Razer HP-1 Barracuda 8-Channel Gaming Headphones
See it at Amazon.com for $74.99Average Customer Rating
(3.0 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First (3 out of 5)Good positional sound for FPS games
This headset is built pretty well, and is pretty comfortable to wear for long periods. The fit is tighter than most other headphones, but I found that this did not lead to any discomfort even after a few hours.
This headset is able to go extremely loud. It has its own amplifier, and I recommend setting the volume knob quite low until you've balanced all your sound sources.
That being said, this headset is remarkably clear sounding, and the clarity remains the same even if you crank the volume way up.
I am using this headset with my motherboard's onboard SB Audigy, and it was pretty easy to switch to the "5.1 speakers" setting to get the surround sound working.
The positional sound works great for FPS games (I tried it out in Day of Defeat: Source), though after being used to stereo headphones it takes a bit to get used to hearing the sounds from different directions. The positional sound is much less useful in games like World of Warcraft where the camera and the character are in different locations. No matter which you pick as the center for the sound, the positional sound doesn't help as much as it does for the FPS games.
The microphone is not particularly sensitive. My old Plantronics headset picked up my voice very well, but the Razer is very quiet. I have to turn my microphone input up to full and crank the outbound volume in Ventrilo up to the max to be heard.
The bass response is also a bit on the low side. However, I find if you set the crossover point on your sound card's subwoofer control to be about 90 Hz and use an EQ to boost frequencies below 100 Hz (the SB Audigy can do both), the bass response is much improved.
Some other minor issues with this headset are found in the cord and volume control. The cord is only about seven feet long, so you better have your computer pretty close to where you sit. The volume control brick is about two feet down the cord from the headset, and is pretty heavy (it has an amplifier in it). For some reason, they made the clip point upwards, so if you want to clip it onto your shirt, you have to turn it 180 degrees, so the cord going to the headset comes out the bottom and the cord going to the computer comes out the top. The distance between the headset and the volume control brick isn't quite great enough to clip it onto your belt, either.
Also, and I am not sure why they did this, but the ear cups are suspended through their center axis by a half-circle yoke, so that they can swivel 180 degrees (some call this DJ style since you can rotate the earcup outward and listen without putting them on). This makes the headset harder to move around with one hand.
Pros:
- Comfortable
- Good positional sound
- Can go very loud without distortion
- High quality construction
- Easy to set up
Cons:
- Low microphone sensitivity
- Goofy volume control brick orientation
- Short cord
- Bass response less than expected at this price
- Expensive
If your primary usage is voice chat, you'd probably be better off going with a much cheaper Logitech internet chat headset. However, if you want a pretty good set of headphones for listening to music, and to have positional sound for FPS games, then one does the trick.
(5 out of 5)good and bad
i purchase these mainly for gaming and music, ive use them at least 8 hours a day since i received them.
first set came with defective lights and the mic didnt work. i contacted Razer support via email after 12 emails in 4 days including an escalation to a supervisor they agree on sending me a new pair and i didnt even had to return the defective ones!!! i live in Costa Rica so returning something to the US is kind of expensive around $80 or more.
new set came in and its been working perfectly Lights work great same as the mic!! i used this thing to hear music play games and do conference calls with SoftPhone software Skype and some other my company uses.
if you are going to use these for music only!! get some other brand sennheiser would be my recomendation, music just sounds much better on sennheiser than on these.
for gaming these are the absolute BEST headphones outthere!! love the fact that you plug into a USB for power no need of an external adapter.
(2 out of 5)Dissapointing.
So, I bought this a couple months ago. At first, I was in love. Great sound quality, and the surround sound aspect works well in FPS games. Also VERY comfortable, much more so than any other 5.1 headphones I have owned. The initial favorable impression wore of pretty quickly, though.
First of all, the microphone *sucks*. I've seen better microphones on 20$ radio shack headphones. These are GAMING headphones, and expensive ones at that. You would think the microphone would be at least passable. It isn't.
Secondly, the build quality is pretty bad. Within a few weeks, the control brick started giving me problems. The sound would go off on one side or the other. A bit annoying. This only happens sporadically, and can be "fixed" by squeezing the sound controller. Not quite bad enough for me to seek a replacement, but annoying nonetheless.
I've also discovered that the headphones are assembled with screws - screws that aren't properly inserted, and they have a tendency that fall out. Now I have a washer flopping around inside the right headphone, and I can't find the tiny screw. So I'll have to either try and repair it myself, which means trying to find somewhere I can buy tiny rare screws, or have to send it in for repair. I might as well send it in for repair, because maybe they could also fix the volume controller...
Really kind of disappointing for supposedly "premium" gaming headphones. The microphone is bad enough to almost make it worthless for ventrillo or TS. And the problems with build quality are really unacceptable for headphones of this price. I bought some 5.1 headphones for 40$ a few years back... they only lasted a year, but they had none of the issues that the Razer has. Kind of sad that a cheap Chinese imitation is actually of better quality than this expensive crap.
(1 out of 5)Razer needs better manufacturing !!!!
Let me start off by saying like some others out there, Theses seemed like a dream come true. Got my First PAIR( yes i said first) and used them with my existing motherboard soundcard. They sounded about the same as my old ones but that was to be expected. I was saving in the meantime for the AC-1 soundcard that goes w/ the head phones. One day i come home and go to play a game and no sound is coming out of the left ear and one of the lights on the vol control is dead. DOuble check with oter PC's and verify bad headset. OK no problem amazon was great with the exchange. got my 2nd pair in a week. I decided to wait til i got the soundcard to hook the headphones back up. got the card for my B-day and went to town and set every thing up only to find that the left rear channel was not working but if i pushed on th cord a little you could here a small sound. Plus one of my 3 dvd roms now did not work on account of a IRQ conflict i believe. O' Well just bad luck i guess. Sent it back, again amazon very good about it. Soundcard sound ok with my old headphone but does not have EAX or X-fi which alot of games use. Today i got an email saying that Amazon realizes there is a problem with the headpones and will not send me a replacement but will refund me my money and will take back the sundcard as well. so there you have it. Razer seems to have issues with it's production, thats what you get for outsorcing manufacturing. Amazon was great and I'm Happy they didn't just ship me another POS.
(2 out of 5)Admirable concept, but shoddy manufacturing not worth the price.
The first product I ever bought from Razer was one of their Copperhead mice. It was expensive, but I was impressed with the overall design and quality of the product. I've had that mouse for more than a year now and haven't had any problems, even with heavy use.
When I heard Razer was branching out into PC audio, I was naturally curious. So I decided to pick up a pair of these headphones, along with their AC-1 sound card. Again, they were expensive but I felt I would makeup for that in design and quality.
When I first opened the box I found that the cord was melted together in a few places, like the wire insulator hadn't cooled properly before it was rapped together with the plastic twisty. I also found that if I pulled these bonds apart, they revealed the bare wire. Not good. So I sent it back, and got a replacement. When I opened the second pair I found the same thing, in addition to one of the fancy LED lights not working. Luckily, I was able to pull the various bonds apart without revealing any bare wire. The light still doesn't work though.
I am, to say the least, disappointed with Razer here. I have since read other reviews about people complaining about similar issues relating to the quality of the headphones. (screws coming loose, volume control loosing responsiveness, etc.) Gamers in particular tend to use headphones hard and don't appreciate when they "break" before their time. If I am going to shell out that much money for headphones, I would like the quality of the product to reflect the price.