Roccat Kulo 7.1 review

Stereo headsets are great for music, but surround sound is much better for games and films. Roccat’s Kulo on-ear headphones might only have a single speaker driver in each ear cup, but it also includes a USB-powered sound card that can produce virtual 7.1 surround sound.

Continuing Roccat’s trademark design of black plastic, sharp angles and geometric patterns, the Kulo is well built but not particularly comfortable to wear. The faux leather ear cups are too small to cover your ears completely and the oddly designed cut-outs in their centre can cause unwanted rubbing. People with larger heads may find the compact headband uncomfortable to wear, but because it’s so rigid there’s a good chance it will slide off if you lean too far forward. Things don’t get any better on the in-line remote. The volume control rocker is practically useless; there’s hardly more than a centimetre worth of movement, which makes it impossible to fine tune volume with any degree of accuracy.

The headphones can be plugged straight into your motherboard, and also come with a USB sound card, which you’ll need to use for the virtual surround. Audio was clear, using either the sound card or motherboard audio, but still slightly underwhelming. Mid-range notes often sounded muddy when our games got hectic and the bass was limited. The headphones have plenty of volume, but we would have preferred better sound quality.

Most Roccat products have a fantastic user interface, but the Kulo’s USB sound card has a very dull-looking UI that doesn’t offer much in the way of customisation. It didn’t detect if we were playing music or a game, so we had to switch between modes manually. Considering most motherboards are capable of 5.1 virtual surround sound, the bundled USB card won’t appeal to many people. You can buy the headset by itself, but it still suffers from the same problems with comfort and sound quality.