[section_title title=”Performance”]
There are three main areas to address when it comes to a headset, they are: Comfort, Audio Quality, and Microphone performance. I’m going to start off with what I consider the most important, and that is comfort.
Comfort
When it comes to design the Cloud is of the traditional fixed headband design and of course is size adjustable via telescopic rails. Padding wise the ear cups feature memory foam material packed into the (as standard) pleather casings. Though not massively thick it has to be some of the nicest material I have come across in ear pads and coupled with the snug clamp pressure it helps the Clouds make a ridiculously good seal around your ears.
The major complaint I have though is that the headband is padded very economically and while not completely uncomfortable I did find it distracting enough to have to adjust the headband to different parts of my head every now and again which did limit long period wearability for me which at this price point is slightly less forgivable than with the (now) ‘lower end’ Cloud 1s. If the headband had the same material as the earcups in a reasonable thickness the headset would be sublime from a comfort standpoint.
One thing I really feel deserves praise is the small layer of foam that sits between your ear and the driver casing, as someone who hates the feeling of my ears rubbing the inside of the cups I think this is an absolutely brilliant design touch so well done Cloud 2s there.
At the end of the day this is still a pretty comfortable headset that can be worn for a good few hours at a time with relative impunity to your head, though the snug seal from those memory foam pads can make things get pretty warm inside those cups.
Audio Quality
When I tested the Cloud 1s I was surprised (like most) by how superb the sound quality was, the neutral yet still punchy sound is a real delight and lends itself flawlessly to all types of music you could put it up against with gorgeously crisp reproduction throughout the spectrum.
That is all old news though as we all know the Cloud 1 was a superb sounding headset, the more pressing question here is whether or not the USB DSP Kingston have bundled with the Cloud 2s is up to the job of driving those great 53mm drivers.
Happily it certainly is, as soon as I put these on and loaded up some tunes the balanced sound came through as strong as ever and I certainly didn’t feel like the USB interface was holding the headset back at all. Indeed there was even one minor area of improvement and that is in volume, like all USB headsets I have used the Cloud 2s are capable of such an obscene volume level that I honestly worry about people who would use them at full blast. The only real complaint I have is that currently there is no software for the Cloud 2s to allow you to set up an equalizer but this may be in the pipeline as I received my set before general availability, in fairness though they sound so good as they are it doesn’t really bother me.
Of course one feature we mustn’t overlook is the hardware based 7.1 sound trickery Kingston have built into the DSP which I am surprised to say actually produced a pleasing effect in some games which as someone who usually dislikes virtual 7.1 stereo mixing I found quite surprising. I didn’t like it in all games, for example in CS:GO I preferred to have it off as even though it sounded more immersive I found it harder to track footsteps but in Skyrim I found it added a really nice bit of depth and wideness to the atmospheric sounds that I really rather liked. I think it will be a case of trying it and seeing what you think on a game by game basis; I for one never consider 7.1 mixing stuff a selling point on stereo headsets so it doesn’t affect my judging but it’s always better to have more features so I’ll leave that one to you guys.
Microphone
The microphone is obviously an essential part of a gaming headset and the Cloud 2 features a fairly nice implementation that allows you to unplug the mic all together and simply have a little blanking rubber piece in its place if you prefer the cleaner look/don’t want to chat online.
When it comes to performance I was very impressed with the sound quality of this microphone, it is crystal clear yet also features a depth of sound to it that gaming headset mics often lack which means it is actually a much nicer bit of kit to communicate with people as there is nothing worse than a tinny mic when you are trying to communicate in tense situations.
The only complaint I could swing at it is that it doesn’t deal with background noise very well but overall the sound quality of the mic on this headset is great and should serve you well in your online communications.
