Sweaty ears
The Roccat branding of lazer blue and white text on black has always been an eye-catching part of Roccat’s product packaging, and here that design rubs off onto the headset with the Roccat Kulo logo emblazoned on the right ear cup - adding a splash of colour to the otherwise jet black finish. One of the first things I noticed when the Kulo was out of the box was how tiny the ear cups are compared to many gaming headsets. Instead of a closed-ear solution, Roccat has opted for an on-ear design - so the speakers sit on your ear rather than enclosing them fully. As such, I didn’t find them incredibly comfortable on the ears – I prefer the warmth and snug fit of having my ears fully covered. You can, however, adjust them easily for a snugger fit, and they offer some impressive passive noise cancellation by drowning out any moderate noise in your house.The big problem I found with the ear cups is that moisture builds up the longer you wear them because of the faux-leather material. If you stand up from a leather chair with bare skin touching it, you can feel yourself stick. The same applies to the Kulo. After a three-hour gaming session, I could feel that moisture as soon as I removed the headset and it did make my ears a little sweaty. This is totally unnoticeable when wearing the headset, but I definitely think a better material should be used for a gaming headset that you’re expecting to wear for long sessions. As such, I've preferred to use the Kulo for movie-watching, Skype and listening to music rather than extended gameplay sessions.
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Click for larger imageUnderneath the earpieces are 40mm drivers with Neodymium magnets and Mylar membranes. I’ve tested out the sound across a variety of media from the booming sounds of Call Of Duty Black Ops to long conversations on Skype, as well as listening to a variety of musical genres and music. Overall, it performs well with voice and treble being particular strong and crystal clear. While watching Black Hawk Down (yes, I know it's old but I like it) the rattling of gun fire was intense and bass performed very well, especially the sound of helicopter landing. Though the Kulo doesn’t offer surround sound it certainly delivers impressive stereo and while gaming I've been able to pin-point where gun-fire is coming from. Team-based communication is also strong via the bi-directional mic which performs impeccably, showing no signs of feedback or distortion.
Overall. it's quite strange that the sound performance outshines the design of the Roccat Kulo. Build quality is impressive, and despite its light weight it doesn't feel as if it's going to snap in two due to the reinforced headband. There are, however, some touches that I personally don't like, such as the faux-leather cups and the volume controls stuck on a piece of plastic that dangles half-way down the headset wire. For the price though, you can't really fault the Kulo performance-wise. However, with Roccat's next headset, the Kulo Virtual 7.1 USB Gaming Headset, due for release this month, it's probably worth waiting to see what changes have been implemented before you take the plunge.
