The HyperX Cloud II has been my decide as one of the best gaming headset because it first launched round two and a half years in the past. In that point many challengers have come and gone, and HyperX themselves have taken care to solely launch completely different headsets, not rivals to its place on the throne… till now. Bare witness to the Cloud Alpha, the rightful inheritor to the Cloud crown.
Until the Cloud Alpha launches these are the best gaming headsets round at present.
I’m going to stay my neck out and say that is going to be the final word sub-$100 gaming headset. I had the chance to play with the HyperX Cloud Alpha at present, and converse to Mark Fuller, one of many engineers liable for the brand new headset’s revolutionary twin chamber design.
The audio is crisp and correct, with detailed separation and a broader soundscape than I can bear in mind on any gaming headset I’ve examined, particularly one which prices lower than $100. It’s a circumaural, closed-back design, however with the way in which the brand new driver chamber has been designed – with discrete chambers for low, mid-range, and excessive frequency audio – it feels nearer to an open-back headset.
And that’s precisely what HyperX have been aiming for to exchange the phenomenally profitable Cloud II.
“We’ve gone through all of the design process looking at all the [Cloud II] feedback,” says Fuller, “and going ‘can we do this and keep it cost-effective.’ And that is principally what we managed to do, throughout the price range that we needed to present the customers, and with the options that they’re on the lookout for.
“We’ve managed to hit most of what the shoppers requested for for underneath $100.”
What they had been asking for was improved bass response, removable cables, breathable ear-cups, and a broader, extra strong design. It is a contact heavier than its forebear, 298g vs 272g, however the brand new design has the identical model factors, whereas seeming totally indestructible. And broad sufficient to have the ability to match round a yeti’s cranium.
What the customers didn’t ask for, nonetheless, was a very redesigned ear-cup and an entire new twin chamber know-how.
“You’ve got the two sub-chambers on either side for the bass,” explains Fuller, “and the dimensions of the holes determines the frequency that may enter them. Obviously if the sound wave is just too massive for the opening it would bounce out. Under 600Hz will go into the bass chamber, over 600Hz will bounce down and go into the central chamber.
“It’s filtered within the centre chamber, so that you get highs within the center and mids across the outdoors after which bass even additional out to the aspect. The concept is that when that comes again out it’s all popping out as separate channels.”
And after an audio demo, operating just a little high-res Aphex Twin, amongst different tracks I introduced together with me, I can say the brand new drivers are fairly damned spectacular. Fuller explains it as an nearly 2.2 design, versus conventional 2.1.
“If you do 2.1 you have left, right, and then bass,” he says. “And the idea we’ve gone for is that you get left, left bass, right, right bass. But within the same ear cup. Obviously it’s still only two channel sound, but you don’t get the sort of crossfade and overlap that you do at high volumes, and at high bass, that you have on some other headsets.”
![HyperX Cloud Alpha [QVC voice] comes with all you see here](https://www.pcgamesn.com/sites/default/files/HyperX%20Cloud%20Alpha%20%5BQVC%20voice%5D%20comes%20with%20all%20you%20see%20here.jpg "HyperX Cloud Alpha [QVC voice] comes with all you see here")
HyperX have additionally made the frequency vary broader on the brand new Cloud Alpha too. The Cloud II presents a variety, at 15Hz – 25kHz, that’s unprecedented within the sub-$100 worth level, however with the Cloud Alpha hitting 13Hz – 27kHz they’re getting on in direction of what the $250 Razer Thresher delivers.
“We looked at the drivers that we were using before,” says Fuller, “and these are a different driver that should give a much better frequency response curve. In comparison with the Cloud II the frequency response is much better across a much broader range of sound.”
But it’s not simply the 50mm drivers which have been improved, they’ve additionally listened to suggestions concerning the noise-cancelling of their microphone too. And they’ve used their very own Alloy keyboard to tune the brand new mic, most particularly the chatty Cherry MX Blue mechanical switches used on it.
“We had a slight problem with the Cloud II in that when we brought the Cloud II out we didn’t do keyboards,” he says. “Cherry MX Blue switches generate a noise at the same frequency as voice, so normal noise cancellation doesn’t always cancel out typing on a blue mechanical keyboard.”
So HyperX have tuned the noise cancelling particularly to the noise of probably the most annoying mechanical change round, which is bound to please anybody on the opposite finish of a voice-chat.
The HyperX Cloud Alpha is delivery in a month, on September 25, with a world launch, and I can’t wait to get my palms (ears?) on the brand new king of gaming headsets.
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