 In my unboxing of the SteelSeries 7H headset, I promised to do a bit more of an in-depth review than I typically do. And so I wanted to just give you my impressions of this headset now that I've had some chance, some time, some chance, to game on them, listen to music on them, watch a movie on them, and I gotta say, first of all, I'm gonna ruin the surprise a little bit. I am very, very impressed. So we're gonna take a bit more of an in-depth look at them. They are extremely comfortable, even out of the box. Now my, my de facto gaming setup, is actually a pair of Sennheiser HD555 headphones. You can see these are pretty beat up. These have been around the block. I've been using these for a good couple years. So they're extremely loose, extremely flexible, extremely comfortable, well broken in headphones. And then for a microphone, I actually just, uh, drape a PC-161 also from Sennheiser around my neck. So the microphone comes up to my mouth, and then the headphones sit on my head like this. Kind of like that, yes. Uh, the HD555s, I found most gaming headsets, uh, by comparison, completely unsatisfactory for music. And just in terms of general audio quality. Now I've also got some other points of reference that I want to, uh, to give you guys here. So I have the SteelSeries Siberia V2. This is their, uh, their white model. It's a little bit less expensive, actually quite a bit less expensive than the 7H. Uh, a little bit less expensive than, or quite a bit less expensive again than even the HD555s on their own. I have the SteelSeries 5H V2. So this is their previous top of the range. Also with the retractable mic. It also has the, uh, detachable ear cups for travel and such. Um, honestly, I, I didn't like these nearly as much as I like the new 7H. I find out of the ones in front of me, the most comfortable are probably the well-broken in HD555s. And the Siberia V2, these are extremely light. And then with a close runner-up being the 7H, but one thing that I can't, I can't knock it for is the fact that it's brand new. Whereas I've actually used both of these extensively, this is, uh, still probably only seen about a week of gaming use. So it's still a little bit tight. You see how tight that is compared to the, uh, the Siberia V2, which is quite loose. And the HD555s, which are obviously completely loose because they're so old. Another point of reference that I do have for this particular little review is the Sennheiser PC350s. These, again, are quite well used. These are a closed headset. So that means, actually I want to talk a little bit about what that means. So, first of all, the ones that I typically use for gaming the 555s, those are an open headset, open headphone. That means that I can hear my surroundings, uh, and my surroundings can hear whatever I'm listening to on my headphones. These do not block sound at all. These go right through to the speakers, so anyone around me can easily hear what I'm hearing. Uh, one thing that you do lose a little bit with an open headphone is some of the directionality, because it means that the sound coming out the right earphone is coming out here, and you can potentially hear it through the left earphone. So you don't have, uh, quite the same, uh, directionality that you would with a closed headphone like the PC350, which is designed completely for gaming. This is a purely gamer skew from Sennheiser. So let's talk a little bit about what makes the 7H, uh, honestly, in my opinion, one of the best values on the table in front of me. It has a lot of the premium features that you see on the really high-end headphones headset, so it's got these rotatable earpieces. That makes them extremely comfortable no matter how your head is shaped. It's got the detachable thingamajiggy here where you can take this with. Honestly, I don't think this is a very useful feature, but I guess if you travel with your headset a lot, it might come in handy. I don't, so that might be why I don't, uh, don't see the value of it. Uh, you've got other really cool things too, though. You can actually exchange the earpieces, so you've got these plethorae ones or the cloth ones if you prefer a more closed listening experience. So that means that, much like the PC350s, you cannot hear what's going on in the right ear through the left ear, because these actually form a pretty good seal with your head and make it so that not only can you not hear your surroundings, your surroundings can't hear you, and the sound is very isolated from one ear, uh, between the ears. So, you can either choose to have that listening experience with the 7H, or you can put on the cloth earmuffs, earmuffs, uh, the cloth earpieces, and then you can actually have a more open listening experience. Now, I actually very much prefer the HD555s to the PC350s. I don't like the 350s all that much, because I do not like the closed listening experience, but with these I was able to put on the cloth pieces, and I found them quite satisfactory in music, uh, movies, and in games. Now, with games, honestly this is a little bit better, but it's summer right now, and I found my ears got pretty warm, with these, and frankly with any, with any sort of plasticy, leathery material against my head. Now, I don't know where else to go with this, because honestly it's all subjective, like you can talk about, it has a retractable mic, it has a detachable cable here, actually that's one thing that was a big problem for me. My PC350s recently died, because my cats, uh, my cats ate them. Here. This is when they were just little babies, but you can see that they have died. Now, unlike the 555s, which have a detachable plug here, which is pretty hard to take out, but you can take it out, and you can replace the cable, and you can do the same thing with the 7H, because it has a little mini USB cable, uh, the PC350s do not have that particular feature. I took the whole earpiece apart, and it's all soldered in there, it would be quite a bear to actually replace it. Um, what else do I want to talk about in terms of comparison? I think that pretty much covers it. Basically, these are about 50 bucks less than the 555s that I'm using now. They do have a mic. The sound quality is what I would consider comparable to a decent quality music headphone, in terms of music, and honestly I very much preferred it to the PC350s once I was able to replace the earpieces. Now, the thing that really impresses me actually is the price range, because it's quite a bit less expensive than anything else that I would consider comparable in terms of sound quality. It blows away any other sort of purely gaming headsets that I've used in the past, and I don't know if you've noticed in some of my blog videos that I shoot in my office, I also have some Razer Carcarius headphones in there, and those are probably, again, up with the more comfortable headsets here, but I found the sound quality was not quite up to par with the Siberia V2 when I tested them last time, so... I guess this is just seven minutes of me rambling my thoughts on headphones. I just want to say that SteelSeries has done a fantastic job with this product. I think that at the price point, it's pretty much unbeatable, and I was very, very, very impressed with the SteelSeries 7H. I guess if I'm going to call this a review, I should probably actually talk about some of the other stuff. You can get it with a USB sound card, which has been a lifesaver for me. My onboard sound died on one of my motherboards, and so I actually use this. The sound quality is, I would call it perfectly adequate, but I'm used to using a $100 plus sound card, and or a $500 receiver to actually power my headphones, so yeah, it's adequate. It's about what you'd expect. It's only a $30 adder, I think, so it's not that expensive. It has a short cable, which has an on-off, low-high... No, just on-off for the mic and then volume adjustment for the headphones, and then you can actually attach that to an extension cable, so if you have a SteelSeries 7H, you can plug right into the back of the keyboard for your audio, and then if you do not, then you can just plug right into the back of the computer. It has kind of like chrome-y accents, which I think really look nice, and it has an overall more solid build quality versus previous headsets that they've released. I really like the retractable mic. They've really upgraded the look of it versus ones that we've seen before, so here, I'll show you the one on the 5HV2. It looks like a little, like... Huh, I don't know. Teardrop. Looks very strange. Whereas this one looks more like a professional-looking mic, and that's actually kind of similar to the one that they have on the Siberia V2, which is also a much newer headset than the 5HV2, and I really do prefer it to the mic that sits next to your head, which makes you look kind of ridiculous if you're not actually using it and you're not actually playing a game. So, there. I actually gave some of my thoughts on the 7H. Now I can call this legitimately a review. I enjoyed it. It's good.