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welcome to my unboxing and review of the Razer Kraken now when you look at the

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build quality of these headphones alone

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you'll sit there and go wow really it only cost $300 yes $300 is extremely

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expensive but what Razer sought to make with these headphones was their first

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truly audio file grade headphones so

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when we open it up we find a nice little letter welcoming you to the cult of

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Razer and no driver disc because unlike

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many high-end headphones from gaming companies these are not USB which I've

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always felt is a real problem with high-end headphones from gaming

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companies is that USB sound cards just really aren't very good and most audio

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files are going to have better Solutions on their own so Razer has gone ahead and

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implemented a fully pure analog high-end

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$300 headphone here it comes with an awesome card carrying case that has kind

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of a a leure leather outer material to

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it the individual headphones are hand assembled you can see that they're not

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forgetting their gaming Roots here they do fold up to make them a little bit

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more compact in the case and they open up with a nice little satisfying snap

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there they are made out of machined aircraft grade aluminum with animal

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friendly leatherette which which is actually among the best leatherette that

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I've encountered there's leatherette that feels like plastic stretched over

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foam and then there's leatherette that actually feels like oh yeah okay if you

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weren't telling me that this is leathered I'd have had a much harder time figuring out that it is there's a

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super soft thick cushion of foam on both

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of the earpads as well as on the headband this is something that just

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gets overlooked too much on headphones look at that nice wide headband because

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distribution of weight is important and nice padding on the underside of it now

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with that said when I say distribution of weight I am not talking about a

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trivial amount of weight here folks because of the aluminum construction

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they are not particularly lightweight they've got 40 mm neodium drivers in

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each ear cup and only 32 oh impedance so that means that they'll be usable not

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only on your gaming PC with your more advanced audio solution but also on

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something like a smartphone or whatever else and for that reason Razer includes

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two cables one that's just a straight uh

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there well it's okay it's a smaller I think this is a 2 and 1/2 mil to 3 and

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1/2 mil it's a detachable cable and then the other one which is replaceable with

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the other one now this is getting confusing two cables one that just goes

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to 3 and2 mil for just headphones and a second that's a four pole so it supports

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both headphones and microphone and then finally racer also includes a nice

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little uh 3 and2 mil to/ qu in adapter

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but I mean if I just told you what they look like then I wouldn't really be

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doing my job here would I so first I adjusted them to my head which has a

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very satisfying metal adjustment mechanism like I said Guys these are

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built like headphones that cost several times as much they're extremely

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comfortable look at this I'm going to show you guys a quick demo here so I'm going to push these in and you're going

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to see how much plushness there is before the things even touch my ears

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then I burned them in for about 36 hours just putting them on the back of a chair

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and running my music library on medium to high volume continuously once they'd

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been broken in a little bit I fired them up using an OB 2 Amp SL odac combo unit

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so that I have a nice reference audio source and then for my comparison

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testing I used my AKG K 701s My Den ahd

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600s my be dynamic dt770 Pro 80 ohms and

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my Sennheiser momentums which all cost between $200 to $320 on Amazon as of

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today now guys to be clear I'm a top 40 listener so let's get this out of the

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way uh flax MP3s some obscure format you

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rip all your music to if you listen to pop or that style of music with upper

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range male vocalists or female vocalists and there's any bass in the song

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honestly the clarity is not really there in the mid-range and is masked by base

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that I just don't feel is tight enough to call Punchy but feels more like what

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I would describe as Boomie all of this is especially problematic for me when I

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compare them to other sort of Bas head approved products like these Sennheiser

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ie80s that I've been listening to a lot lately if you don't like IMS of course

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you don't like IEM so those are are completely off the table but it's just

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something I have to think about when I go well these are also available for

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about $300 okay but Razer knew all of this

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when they created the product so just like Hammerhead which I did not find to

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my tastes this is not aimed at my tastes

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when I handed my Hammerheads off to a friend of mine who loves beets and Skull

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Candy products and loves lots of Basse he was like yeah these are awesome

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because it was a step in the right direction towards better audio

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reproduction but with a sound signature that he enjoyed so what I did was I

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changed gears and asked the audio sub Forum online tech tips.com for some

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playlists to hopefully let these things shine I ended up with some electronic

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music with heavy baselines lots of drums and the like and they definitely sounded

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better but anytime vocals came into play they really did feel like they were

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being overwhelmed somewhat enough music though how do they perform for gaming if

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you're going to test a product from a gaming Centric company like Razer I

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guess you'd better play some games you know what the game G experience actually

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gave me some significant additional insight into the way that these

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headphones were tuned of course a gamer Centric company like Razer if you're

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buying $300 headphones from them wants you to have a great music listening

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experience but they also want you to have a great gaming experience and

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explosions sound great gunfire sounds

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great the gaming experience on them is great I guess I if I had a complaint

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about these headphones at this point it would be that I wish Razer had created

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them from the get-go as a gaming headset and put a proper microphone on them

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rather than just giving us an inline that would have added for me to the

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value proposition of a $300 pair of headphones that really handles only uh a

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certain genre of music well but handles gaming extremely well I mean you could

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make the argument that most folks spending $300 on headphones might just

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be willing to Pony up for a better microphone solution such as a Blue

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Snowball anyway and you would be able to make a very solid case for that but with

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their closed design so that means that sound doesn't really leak in from the

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outside and doesn't really go out from the inside as well as their great

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performance in gaming and great performance in Bassy music I just wish

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they were being marketed as more of a gaming headset okay so this is the

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conclusion part normally I don't really talk about pricing much because I you

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know it can fluctuate but these are expensive headphones and headphones

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don't really tend to change much so we're going to factor in that these are $300 headphones so let's start with the

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build quality these are the best look and feeling headphones that I have laid

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my hands on in anything close to this kind of a price range I would go as far

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as to say that they are the best you can get for $300 they justify the premium

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that razer's commanding for them with that said they're a little bit too heavy

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to call the Comfort the best but the

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comfort is still a very strong point of this headset and the reality of it is

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while the materials are nice and plush and soft and they're very comfortable to wear for an extended period of time

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they're made of aluminum so there's nothing you can do about the additional weight they definitely sound better than

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anything else from razer's lineup so if you like the Razer sound signature and

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you just want more of the same these are going to be a fantastic choice for you

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but on the other hand if you're you know a Discerning audio snob that seeks flat

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frequency response curves then I really think you're going to be sorely

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disappointed by these headphones but the reality of it is you guys knew that

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already Razer has a a characteristic

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sound to them so I don't really know why you're even still watching this video at

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this point so guys go ahead like this video if you liked it dislike it if you

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disliked it leave a comment if you think that you know if you're a Discerning

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audio snob or if you prefer a more Bassy

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experience and let us know how you feel about it so I'll know what to tell you

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guys in future videos about these sorts of products and as always don't forget

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to subscribe to lus Tech

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tips he