Hands-on review: Epos Sennheiser Game One

Whilst a home theatre system provides the best movie and TV experience, to get the best gaming audio experience, a decent headset is recommended. A headset is a cost-effective way of getting total immersion in the high-quality audio of today's games. Only with the sound directed right into your ears will you be able to really gain the advantage of hearing the direction of footsteps in a shooter.

The Epos Sennheiser Game One is a wired headset. This means that it is easy to use with PCs, consoles or mobile phones via the devices' audio jacks. There are two cables in the box. one with a standard combined 3.5mm audio/mic jack and another with separate 3.5mm audio and mic jacks for plugging in the back of a PC. Whilst the box states only PS4 consoles as specifically being supported, the Game One works well with the Nintendo Switch and the Xbox One with the newer controllers.

The Game One is very light, but feels a lot more robust than I'd have expected. The cups are designed with a bit of movement and the headband has a fair bit of flexibility, but it doesn't feel at all flimsy.

The headset fits comfortably over the ears. The headband is adjustable and with just the right amount of pressure without squeezing your head.

The cushioned ear pads are covered with sewn velvet material, rather than just glued on; which means they are not going to flake off as I've found with a lot of headsets. In any case, the cushions are replaceable with spares available from the Epos website.

Being open-acoustic, the headset lets in sound from the outside. This is supposed to give a natural sound akin to listening to speakers in a room, but also potentially opens your gaming soundscape up to the whirring of loud fans. That being said, my office has a noisy NAS in the corner and the review PC's fleet of fans are not particularly quiet, either. At no point did the ambient noise of the office interfere with my enjoyment of the Game One's audio.

It's worth mentioning that the headset has an easy to find rotating volume controller on the right cup. There's no need to be fiddling with tilt-switches or buttons in the heat of battle.

The microphone is solid, but flexible enough to adjust its distance from your mouth. The headset has the usual mic-up-for-mute function, so you'll know when you are not talking to all and sundry. The mic did a good job of picking up my voice but not my keyboard clicks. The box credits this to the "pro noise cancelling" features of the microphone.

The headset's audio quality is very high quality. The difference that the open acoustic design brings is difficult to explain. I'd best described as being less muffled, your ears picking up the sound as an audio source rather than having the sound forced into your head. If you've got a quiet gaming environment that doesn't require the ambient sound being insulated, I'd say that open acoustic give you a better audio quality than closed acoustic or even noise cancelling. Your thoughts may of course, be different.

The Epos Sennheiser Game One open acoustic gaming headset is built to last. It has a very natural sound that is best suited to a quiet gaming environment. At AU$249/NZ$299 the Game One isn't exactly entry-level, but it I'd say that it is a worthwhile and versatile gaming audio investment that is easily recommended.