After decades of starts and stops, virtual reality is finally here and… it’s awesome. Putting on an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift for the first time is nothing short of magical, and with a little luck, this is just the beginning. But as with every new technology, there’s a lot of room for improvement, and in the case of the HTC Vive – my headset of choice – there’s one particularly glaring problems: it doesn’t have integrated headphones.
I mean sure, it comes with some earbuds that do the trick in a pinch, but tell me, does anyone actually like earbuds? I don’t know about you, but if I’m spending a king’s ransom on a new piece of technology, I want something that isn’t just good, but great. So what are our options? Well, we could…
- Continue using the included earbuds like a sucker…
- Use some wired headphones and connect the long, floppy wire that will swing around like crazy as we’re shooting hordes of zombies, or…
- Buy some awesome wireless headphones that are designed for gaming, have low latency, are super light, and…
Well, you get the idea.
After having suffered with wired headphones for a few months, I sucked it up and bought a cheap pair of wireless headphones online. When I plugged them in, I realized that if what I wanted was to listen to all the baby monitors and cordless phones in the building, accompanied by a whiny hiss, then I had found the perfect solution! But if I instead wanted to enjoy crisp, clear audio while enjoying virtual reality, I may need to look elsewhere. So I did, and here’s what I discovered.
There are a ton of wireless headphones on the market, and though I haven’t tried them all (I’m not a millionaire with nothing better to do), I can say with absolute certainty that the Arctis 7 wireless headphones from Steelseries are absolutely fantastic. Whether you’re blasting drones in Space Pirate Trainer on your HTC Vive, or playing a regular old “flat” game such as Battlefield One, the sound quality and comfort of these headphones is incredible, especially when you consider that they’re wireless. I’ve owned plenty of headphones in my time, and I could make a strong argument that these sound even better than my high end wired Audio-Technica cans. I really, really didn’t expect this.
But here’s the thing: how we experience sound is highly subjective. If my opinion means anything, then give these a try. I’m not going to list out a page of specs, because they’re a distant second to your own experience, so instead I leave you with my own humble experience and the suggestion to pick up a pair and try them out. If you want to learn more about the impedance or harmonic distortion, you’ll find all that useful information on their product page.
You can pick these up for $149.99 USD, and at that price, they’re an absolute steal. Besides, you already spent almost $1,000 on your VR equipment, so what’s another few hundred dollars?
