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For testing the overall quality and performance of the Shock One gaming headset, I heavily tested each ear pad in three audio regimes: music, gaming and movies. I will go over some of the basic specs of the headphones which were listed beforehand. Firstly, the frequency response does not really affect the quality of sound the headset emits. Almost every headset out there has a range of 20 Hz~20 KHz. Secondly, the impedance in a headset or headphone is the ability to eliminate white noise when nothing is being played. A lower impedance have a higher chance of emitting a white noise but have easier drive or get a higher maximum volume. On the other hand, higher impedance has less of a chance to emit a white noise but is almost impossible to drive. Now, I will be discussing and analyzing the results I obtained from testing the headset with Leather and Velvet ear pads in these three categories.
Leather Ear Pads
In terms of music, the leather ear pads were decent at best. Many songs ranging from classic to rock to pop did not have great quality and were often pretty low in volume. Some of the presents and environments did help enhance the quality of the songs but I felt these enhancements just merely covered them up. However, while listening to electronic and hard rock music, I could hear a great deal of difference. The leather ear pads were a great match for these types of music because they were more bass oriented. The 40MM driver with bass enhancement complemented these audio files well. I really like the sound and the enhancement that I was receiving while testing.
Gaming with these ear pads was absolutely amazing. First of all, there are three buttons that can adjust the equalizer to three types of gaming: MMO RPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), FPS (First Person Shooter) and RTS (Real Time Strategy). I loved the quality of sound that was coming out of the headset while testing great games like: Aion, Counter Strike, Team Fortress 2, and Starcraft 2. The background music was complemented very well by the bass enhancement during far and close range action.
Movies were somewhat of a double-edged sword. The leather ear pads were greatly enhanced by the bass enhancement and made action scenes infinitely better. However, I could not listen to an entire movie because it got quite warm and uncomfortable around my ears. I think this is benign because the Shock One headset is geared towards gaming and not for watching movies.
Velvet Ear Pads
Listening to music with velvet ear pads was much more comfortable. Many songs ranging sounded a lot better and could be easily increased in volume because they were not enhanced heavily by the bass like the leather ear pads were. However, this did inhibit the overall sound quality of the media files. Since this gaming headset is meant for gamers, music that synced well with bass enhancement sounded better overall. The best attribute is that the ear pads were comfortable and I could wear them for much longer periods of time.
Playing games with these ear pads were not so great in terms of performance. The three different setting mentioned earlier: MMO RPG, FPS and RTS, did help the sound quality but the audio was lacking texture and feeling. The quality of sound for bullets going off and sword slashing were not as impressive as with leather ear pads. I would only recommend the velvet ear pads for gamming if the user wants to play for very long hours.
Movies were somewhat satisfactory. I did enjoy using the headset over the course of an entire movie but the action scenes were not as great. I could hear the sound effects but the quality was just not as good as the leather ear pads. As I said earlier, I assume this is really benign because the Shock One headset is geared towards gaming not watching movies.
