 Corsair RM series power supplies are optimized for silent operation. Click now to learn more. Welcome to my unboxing and overview of the SteelSeries 5Hv3. So as you may or may not have figured out, the 5Hv3 comes after the 2 and before, presumably the 4. Because if SteelSeries is going to keep rolling the way that they've been rolling for this last little while with more better audio products all the time, we'll probably see a new revision at some point. But in the meantime, this is what we've got, folks. So packaging wise, it's pretty straightforward. You take it out and then you have the headset sitting there. Undo the little clips at the back. That's hot. All twisted up in there. Just get that undone. Okay, anyway. So what's different about the v3? Number one is they have upgraded the drivers. So the drivers, for those of you who are uninitiated, are the speakers inside each of the ear cups. So it should offer better audio quality than the outgoing 5Hv2. Now around the outside of those drivers, they've also upgraded the materials for the ear cups themselves. So instead of a cloth covering, they're now using a faux leather covering with memory foam inside. So hopefully you guys can get a pretty good idea of how cushy those are. This does a couple of things. So number one is it will make them more comfortable. And number two is it actually improves the passive noise isolation. So there's no active noise canceling or anything like that. But there's less sound leaking in and leaking out of these compared to if they were using a cloth covering for the ear cups. Now this is obviously optimal for something like a tournament environment. And the H series is their tournament grade headsets. Another thing that's optimal for that if you travel around a lot is having it disassembled so you can take it apart and chuck it in your bag. I suspect many people won't use this feature even if they are traveling with it. But hey, it's there. So you can use it if you want. The contacts are very robust looking so you can actually see how the wiring is done between the two ear cups. So I wouldn't worry about those wearing out over time. All right. So let's move around to the left side here. Ah, yes, that right there. A SteelSeries staple. The infinitely posable. See that? Look at that. I love that. Put it wherever you want. The infinitely posable retractable microphone. The actual reason I switched from my HD555s for gaming to the SteelSeries 7Hs back when I got those a couple years ago. As with any SteelSeries headset, I would expect the microphone to be good quality. Some gaming headsets have microphones, but they're terrible. I have never yet had this experience with a SteelSeries headset. The headphones are of course adjustable so you can go anywhere from sort of super tall conehead guy settings. So right about there down to something that's quite a bit too small for me so it kind of sits on the bottoms of my earlobes. I wear a medium sized motorcycle helmet so that should give you guys some idea what's up. There's a little bit of rotation in the ear cups there, but not a ton. I think for most people that's really not going to be an issue. But if your ears happen to sit very far back or very far forward, then it's something to bear in mind. And then you've got about this much rotation in them this way. So like vertical swiveling or whatever the case may be. The cable's very nice. So they're using a double braided cable this time around and that might seem like it doesn't matter, but if you have cats it might. Or if you run over your cable with your mouse particularly vigorously. No, that actually won't matter. But cats, definitely. If your cats try to chew through this cable they will have less success than a single braided or a non-braided cable. And then that leads to the inline control which hasn't been changed since the last generation product. So it's basically got a microphone mute or not mute as well as a volume dial. Now this goes all the way down to, ah yes, now we're getting into the SteelSeries, the other SteelSeries classic sort of flexibility thing that they got going on. So right here is their swappable cable system. So you can actually switch from the two connector, so two three poles right there, to this guy right here. A single four pole. So you can actually use the 5HV3 with a mobile device or ultrabook or anything that only has a single audio jack for both headphones and microphones. And then they've also got their included extension cables. These are really handy. I don't even necessarily use them on my headphones because I usually have something in the front of my case or something sitting on my desk. But these are just really handy if you need like, you know, audio extension cables. So I use them all the time. So there you go. You can either extend them or just use the nice short cable here and terminate it in whatever type of ending you desire. Thank you for checking out my unboxing and overview of the SteelSeries 5HV3. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxing reviews and other computer videos. Leave one of these if you like the video, leave one of these if you didn't like it, and leave a comment if your name is... Salamander. And I feel bad for you.