, or I'll need to detach it, another option that just kind of sucks. The inline volume control on the braided 9-foot cable is well built and a good idea in theory, but the problem here is a fundamental design flaw that I see time and time again, particularly on phones. Two opposing controls that require the same type of force, making accidental activations inevitable. Watch what happens when I try to mute my mic with one hand. The volume slider moves. This can be avoided by, you know, handling it very carefully or using two hands, but it's not natural or convenient, and with its competition moving towards on-ear controls, the Pulsar's remote design feels distinctly last gen. If you don't use mute mic though, that slider is hard enough that you won't accidentally move it while you're trying to adjust volume, so it's just the other way around that cause problems for me. The proprietary connector for the cable into the headphones themselves has a very satisfying snap as you insert it, but I'm still not a big fan of custom connectors on audio gear. I mean, okay, it allows you to have white illumination on the ear cups and the microphone tip that turns off when it's muted, which is cool, but I personally don't really care about that and neither do a lot of people. I think the removable aluminum plates that can be customized and then put back on are actually really cool, but that's because those work without plugging an additional USB cable into my PC. Honestly, it seems like the only time that lights on a headset, which you'll never see, will matter is in this product shot where ironically the illumination isn't even that visible. Onto the listening tests. I used my usual strategy of watching some streams on Twitch and listening to Top 40 music to come to the following conclusions. To my delight, this headset's bass is not overpowering, so if you're looking for the equivalent of a juiced up car stereo listening experience, you'll be disappointed, but for me that was great and on top of that it's surprisingly tight and punchy. This combined with the Pulsar strong noise isolation makes for a very immersive gaming experience with gunfire and explosions and other sound effects being very easy to pinpoint. Voice communication in games comes through loud and clear but lacks the sheer impact of those deeper sounds and that was the first hint for me of a performance deficiency in this headset that was much more noticeable when listening to music. It didn't bother me at all while gaming, but firing up almost any song with a vocalist made me acutely aware of the lack of clarity these headphones deliver in the mid and high ranges. So I guess we'll round out our performance analysis with a microphone listening test. Just so you guys know, I'm recording this on an Asus ThunderFX external sound card. I hope you like it. I guess we'll round out our performance analysis with a microphone listening test. I'm recording this on an Asus ThunderFX external sound card. I hope you like it. Conclusion wise, this was a fairly simple review for me. The Pulsars are solid and well built, but with their small ear cups and relatively narrow range of headband adjustments, they're not made for folks with giant heads or ears. The microphone ergonomics are really a turn off for me, but it's not something that everyone will care about and on a more positive note, they deliver some of the most satisfyingly punchy bass I've ever heard in this price range. And so if you're willing to compromise clarity in the mids and highs for it, then that turns into a recommendation. Guys, like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment and let me know what you thought of the Pulsars. And if you enjoyed this video so much that you want to do more than just like it, check out the support link in the video description. 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