Sennheiser PC323D G4ME review

The PC 323D G4ME headset bundle from Sennheiser includes a version of the PC320 headset and 3D G4ME 1 USB sound card, which can output virtual 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound. Happily, the headset feels more comfortable than most. The cups are divided into an external shell and a padded internal piece that sits around your ears and tilts to sit flat against your skin. This makes for a secure and close fit for most people, but if you’ve got a small head, the tilting part can put uncomfortable pressure on the joint at the top of the jaw.

Although it feels rather plasticky, the headset is lightweight and doesn’t make your ears too warm, which we appreciated during marathon gaming sessions. It’s less bulky than many gaming headsets, but it still has the industrial matt grey plastic styling that’s shared by many of its rivals. A padded plastic headband lets you adjust the headset’s fit. The microphone arm on the left side of the headset can be folded out of the way, but can’t be moved or adjusted in other ways. A nice touch is the way the microphone is automatically muted when you raise the arm. A volume control for the headphones is neatly built into the right ear cup: simply rotate the surface of the cup.

Sennheiser’s legendary reputation is well deserved when it comes to high-quality headphones. Unlike many gaming headsets, which often have a booming bass that overwhelms everything else but produce great sounding explosions, these are good for listening to music as well as watching films and playing games. Bass is rich and vibrant, which is great for pounding dance beats as well as the aforementioned explosions, but there’s also a spacious, balanced mid-range and high-frequency notes that are bright without being harsh. The cups have open drivers, which makes for a bigger, more natural sound than you’ll hear from some closed-cup headsets. Sadly, they don’t block out much background noise, so we were easily distracted by nearby conversations.

The sound card part of the bundle is a lightweight plastic box with 3.5mm mic and headphone ports to which you connect the headset. This is a big improvement on USB headsets that are permanently bonded to their sound card. It outputs stereo sound as soon as you plug it into your PC, but you’ll have to install a driver to make its Dolby-branded virtual surround sound work. This is because it relies on your PC to do the relevant audio processing rather than having an integrated processor like Creative’s Recon3D and Axx sound cards.

We were surprised to find that the virtual surround sound is a little flat compared to other audio processors such as Creative’s Axx SBX 8. It’s not completely missing, but movie audio had less of an impression of space and directionality. This was less pronounced when it came to gaming, though.

The PC 323D is rather expensive and its virtual surround sound could be better, but if you’re after an all-in-one gaming sound card and headset combo that does justice to music too, this is a great choice. A two-year warranty provides an added sense of security, too. As the Plantronics Gamecom 777 has been withdrawn from the market, Sennheiser’s latest has rapidly become of of new favourite gaming sound card and headset combinations, despite its relatively high price.