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Skullcandy SLYR Pro Gaming Headset Review

The SLYR Pro (Multi-Platform wired gaming headset) is part of the new gaming headset series from Skullcandy gaming. The amazing; people at Skullcandy sent us this gaming headset to review. The SLYR Pro wired headset has been designed to introduce premium sound and features for gamers. This headset is constructed from tough and lightweight materials to bring comfort to gamers whilst they play. The SLYR Pro gaming headset sells for €99.99, other models in this series range from €69.99 – €159.99.

The packaging for this headset is bright and extremely colourful. The box displays a picture of the headset at the front and has lots of specifications about the headset around the box. The choice of colours for this box is very complimentary tones going from purple to light blue. The box reminds us of led lights that are placed in a room. The SLYR Pro headset comes in three different colours: black digihype, green digihype, and blue digihype. The box includes the following items: an SLYR Pro headset, removable boom mic, 3.5mm cable (5ft), USB-C to USB-A cable (3ft), and a user guide/warranty guide. The addition of the two sets of cables allows for more compatibility on various devices. Your best friend, when using; this headset, will be the user guide to use all the features offered in this headset.

As for the design of the SLYR Pro headset, we find the design to be a great complementary set of colours, as the colours are not offsetting from one another. These headsets are also comfortable and light. The review headset sent to us was in the colour style of the black digihype. We enjoy the different colours on the headset, and also really like how the wires are different colours from one another yet still match the headset. The padding under the top of the headset also sits well on the head and helps with support. Near this padding is also a nice colourful pixelated design which adds more character to the headset. A really good feature that this headset has is the ability to be able to adjust the height of the headset; this allows different people to get the best comfort and full coverage on their ears. Another nice touch on the design of this headset would be the inner ear parts having a right and left indication by having their initials in a pixelated font. The pixel designs create the gaming look as if it were an 18-bit type of game. We would like to add that the removable mic is very convenient for when you are playing on your own and do not want the mic in your way, so being able to detach is very useful. The padding on the ears is also very smooth and not rough to the ears, which adds more comfort to this headset. The specifications for this headset are the following: The impedance is 32Ω, the driver diameter is 50mm, the THD is 2<%@1KH, the sound pressure level is 95±3dB, the frequency response is 20Hz – 20KHz, enhanced sound perception, clear voice smart mic and the headset weighs 276g.

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This headset comes with great sound quality control by having a built-in equaliser, and even if you are not one to mess around with much that you do not have to, as there are pre-set equaliser settings. First off, we tested the sound quality without messing around with any settings just to see the basics of the headset. We find the sound quality to be surprisingly good when gaming. At the start, we played very FPS-heavy-focused games like Valorant, Overwatch 2, and Fortnite and found that the sound travels well through this headset. For instance, the sound of the gunshots has really good clarity to them and does not need the headset to be at such a high volume. The headset also has a volume scroll on it which adjusts the volume, and what we noticed was that around a certain volume mark, the sound flushed out any outside noise, creating some sense of noise cancellation. Later, we played games like Stardew Valley and Phasmophobia, two very different types of games, and found the sound was amazing, especially in Phasmophobia. Phasmophobia is a horror investigating game, and this headset creates such a good atmosphere with the sound making it seem like you are in the game itself. Something about the sound that felt a bit off was that one ear seemed to be at a lower or higher volume compared to the other ear, yet we found later that this could be adjusted in the Skull-HQ app. A quick thing about the sound that we had noticed, which was interesting as a feature, is how when using two different apps, like discord for calling and Valorant for just playing over the top of one another. The volume of the call in discord would be much louder than in the game.

As a suggestion for anyone who plans on using this headset, especially for gaming on the PC, we prefer you to use the USB-C to USB-A cable as the sound quality seems slightly better through that cable than the other one. The only thing with this cable is that there seems to be static noise when nothing is, being played, which can be annoying to hear.

We used to use wired earbuds that would have a detachable mic to them as well. When putting the headset on for the first time and using it on call, the person on the other end of the call said there was a major difference in the clarity of my voice. Of course, earbuds differ from a headset, but if the difference was major for someone to notice clarity in an instance means that the mic has good quality to them. We also ran little mic tests to check how good the mic is. First, off the mic is a bit farther away from your mouth but picks up sound and your voice extremely, well.

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This is great as even if you whisper, the sound gets picked up, so gaming late at night will not disrupt the rest of the house. The mic also has a feature where you can directly mute yourself from the headset itself. To be able to use this feature, you have to turn the headset on and use it while it’s on. The voice indication for the mute button is also really good, as it helps let you know if you are or are not muted.

On top of mainly just using the headset on the laptop for gaming, we tried using the headset on an iPad and a Samsung phone. First off, both of these devices no longer have an aux input, so we had to use a USB-C to Aux input converter to use the headset on the devices. Mainly when using the headset on the phone and the iPad, we listened to a series of music and watched videos on youtube/Netflix. The headsets are called to be gaming headsets, but you can easily use them when on another device as well. The sound is extremely clear, there were some slight static noises, but we believe that was due to the aux converter rather than the headset itself. Even for watching videos or listening to music, the sound is amazing. The earpads fitting around the ear create a noise-cancellation atmosphere. After the phone and iPad, we also used the headset on the Xbox. We used a Bluetooth controller and connected the headset through the aux cable. First, off the sound quality through the controller was picked up extremely well; everything was clear to hear, and there was no delay in any of the sounds. In addition to that, the mic picks up sound well through the controller when using Xbox party or using in-game voice chat. Overall the sound and mic quality for the headset is very good.

