HyperX’s 2019 Lineup Includes Spacial Audio Tracking Headset, Full-featured Mic, And More

Audio seemed to have a great deal more focus this year at CES than in years past, with HyperX surprising us with some of its new products. While we saw the usual assortment of new peripherals, there is in fact still some interesting aural tech going on.

The first thing that grabs your attention as you walk past the stand is HyperX’s very first stand-alone mic, the Quadcast. It’s a USB mic that attempts to offer up an alternative to the rather iconic Blue Yeti.

From a features point of view, there are a few things going for the Quadcast. While the brilliant red light around the mic looks impressive, it serves as a good visual indicator to show that the mic is active – plus, it is rather eye-catching. The light goes out when muted by a tap of the top – so there’s no fiddling around trying to find a button. The integrated shock mount and stand will help significantly with small knocks and bumps, plus some dampening of typists with lead hands.

It has four pickup modes, including cardioid, stereo, omni, and bidirectional (figure-8 or interview style). Specs on the audio quality front are fairly modest: 48Khz/16-bit, with -36dB sensitivity. From what we saw, there’s no live monitoring.

What came next was something a bit different. There are quite a few gimmicks that get thrown in with audio, but this was something that was quite impressive. The Cloud Orbit, and Orbit S are the two new headsets coming out soon. Both will include 100mm planar magnetic drivers, developed by Audeze, as HyperX trying to push its headsets more towards the premium audio market.

Planar magnetic drivers are not new, but they are not common, either, as they are more difficult to manufacture. The basic principle is that normal speakers/drivers are built with a single coil of wire inset into a permanent magnet, and the driver is propelled from that central point. Planar magnets have a magnetic field applied across the entire surface of the driver, not just from a central coil (it’s similar to electrostatic speakers but uses magnetism instead as the main force).

The Orbit S is what will be stealing this particular stack, as it includes Waves Nx Technology to do 3D positional tracking of the headset. This is not some clumsy attempt at virtual surround sound, but is more about spacial sound.

If there is a speaker in front of you, and you turn your head to the left, you will hear the speaker from your right ear, and vice versa when you turn your head to the right. The Orbit S locks the direction of sound in 3D space as you move your head around.

In games, this will give each sound a directionality not just based on where you point the camera, but also based on if you turn your head. It’s this kind of audio tracking that is critical for the likes of VR games.

If you are wondering how the tracking is done, it’s gyro based. We’re not sure if it’s a MEMS based gyro or not, but we do know it’s a relative-based tracking system, rather than absolute with an external camera (which means the tracking may be susceptible to drift). The tracking is based on the direction you are facing when tracking is initially centered, but this can be reset at any time with a dedicated button on the left ear.

There were additional headsets on show, such as the new Cloud Mix with Bluetooth support, plus some new color variants of the Cloud Alpha range. Also on display was a new Pulsefire RAID RGB mouse with 11-buttons, designed with MOBA players in mind – or any game with bad control layouts that need taming, or easier access.