Creative Sound BlasterX H5
Sound, thy name is mud.
The Sound BlasterX H5 is one of the comfiest gaming headsets we’ve ever had the pleasure of using. The satisfaction you get as it fits around your lugs is second only to AudioTechnica’s newest AG1X. It’s not heavy, nor bulky. It just sits right. If only we could stop here.
Right out of the gate, the H5s are incredibly muddy. There’s an unbelievable degree of emptiness in the mids and treble. Although the bass is prominent, the overall sound structure is very limited — they just couldn’t compete in contrast to any of the other headsets in this group test for crystal-clear audio reproduction.
Connecting an external DAC like Creative’s own Sound Blaster X7, which we had on hand for testing, will get you far more prominent bass — dubstep, heavy metal, and punk were better, but the clarity needed for instrumental and classical scores just wasn’t there.
Gaming, on the other hand, was good fun. This will entirely depend on what games you like playing, of course, but if you enjoy music as much as your games, you might want to take a step back here and opt for something else.
For the price, we’d have loved to have seen a better soundscape. It can be countered somewhat with a dependable DAC or soundcard, but if you’re investing that kind of money, you’d probably want to drop some cash into a better pair of headphones anyway.
The H5s are comfortable and light. Ergonomically, they’re strong contenders, but alas, that’s just nowhere near as important as solid audio quality.