The headset offers many different modes which can be tested out through the Skull-HQ app. We downloaded this on a PC to test out the different EQ modes. The app can easily be downloaded through the Skullcandy website. To connect the headset to the app, you use the USB-C to USB-A cable. To turn on the equaliser on the headset: there is a switch, and when the equaliser is on, there is a woman’s voice indicating if the headset is connected, on or off. The voice indication makes it much easier to know when it is working.

This is our first time working with an equaliser, and the homepage of the Skull-HQ app makes it so easy and sufficient to work around. The battery life of the headset is displayed next to the icon of the headset. Many different dials help with adjusting the volume. Earlier, when we were talking about the difference in volume in each ear, through the app, you can pretty much change the volume settings for each ear, as well as change the volume proportions for when in-game and voice calls. You can also run an enhanced sound perception (E.S.P) test, which allows you to configure your headset to hear every detail of sound.

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#1 [SUPREME MODE]: Supreme mode is pretty much just default mode; this is where none of the settings have been messed around with. The sound is really good for this but does not have many changes to it.

#2 [MUSIC MODE]: For music mode, there is more bass added to the music, and overall, the volume is a bit louder than usual but other than that, there is not much of a change from the supreme mode. Though listening to music on this headset is good as, the instruments and vocals are all really clear and defined.

#3 [MOVIE MODE]: Movie mode also sounds very similar to supreme mode; the only difference is that the volume is slightly louder. Music and movie modes sound very similar to one another as well. Either way, the sound is very good when listening to a movie.

#4 [PODCAST MODE]: Usually, we do not listen to podcasts, but for this test, we listened to an episode of the Distractables by Markiplier. For podcast mode, there is more ‘bright’ to the noise, whereas there is not much dullness to the sound.

#5 [FPS MODE]: From the default preset, the FPS mode adds more depth to the sound, meaning that the sound is deeper. Also, there is a great difference in how the footsteps travel in this FPS mode, you can clearly hear the footsteps, and if the footsteps are over sand, the crunch can be heard, and the farther away the footsteps, the more depth in the sound is created. You can also hear the footsteps travel from one ear to the other when the character in-game moves sides. Over the supreme sound mode (default mode), we prefer this one a lot more when playing an FPS game. The gunshots are slightly more clear but also have a pushback to them.

#6 [RPG MODE]: As for the RPG mode, there seems to be more heightened sound compared to the other modes. This mode creates a good in-game atmosphere as you can hear your surroundings, and the noise travels from ear to ear.

#7 [MMO MODE]: For the MMO mode, there is also more depth added to the sound this; creates more atmosphere, which is similar to the RPG and FPS mode. We would say that the three game-related modes are similar; to each other, but for some, the noise is heightened or dulled down. This does not mean that the sound comes across as bad. We find that the sound for each of these modes goes well.

#8 [CUSTOM EQ MODE]: There is also a custom EQ mode, which we did not mess around with too much, but this allows people to find their preference in sound giving, more variety to the quality of sound the headset gives.

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The battery life on the headset goes for using the equaliser. Now, if you use the USB-C to USB-A cable, the headset charges as it is being used, which is very efficient, but when fully charging the headset, which takes roughly 2 hours, and draining the battery to 0% last about 26 hours. When we ran the test for the battery life, there were some hiccups that showed up on the EQ mode app with the battery life, as sometimes the battery is less and boosts up to a lot more in the span of seconds. We would say, though even; though the hiccups show, the battery life on this headset is outstanding. For using it to a minimum or maximum, setting the battery life can last up to about 23-26 hours of gaming with no interruptions.

We have to say that the Skull-HQ app is made perfectly. It is not overcrowded and has everything that is needed, with simplicity. Everything on the app is well-defined and easy to work around, and even if you are new to working with equalisers, it is great to start here. This gaming headset it was hard for us to properly compare this to another gaming headset. We do own a gaming headset, but it is much cheaper compared to this headset which would not be a great comparison.

There are a few things here and there that could be taken into account for future reference. First off, this may be different for everyone’s preference, but we would like for the detachable mic to be bendable. This would allow for the mic to be closer to the mouth or further away. We like when the mic is closer and believe this tiny design feature can make the mic even better. In addition to this, if you are someone who wears glasses and is using this headset, they are a bit uncomfortable, as the headset seems to be pushing back on the glasses. If there is some way; that can create more adjusting ability to the headset itself, that could help with the glasses issues. We would also like to say for someone who wants to get this headset for the console and has no access to a laptop, it, maybe better to release the Skull-HQ app on the phone. So, more people can mess around with sound settings if the default ones don’t suit them.

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The best feature of this wired gaming headset is its compatibility with the Skull-HQ app. Not just that, but as well as it’s compatible with many different devices as well (The inclusion of the two cables makes this good to work with). It is even great how on the headset; even when using it on a different device, you can use the EQ modes through a button on the headset. The SLYR Pro gaming headset has a great simplistic yet stunning design that can match anyone’s gaming set-up as well as brings a pop of colour. The headset is light and comes with many great features that you can ask for in a gaming headset. Because of their compact and comforting earpads, these headsets can be used for hours on end for gaming with little to no discomfort. This gaming headset comes with many great features and has such; as a good mic and sound quality. For the price of €99.99, these headsets; a truly worth it and are friendly to new equaliser users. Believe me, if you would like to mess around with headsets that come with pre-EQ modes or want to customise your own, this headset does wonders with that. Not just that, but if you want a light headset; and noise-cancelling because of the earpad’s comfort, is wonderful in design, and is compatible with gaming and everyday use, then definitely go check out the SLYR Pro Gaming Headset!

Overall: 8/10

 

 

 

 

 

 

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