Razer Kraken Pro review
A bass-heavy fashion statement that’s comfortbale to wear, but is less than ideal for music
Razer’s gaming headsets have always stood out thanks to their iconic Ouroboros logo, but the Kraken Pro is absolutely unmistakable. You could recognise its luminous green design from across a crowded room.
Although it’s predominantly made of plastic, the Kraken Pro looks every bit the premium headset thanks to the black metal mesh covering each ear cup, green leather headband and black leatherette ear cups. The plastic itself is tough and has plenty of flex, so is unlikely to break due to everyday use.
The headband is adjustable and should fit virtually anyone. We certainly had no trouble, and we often struggle to find baseball caps that fit. The ear cups fold inwards for when you want to take the headset on the move, and have a small amount of tilt for comfort, but they don’t swivel.
Designed to completely envelop your ears, the leatherette cups can get a little warm after a few hours’ gaming, but felt comfortable throughout thanks to plenty of cushioning. There’s not quite as much padding on the head band, but the meshed fabric is slightly more breathable. At 293g, the Kraken Pro is a little heavy and the stretchy headband places a significant amount of pressure on your head.
There’s a boom microphone that retracts into the left ear cup so it can be kept out of sight when you don’t need it. It’s flexible, so you can move it into position for better speech clarity. We had no complaints when using it during multiplayer sessions of Counter Strike over Steam.
Despite primarily being a headset for PC gaming, the audio cable ends in a combined 3.5mm audio jack to let you use it as a smartphone headset. A splitter extension is included in the box, which will let you connect the mic to its own dedicated jack.
There’s no in-line remote and hence no way to change volume or mute the microphone, which might be a little disappointing for MMO players who frequently jump in and out of voice chat, but as most gaming keyboards now include volume controls this might not be a deal-breaker.
As we’ve come to expect from many gaming headsets, the 40mm driver inside each ear cup has been heavily tuned for bass. Gunshots explode outwards and action sequences had huge presence, but when the chaos dies down it reveals a weakness in the high-end. Music, in particular, sounds slightly muffled compared to the rumbling low frequencies, and although mid-range is reasonably clear we’d prefer a more balanced sound so we don’t have to swap headphones to enjoy music. It’s an analogue stereo headset and so doesn’t produce surround sound effects. Even so, we didn’t struggle to find our enemies thanks to accurate stereo separation.
The Razer Kraken Pro is a little expensive for an analogue stereo headset that’s mostly made of plastic, and lacks any additional controls or features such as wireless audio or surround sound. They are, however, great headphones for gaming, especially action-heavy first person shooters. We wouldn’t recommend them for listening to music, though. The Q-pad QH-85 headset might use open-backed drivers, but they sound far more balanced and don’t cost significantly more.
