Roccat is offering some high-end ELO headsets at a great affordable cost this holiday season for all the gamers in your life!
Roccat (or as many of you may recognize them as the PC gaming side of the long time gaming headset manufacturers Turtle Beach) have delivered a great set of options for gamers looking to hear their new holiday titles sharper and clearer and even in 7.1 Surround Sound with the new ELO Series. For this review, I will be looking at the ELO X-Stereo which comes in at a wonderfully affordable $49.99, and the ELO 7.1 Air Roccat’s High-End headset coming in at an also very affordable $89.99 so let’s take a look at what these new headsets have to offer. Both earcups offer programmable RGB and the cool Roccat logo to make them look snazzy. This headset uses a 3.5mm connector and has no wireless options but still works great if you are connecting to an Xbox or Playstation controller or the audio jack on your PC or Phone.
ELO X-Stereo
The good news about the Roccat ELO X-Stereo is that you do not lose anything in terms of comfort and build vs its more expensive counterpart the ELO 7.1 Air. The earcups are made of faux leather which may lead to some hot ears depending on the length of the gaming session. They are soft and comfortable even though they are not memory foam or faux memory foam material. The ELO X-Stereo has a steel-reinforced headband with some added padding made of a wicking sports material which is quite nice and comfortable. There are several points of articulation in the headset and it also flexes incredibly well making it both comfortable and durable. The headset uses a 3.5mm Jack connector and does not offer any wireless options. That being said it works great connecting to an Xbox or PlayStation controller and the jack ports on your PC or Phone.
The Drivers are also the same size as its 7.1 Counterpart at 50mm with a range of 20-20,000. The highs and lows sounded great but the mids could muddle in a bit with your lows but overall great sound especially for the price.
ELO 7.1 AIR
The ELO 7.1 USB Air gives you a pumped-up version of the X-Stereo most notably with 7.1 Surround sound which is almost a necessity for some games where the directional sound is crucial. The sound overall is improved but the build is fairly similar so the flex and the durability are the same. The USB dongle allows you to have a great wireless connection to a PC and sounds great but there is some degradation when using it with consoles so beware of that. I was a little disappointed that there was no Bluetooth option which would make it almost universally compatible with modern technology. Most of the high-end headsets I have reviewed come with the option so it really does feel as if there is something missing. To be fair though the ELO 7.1 is much cheaper than many of those headsets by at least a third of the cost so it really is a trade off that you may consider saving an extra fifty dollars at least. Otherwise, ELO 7.1 is a very solid headset with some good features at a great price.
All the needed tweaks you need for both of these Roccat headsets can be done in the Roccat Swarm software for PC so that you can tune in to the sound that works best for you!
Final Thoughts and Recommendation
The ELO series offers gamers value at both the low and high end. Essentially the choice is in what level of versatility you are looking for. The X-Stereo is a great headset for gamers jumping back and forth from consoles, PC, and even phones while the 7.1 Air offers excellent game immersion as well as being completely wireless. The 7.1 Air does get a leg up in terms of overall sound quality but you have to ask yourself if that is worth an extra thirty to forty dollars? Like I said at the beginning of the article both ELO headsets would make great affordable gifts for the gamer or gamers in your family.
A sample of the ELO X-Stereo and ELO 7.1 Air was made available by Roccat.
The views expressed in this article and the writer’s own and not that of the manufacturer or editorial staff.
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