SteelSound 5H v2 Headset

Another great selling point of the 5H is the ability to disassemble the headset for easy and safe transport. On the sides of the headphones, directly above each pod, you can push in a small button and take the pods off of the top head support.

The headphones as a whole are solid and have an elegant look to them. In college, I had friends who would spin at parties and with their turntables and vast collection of albums; they would also have a significantly expensive pair of headphones. Those expensive headphones looked amazing and the 5H headset compares nicely to the higher priced studio headphones.

To test the headphones, I used them for a week straight. This includes daily operations from gaming to research to writing reviews. In this time, I made sure that I used the headphones with the same games and songs that I have used in the last few headphone reviews that I have written. For the games, I used Battlefield 2 and Counter Strike: Source.

Battlefield 2 is a game that almost demands quality sound devices. You can gain a lot of advantages if you just use your ears. Since it’s release, BF2 has been a favorite of LAN gamers and with this in mind, I played a hour or so to get the full feel of the headphones. In the time that I played, the lows of the explosions and vehicles were life like and sounded good. The highs of the guns and some vehicles were crisp and clear.

The second game I used was Counter Strike: Source. This is a personal favorite of mine and the one game that I play more than any other ‘LAN games.’ Once again, the sounds clarity was superb and the detailed sounds such as footsteps came in smooth and clear.

On the music front, I have a set few songs that cover most popular genres that I use to test out the musical abilities of the headphones. These songs are:

• Beethoven ‘ Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor (Moonlight Sonata)
• Crash Test Dummies ‘ Two Knights and Maidens
• DJ Tiesto ‘ Conjure One
• Breaking Benjamins ‘ Polyamorous
• Ming + FS ‘ Nevada
• Warren G ‘ Why oh why

In all of the songs, the sound quality was great. The lows of Why oh why could almost be felt and the instrumentals in Two Knights and Maidens could be heard clearly and precisely.

Moving along to the sound in movies, I picked a personal favorite of mine, The Matrix. I know by now, this movie is obvious to the computer crowd but whatever. I picked the lobby scene where Neo and Trinity blow everything and everyone to hell and throughout the entire scene, the sound was amazing’. amazing.

The Steel Series 5H headphones have been a pleasure to work with. The sound quality is great and the comfort level is top notch. The ability to take the headphones apart is a nice option when transporting them to and from anywhere you might want to take them. As an extra, I used the headphones with my iPod and the sound quality was just as good as it was with my PC and it’s Audigy ZS2. The microphone was able to pick up my voice and I never once heard a complaint of anyone that they had a hard time understanding me.

Pros
• Extremely comfortable
• Ability to take apart for safe and easy transportation
• Accurate microphone
• High quality sounds
• 10 foot cord
• In-line volume and mic controls

Cons
• Little pricy

With all this in mind, I am awarding the Steel Series 5H headphones an 8 out of 10. I know that these headphones will be on my personal gaming PC for a long time to come.

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