When a product takes well over an entire year to head from introduction to release, it’s natural for consumer expectations to amp themselves up a notch or two. Such is the case with Razer’s Chimaera, an Xbox 360-centric wireless gaming headset that was initially teased at CES 2010, and just started shipping to finish users early this year . The corporate’s been inside the gaming headset business for it slow now — while you’ll recall, we thoroughly enjoyed our time with the (wired) Carcharias headset right around two years back. This 2.1 system promises to offer Xbox Live yappers exactly what they’ve been looking ahead to, but is it worth the $129.99 entry fee? Head on past the break for our take.
For all intents and purposes, the Chimaera is a stunning simple product. There’s a wireless base station with a three.5mm audio input jack, a three.5mm microphone output port, a sync button (not unlike the Wiimote situation you handle every day) and a standby button. Upon unboxing ‘em, you’ll probably spend the 1st ten minutes seeking to decide where a couple of rechargeable AAA batteries (included, phew!) are to be inserted. Here’s a tip: rip the panel from the earcup that lacks a microphone. You’ll thank us.
The sync process is lots easier, and while the charging stand is hardly childproof (an easy bump may have your headset tumbling), it serves the point without being too unsightly. The headset itself, unfortunately, is both heavy and intimidating. And by that, we mean large. Having ample padding round the top edge and at the ear cups is definitely appreciated, but unless you have got a slightly sizable noggin, you’ll almost definitely wonder how the heck to regulate the band down. We’ve never had any issues with the sizing on any prior headset, however the Chimaera essentially swallowed our head, and and not using a approach to extend the band tighter (there’s only ten notches of extension — , for Goliath’s intense gaming sessions), we were left in an uncomfortable pinch.
In all seriousness, we’d recommend stopping by a retail shop and trying these on before buying — it’s hard to assume them not being too large for an incredible swath of individuals. In an try to profit from it, we kept ‘em loosely draped around our skull for somewhat gaming, and while the wireless performance was stellar, we found the three.5mm headphone input to be (also) a little bit at the large side. We tried three different cables, and them all just felt a wee bit loose. No connection troubles were noticed, but it surely still managed to get under our skin. Audio quality was above-average for wireless gaming headsets, but these certainly won’t be your go-to cans when it comes time to sink back right into a sofa and revel in an album. The lows were definitely accentuated, prone to enhance explosions often felt in first-person shooters, and we’re guessing that everything’s equalized to best suit movies and games, not music.
The fold-down boom mic was perfectly positioned, and our chats soared through loud and clear; we couldn’t help but long for a USB connection option as a way to use this as a Skype headset in a pinch, but alas, no such luck. All told, the Chimaera appears like an effective product that wasn’t exactly executed to perfection — the huge, bulky design turned us off straight away, and the shoddy 3.5mm input didn’t do much to rebuild that lost confidence. At $129.99, you’ve just too many other options from the likes of 0 Turtle Beach 0 and 1 SteelSeries 1 (simply to name a pair), and unless your cranium is bigger than most, you’ll probably don’t have any choice but to pass this one by.
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