The Asus ROG Strix Fusion 500 might be the primary headset I’ve utilized in fairly a while the place I haven’t needed to mechanically put the headscarf on the tightest attainable setting. This stunned me, contemplating the large measurement of its ear cups, however the tight, inflexible design of its headband meant there was no method I used to be getting this factor over my head with out loosening it first. Finally, a USB headset for folks with smaller noggins than I.
That stated, I’m unsure how these with extra petite mind centres will actually get on with the Strix Fusion 500, because it nonetheless felt like fairly the bike helmet even as soon as I’d received it into a cushty place. The decrease portion of the ear cups felt significantly comfortable in opposition to my face, too, virtually to the purpose the place they have been pinching my jaw a bit of. I hoped that loosening the headset additional would possibly take the stress off a bit, however this simply meant it began urgent down on the highest of my ears as a substitute, making the headset really feel even greater.
Luckily, the Strix Fusion 500 comes with an alternate set of ear cups which have a cloth end relatively than fake leather-based, making its relatively steep value of £160 / $180 really feel much more palatable than its rivals. I truly discovered these materials ear cups to be much more snug and fewer itchy than the default leather-based ones, however I want they have been simpler to swap out. Each pair merely hooks over the motive force’s surrounding plastic mould due to their interior elasticated bands, however that’s not very useful when you possibly can barely squeeze your fingers in to unhook them within the first place. I managed to get them on and off with out incident, however there have been instances after I thought I would tear the skinny elastic as I stretched them around the enclosure.
Since that is an RGB headset, the Strix Fusion 500 additionally helps Asus’ Aura Sync tech to let you could have one steady gentle present throughout all of your suitable Asus units, like your motherboard, graphics card, mouse and keyboard. Like all different RGB headsets, nonetheless, it’s all a bit pointless once you your self can’t truly see stated gentle present since you’ve received the rattling factor clamped spherical your face as a substitute in entrance of your eyeballs.
I’m additionally not satisfied by the headset’s bizarre contact controls. Presumably in an effort to maintain the bronze, mirrored floor on its ear cups as clear and, I suppose, elegant as attainable, Asus have determined to eschew conventional knob and slider controls for a contact plate on the left ear cup . Which is mindless in any way if you happen to’re making the argument for a chic minimalist sort of design, as this simply means you find yourself plastering it in greasy fingerprints.
In concept, touching the highest will flip the amount up, touching the underside will flip it down, tapping the center will play and pause, and the edges will skip ahead and again by your tracks. In apply, nonetheless, it’s an absolute mess, as as a substitute of merely touching an space to provide the meant response, you’ve received to slip your finger out from the center. It works, nearly, however with no sense of tactile satisfaction.
The quantity, for example, solely goes up and down in tiny, four-step chunks in your grasp Windows quantity, so that you’ll have to put in a number of tiresome swipes earlier than you get any significant change. Skipping a observe additionally nonetheless requires you to faucet play within the center to truly hearken to it. And that’s not making an allowance for the small, however noticeable delay there may be between tapping the centre of the headset and it truly registering in iTunes, which at all times made me doubt whether or not I’d hit it accurately, turning any given try to play a easy observe right into a st.op.st-art.sl-i-de-sho-w.o-f.in-f-ur-iat-i-ng.ma-dnes-ss.
I additionally stored hitting the amount controls by chance everytime I put the headset on and after I tried to launch its teeny tiny microphone from its little cubbyhole between the left ear cup’s contact plate and ear cushion (proven beneath). Freed by pushing down on the little ledge on the entrance and secured by merely pushing it again into its nook, you get a bit of little bit of up and down angle adjustment plus the power to bend it in or out marginally, however it’s not essentially the most versatile factor on the planet and nonetheless produced various background hiss after I recorded myself speaking in Audacity. Not to the extent that I couldn’t hear what I used to be saying, however it was a persistent irritation to say the least. There’s additionally no mute button, which makes ingesting tea and chatting over Skype concurrently immensely tough.
One cheeky microphone…
It’s a disgrace the Strix Fusion 500 is so fiddly to make use of on a day-to-day foundation, as its built-in DAC (digital to analogue converter) and amplifier produce – for essentially the most half – a extremely pleasing sound. It leans fairly closely towards to the bassy finish of the headset spectrum, however when listening to regular music I discovered it gave pop and rock songs a satisfying sense of weight to them, making them seem well-rounded and full-bodied. Vocals have been clear always and taut drum beats seemed like they crammed your complete soundscape relatively than simply touchdown with a boring thud.
That stated, I used to be much less impressed with the way it dealt with busy orchestral tracks, because it was right here that issues began to get a bit muddy. In the multi-layered battle themes on my Final Fantasy XV soundtrack, for example, there have been a number of instances when the violins on prime seemed like they have been struggling to be heard over the heavy bass beneath, and turning on its digital 7.1 encompass sound with its rear ear cup button solely introduced the bass to the fore much more, making issues worse relatively than higher.
Fortunately, this drawback roughly evaporated as soon as I began taking part in video games with it. The Strix Fusion 500’s bassy bias did wonders for Doom’s booming soundtrack, for example, producing an all-encompassing wall of sound the place shotgun blasts felt simply as satisfying as splitting open hell knight skulls.
The 7.1 button is the one bodily management on your complete headset
Hellblade, too, sounded equally menacing. As it seems, I truly most well-liked taking part in with the Strix Fusion 500’s digital 7.1 encompass sound turned on right here, because it gave the voices inside Senua’s head much more room to breathe. It didn’t destroy the feeling of the sport’s 3D binaural audio, both, which different headsets have tended to do prior to now.
Even Final Fantasy XV shone on the Strix Fusion 500, regardless of me having been beforehand a bit underwhelmed when listening to its standalone soundtrack. In-game, these exact same battle tunes sounded rather more balanced, the bass completely tempered in opposition to the strings, crunching sword swings and good boy Noctis and his mates shouting instructions to one another throughout fight.
As nice because the Asus ROG Strix Fusion 500 sounds, although, I believe its quantity controls and fussy microphone would simply be too annoying to make it my headset of alternative on a regular basis. Its ear cups additionally take lots of adjustment and fiddling to get them feeling snug, and even then I nonetheless discovered myself shifting it round on my head after a few hours use. If outsized headsets are your bag, you’d in all probability be higher off with the Corsair Void Pro RGB. The Strix might need higher digital encompass sound, however the Void Pro’s a lot comfier and a heck of much more handy.
