Kingston HyperX Cloud Gaming Headset Review

[section_title title=”Performance”]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 and the headband feature memory foam material packed into the (as standard) pleather casings. Though soft the padding is actually quite thin which combined with the lack of swivel movement in the ear cups does limit the comfort slightly.

That said, the cloud is still a very comfortable headset in the price point due to the spot on clamp pressure and reasonable weight. During extended use I had no real problems with the headset comfort wise and I didn’t experience any ear overheating so all is well when it comes to wear ability.

As I said though the headset really would benefit from some thicker padding in my opinion and some swivel in the ear cups would really make this an even more comfortable option.

Audio Quality

The Cloud features 53mm drivers which of course is more of a marketing ‘bigger number is better’ ploy than it is a noteable technical feature. However this is the sort of price point where we start to expect proper audio quality, so how did the Cloud fare?

Put simply, very well. I was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality of this headset, the drivers definitely have a sound accuracy you wouldn’t expect at this price point and they are far more neutral than the drivers found in most gaming headsets. The sound is nice and crisp with plenty of detail and shines in both music and games, with plenty of clean sound for more vocal music but also a nice accurate bass response to give a bit of life to explosions in action heavy gaming.

They don’t quite have the booming bass some might want in a gaming headset, but what I think they achieve is far better; its a decently balanced set of headphones with all the features of a gaming headset, something which is going to be a real treat for buyers who like their music just as much as their games.

Microphone

The microphone is obviously an essential part of a gaming headset and the Cloud features a fairly nice implementation that allows you to unplug the mic altogether and simply have a little blanking rubber piece in its place.

When it comes to actual performance I was very impressed with the sound quality of this microphone, it is both 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 communication.

So the performance is pretty much spot on around the board, lets wrap things up with a conclusion.