How we tested

Audio testing falls into another category of testing for us at TechLife – it’s not as simple as running it through some software, getting some numbers, and sticking it in a fancy bar chart. “Subjective” is one way to put it. The true nature of sound testing falls into the ears of the listener, and unfortunately quantitative data doesn’t always paint a perfect picture. For our headphones here, we have a few tests that they have all had to face. We have gaming headsets too, so we wanted to see how well they all perform for both music listening and gaming.

Firstly, we wanted fair and honest group testing. Before listening, we delved into the sound settings in Windows to make sure that the default format for all the headphones and headsets was running at the highest possible bit and Hz rating they could. This ensured that the headphones weren’t restricted via a software setting. No EQs have been used either, as this could favor some and disadvantage others.

We picked Tidal as the streaming site of choice. Tidal offers some of the best- quality streaming on the market right now, with lossless audio files, ensuring that we’re not faulting the headphones because of poor-quality files. We selected a range of genres when choosing the tracks, making sure that they are all master files in Tidal – the highest quality you can get on the site.

For gaming, we didn’t mess around with EQs in the game and just used default settings. We tested on Call of Duty Modern Warfare: Warzone, Forza Horizon 4, Alien Isolation, and Grand

Theft Auto V.