Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsVery Comfortable - Good sound - Great build quality
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2019
First off, let me write here for those who are confused because I had to do a lot of research on this subject - the Razer Kraken Tournament Edition is basically exactly the same as the new Razer Kraken 2019 Edition. This version, however, comes with a THX USB sound card, which enables THX spatial audio in games and comes with a couple other features as well. This only works as intended for PC, I believe. Otherwise, you are probably better off grabbing the new Razer Kraken 2019 Edition.
The first point I want to make about this headset is how good it looks. Of course this is subjective, but I just love the look of it. Other people might find the green tacky, but I am very fond of it. The whole design and look of it makes it look tough and sturdy, which belies how comfortable and light they are. When these are on my head, they basically feel like nothing is on my head at all. I wear glasses and usually headsets press against my head very uncomfortably, but these feel like clouds on my head. So, I will say on build quality, comfort, and appearance, this headset gets full marks from me. 5/5.
On sound, however, is where some issues pop up. I've heard from a lot of reviews mention these are heavy on volume and bass, but I had some problems with this. The bass doesn't sound anywhere near as good as my old headset - it feels pretty light and when you boost it up (with the knob on the THX control) it makes music sound pretty awful. The volume doesn't get that loud to me either, by my standards. For this, I will say make sure you turn up the volume knob on the cord, then turn the volume to max on the THQ control, then make sure the game chat balance is turned off. The rest of the audio quality is passable, but could be better and clearer there as well. It's annoying that I have to fiddle around with an equalizer, rather than having some good settings already set up.
The mic on this headset is fantastic - by far the best mic on a headset I've ever experienced. It sounds so clear - almost like a professional grade microphone. It's one of the reasons I got this headset after hearing it, because I use Discord almost all day, and the sound of these will definitely make your peers happy. For these, I'd advise going into the Razer Synapse settings (the software supplied when you plug the headset in) and setting Mic Volume to 100, Mic Sensitivity to 75, Sidetone to 50, and turn off the enhancements. In whatever voice chat program you have, you'll want to the sensitivity of the program to be as low as possible.
I'd like to mention some other great features of this headset that probably aren't mentioned too often: it comes with two bands that allow you to adjust the length of the wires from both the USB sound card and the wire connecting it to the headset itself. I really appreciated having two of these, and it allows me to make the cord the exact length I want it without getting any unseemly kinks in the wire. It looks very neat. I also love the fact that the THQ sound controller has a adhesive back to it which allows you to - once you've peeled off the back part - stick the controller anywhere you want. This is very helpful and looks great.
I hope this review answers questions and issues other people might have had. I'd definitely recommend this headset for anyone looking for a really comfortable, reliable headset with a sturdy build quality and a great microphone. I would *not* recommend this headset for audiophiles. On sound, I've had Logitechs and HyperX headsets that sounded better, but these are completely passable for probably the vast majority of the population.
EDIT: UPDATE: I have actually grown to rather dislike this headset because of several annoying issues. Whenever I restart my computer and put my headset on, all of my sound sounds distorted like something from a horror movie. Really irritating problem. It is fixed by unplugging and then plugging back in the USB, but it is not something I should have to deal with. This combined with problems with Razer Synapse 3 where it was resetting all of my microphone settings every single time I restarted my PC made me stuff this headset back in the box and slap it on my shelf to keep as a backup headset in case my Logitech dies.
