HyperX Cloud Stinger
Budget cans stripped to the bare essentials
HYPERX HAS BEEN doing some brilliant things in the enthusiast sector. Its RAM is super-fast, its storage solutions pretty much perfect, its keyboards clacky and colorful, and its headsets—particularly the Cloud II—market-leading examples of comfortable audio pleasure. The Cloud Stinger isn’t meant to sit in the same niche, though, coming in at literally half the price of its big brother. But you wouldn’t know it, at least initially, because this is a neat set of cans, well shaped, and sporting HyperX’s signature memory foam earcups. The headband is roomy and well cushioned, the metal adjustment arms stiff and unmoving, unless properly teased, and from them dangle 90-degree rotating earpieces, useful (we presume) if you happen to have a head designed by Pablo Picasso. Or if you want to place the Stinger flat on your desk. Put this superlightweight closed-cup headset on, and no matter how angular your skull may be, you will not be disappointed with the fit.
Closer inspection, however, reveals the greasy fingerprints of corners cut. The four-pole jack cable is a pathetic 4.2 feet long, although clicking it into the included dual three-pole adapter rounds the length up to a more reasonable 9.8 feet—if you’re stuck with a single audio port on your machine, be sure to pick up an extension. Give the faux-leather cup covers a light tug, and that silky cladding moves, and comes away slightly. It doesn’t appear to be attached particularly well to the body of the headset—it seems to be glued to the foam—and we could imagine it working its way loose after extended use. There’s discrete on-ear volume control, which is always a nice feature, but this slightly sticky slider isn’t exactly super-useful, jumping as it does between moderately quiet, mildly loud, and utterly tinnitus-inducing, with little to no nuance in between. Our Stinger also had an unpleasant quirk: Use the slider to drop the volume beyond a certain point, and the right ear audio drops out. This could be an isolated glitch, or it could be a common flaw.
Again, this is a headset that hits a highly reasonable price point. It’s not unreasonable to expect greatness from HyperX, but we would be churlish to judge the Stinger against its godly sibling when that’s not really its competition—if you have $100 to spend on a headset, there’s a world of hardware out there that is actively better than this. But if you have $50 to spend, the Stinger will quickly convince you to forget (or work around) those few flaws. Its 30 ohm 50mm directional drivers bang out a perfectly pleasant soundscape, which, while lacking a little warmth in the middle and vocal ranges, won’t leave you thinking you’ve underspent on sound. Bass noise, as is common with gamer-leaning headsets, is thick and boosted, though not to the point of rattling or distortion, and not so much that the treble end of the spectrum doesn’t crack through in a satisfying way.
NOISES OFF
The earcups do tend to be a little leaky as soon as you edge above mid-volume, and the high sensitivity of the condenser microphone makes it all too apparent when you’re listening to music while on a call or stream—noise canceling it may be, but extreme metal canceling it ain’t. Placed low toward the neck or higher toward the cheekbone, it’s a keen enough mic to capture clear conversation without any unpleasant breathing noises, and moving it to vertical mutes it by completely cutting the mic connection to your PC. Handy, although certain soundcards might not like this method.
So, HyperX has cut corners, but it’s cut them in the right places. The Cloud Stinger feels comfortable, it sounds pleasant, it has a pretty awesome mic, and it’s a fine starter headset. It’s fundamentally not as good as things that cost twice the price, but this is an argument we could make forever about everything. –ALEX COX