Razer Carcharias gaming headset

A light, comfortable Razer headset designed for marathon gaming sessions.

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The Razer Carcharias PC gaming headset is light, well-padded and comfortable enough to wear for long periods. The sound quality is acceptable for gaming and music listening, and a few small design flaws do not prevent the Razer Carcharias headset from being a desirable product.

Pros

  • Light and comfortable, felt ear-pads limit fatigue, good sound quality for gaming

Cons

  • Unnecessarily bulky volume control, microphone not very flexible, sound leaks easily

Bottom Line

The Razer Carcharias is a headset aimed at gaming enthusiasts, with good sound quality and a noise-cancelling microphone. This gaming headset is light and easy to wear for long periods. Apart from a few small annoyances, the Razer Carcharias is a very competent product that is worthy of consideration.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    $ 199.95 (AUD)

Razer extols the comfort of the Carcharias gaming headset on its product web-site, more so than any of its technical specifications or features. The company's other headset, the Razer Barracuda HP-1 gaming headphones, caters to the multi-channel, flashy-light crowd admirably. The Carcharias headset, on the other hand, caters to those who want a simple, competent and comfortable stereo headset.

This headset has been designed to be light yet durable. Thin yet strong plastic is the main material used in the headband and ear-cups. Both matte and glossy finishes are used; we prefer the former because fingerprints and scratches are less visible. The outside of the ear-cups has a metal mesh weave, making the headset look somewhat retro. The style is vaguely reminiscent of the AKG K272 HD closed hi-fi headphones.

Comfort is not an issue; the headphones’ clamping force is enough to hold them steady but not cause headaches. The super-soft ear-pads meant that we clocked up several hours of listening without any discomfort.

The adjustable noise-cancelling microphone swings down smoothly and has a wide range of vertical movement — enough so that you can wear the headphones backwards and still talk into the microphone — but only a small range of lateral movement is available. This means you may find adjusting the microphone to its optimal position difficult. Sound quality from the microphone is more than acceptable for chatting in games or over Skype, and the noise cancelling blocks out background noise very well.

A three metre braided cable with 3.5mm jacks for microphone and headphones is more than long enough for standard use; a bulky volume control and microphone mute button can be found about a metre down the cord.

When it comes to sound quality, the Razer Carcharias headset does not disappoint. As a gamer-focused pair of stereo headphones it is no surprise that it's heavily bass-focused, with lower bass notes prominent and well reproduced. This gives the headphones a very lively character for music and makes the headset well suited to action gaming. Treble response is less full-on than the bass, but high notes of female vocals and brass instruments were still adequately represented in our test music. The headphones are not well sealed though, so anyone around you will be able to eavesdrop on your music, games or Skype conversations.

The headset was able to accurately produce 3D audio within games. Music had a spacious feel as well, with individual instruments well-defined.

The Razer Carcharias gaming headset produces stereo sound well, is quite comfortable and has a good quality microphone. If you want a gaming headset that will let you game for hours without trouble, this is a good choice.

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