Digital Trends

Steel Series 5H USB

February 22nd, 2006 | by Brett Rudolph

Performance

The 5H USB headphones went through a great deal of testing for this review with and without the included USB audio card.  They were used on the computer to listen to music, play games and talk to other gamers and friends.  Lastly they were connected to a stereo system to determine their abilities as stand-alone headphones in relation to other stereo headphones.

When connected directly to the computer their sound reproduction was somewhat dependent on the sound card in the computer.  However, even with a computer that contained a “good” sound card, they still sounded somewhat tinny and unnatural.  When playing games, they tended to sound only marginally better then the speakers within a Dell laptop.  Games such as Magic Match and Atlantis which have very simplistic and easily reproducible sounds did fairly well with the headphones.  Unfortunately this was not the case when the difficulty level of the game's sound requirements increased.  For example on games such as Myst and Quake 4, which are more enjoyable with better playback capabilities, these headphones fell short of the mark.

It is probably not that surprising given their lack of performance with games that they did not work extremely well when listening to music either.  In fact, the 5H headphones fairly mundane at best on most recordings.  On material such as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, the lack of bass took away from the headphone's ability to resolve the music into an enjoyable and lifelike experience.  They did fare somewhat better on material that was very easy to reproduce or was mixed specifically computer playback and the majority of low resolution MP3s.  While they still had a distinct lack of overall tonality, the headphones sounded better then the laptop speakers, at least. 

Connecting the 5H headphones to a “real” stereo system was perhaps a mistake.  All the shortcomings that they exhibited when they were connected to a computer became more pronounced on a dedicated audio system.  The headphones lacked many qualities, such as a defined mid-range and suitable bass, needed to truly enjoy difficult musical material.  They fared only slightly better on mass market materials mixed for loud playback in a car or from a boom box.

Two areas where the 5H headphones excelled were online gaming conversations and online communications.  Although the headphones did not reproduce speech perfectly, they did an adequate job.  What they lacked in audio reproduction though, they made up for with their microphone's ability.  The combination of headphone comfort and microphone performance made even the longest conversations or gaming sessions bearable.

Finally, the headphones were connected to the external USB audio card.  Once again, the headphones were reviewed using the same materials as with direct connections.  The performance of the headphones did improve, especially when the USB audio card was used instead of lower quality internal audio cards.  The drivers allow for a certain amount of customization, including limited 7.1 surround sound capabilities. This added level of control also improved their performance.  While there was a definite improvement in the level of performance when the headphones were connected to the USB audio card, it was not its main advantage.  The external device allowed the headphones to perform nearly identically regardless of the computer and its capabilities.