Finding the right headset is a balance of features, comfort, and sound. There are some clear winners, but often you’ll find yourself spending hundreds of dollars to check all of those boxes. In the affordable headset market, there are some caveats that need to happen. Great sound might come at the cost of build quality. A solidly built headset can often mean that audio suffers as a result. Because I treat my things nicely, I tend to prefer great audio quality first and foremost, but it also has to feel good to wear for long periods of time. There’s always the balance to maintain.
Touted for its high-quality audio, I was more than eager to take the Roccat Khan Pro headset for a test run. The gaming headset market is overcrowded at the $100 price point, so they really need to perform if they want to stand out above the crowd. After running them through multiple games, from Destiny 2 to God of War, and then plugging them into my phone for some music, I came away less than impressed. On the high end, vocals and other details were extremely clear. Music, spoken word podcasts, and voice chat with teammates were all quite clear, and definitely the market that Roccat is aiming for with the Khan Pros aimed at esports and competitive play. The problems begin once you introduce bass and mixing of multiple sounds at once. Bass tones are relatively flat, which isn’t a problem in and of itself. I’ve actually loved a number of headsets that don’t have extrem...