Razer Piranha Gaming Communicator Review

Page 4 – Testing

Sound

We tested Razer Piranha with our common bunch of games, music and movies. Just for fun we added an MP3 player and a cell phone.

In game testing we stuck mostly to the good old Half Life 2 engine, the sounds of which are well known and dare we say growing on us (besides being tested on quite a lot of different peripherals prior to this). We also tested them with the beloved Quake 3, Age of Mythology and even newer things such as Assassins Creed and Guitar Hero III. On that behalf the Piranha indeed justifies the "gaming" part of its name. The sound was loud and clear, even the most faint ambient sounds were audible. The headphones isolate outside noise quite well and though they themselves generate noise for the outside it is not too loud or irritating. The bass is on the level, as whole the Piranha is well suited for gaming use. Compared to other previously reviewed products Piranha perform similarly, yet the better balanced sound and good bass represent ingame sounds better. Swell, but how will they do with different sources?

Of course we ran various music and DVD disks. We also replaced our beloved in-ear set with the bulky Piranha in order to see how it handles mobile audio. Main thing we can say is the bass is good. But the high and middle aren't much of a much. Still the sound is consistent and there are no unpleasant "holes" in any certain frequency, the thing a cheap headphones would have. Razer Piranha are in top segment of the middle class headphones, and their price is too. Let us not forget though that these are gaming and as such they perform accordingly - with well balanced acoustic capabilities, though limited in non-gaming use. Then again a true audiophile would never by headphones that cheap, or even read this article for that matter...

Microphone

Sooo... the "gaming" part checks out, time to see about the bold „communicator” statement. The limited mic freedom (mere 90 degrees on the vertical) and its short arm did initially bother us. As it turned out - needlessly. The mic is placed exactly where it should be. If you still feel that you're too quiet, the flexible arm is there for you – a slight adjustment is all you need to make. The mic is rather good, it isolates ambient noises sufficiently and sends your voice out to the world loud and clear.

Comfortability

As much as we wanted the comfortability to match the sound performance it doesn't. The cups for the speakers of Razer Piranha are small and meant to lay on your ears, instead of leaning on your scull surrounding the whole ear. Add to this the tight frame and you get tired and in pain after prolonged use. Besides as we already noted the Razer chosen cloth in not the " breathing" type and at high temperatures the only thing preventing you sweating a river is the small cup size. The tight frame also pushes the top of your head and that too gets you a sore spot later on. The headphones though have about 30mm of adjustment space on each side, still if not tight enough they do slip off easily. And those 30mm ain't enough if you have somewhat bigger head. The general feeling is that Piranha were designed for people with smaller heads and are uncomfortable for everyone else, requiring frequent taking of in order to rest your head. We also notices another thing - should you wear glasses (be it sun glasses or prescription ones) the headphones will press them creating yet another sore place.