Steelseries 7H USB Premium Quality Gaming & Music Headset Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,664 words · ~8 min read
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this is a product that there's been a lot of Buzz about online this is the
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steel series 7h USB Pro gaming headset
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and what steel series is going after with this particular headset is
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something that is not only great for gaming like their old top of the range
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the 5H V2 but also outstanding for music
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movies or any other use that you could want from them so this is their highest
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end headset to date and it is also their most expensive it's available in both a
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USB and non USB version the headsets are
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identical in both of those packages however and the only difference is
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whether or not it has the included steel
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series USB sound card so if I could get the cameraman to come and have a look
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I'm just going to show you what steel Series has to say for themselves about
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this particular headset so here they show you the specifications so if you
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just want to zoom in on that so they can read it as long as it's focused it's
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good cuz they can pause and then here there's a bunch of information about as
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well and then let's flip around to the back so this headset does feature 50 mm
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drivers so that's quite large for a PC
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gaming headset it is a Clos type headset
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but the interchangeable ear cushions and I'm going to just start unboxing the
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headset itself the interchangeable ear cushions actually give you an option
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depending what kind of a sound you prefer you can either use the okay oh
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these are secured on here you can either either use the pley ear cups that ship
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on the headset or you can actually
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switch to these cloth GE cups and the
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cloth ones are going to provide a more open sounding experience even though
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they are closed headphones as opposed to the pleather
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ones so you kind of get a little bit of customization and they do include both
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options in the package so I'm going to go ahead and
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pull the headset off of the package
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because it is their most expensive and most premium product to date for a
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headset it does look like it okay so
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you've got here we'll compare against their previous high-end there are some
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similarities but also some pretty significant differences so first of all
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you notice that the band for the headrest up at the top is quite a bit
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wider versus the old 5H V2 you see that
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it's quite a bit wider so you're going to get a more spread out comfortable
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feel up on the top of the headset itself
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I can tell right away that these are quite closed I can barely hear myself
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talking right now with these on which is great for not disturbing others late at
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night when you're gaming or listening to music or whatever else you happen to be
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doing with your headphones and I put these on the wrong way this is the way
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they go uh sorry about that so we'll have a quick look at what we've got
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included in terms of accessories first and then we'll have a closer look at the
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headset itself so here's another key difference that I noticed right off the
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bat
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long pause is that the 7h actually has a mini
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USB cable here whereas the 5H V2 has a
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uh permanently attached cord so that makes it a little bit easier to
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transport because they both come apart into three
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pieces but now the 7h can actually come apart in three
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pieces and keep the cable separate whereas the 5hv 2 came apart into pieces
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but had the cable permanently attached
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to the one ear cup okay so the actual
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accessories included here we go we have the short version of the cable so here's
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your headphone and microphone jacks as well as your mini USB right here so this
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goes into the bottom of this ear cup just like
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that okay doesn't oh it has a bit of a clip on it but you can pull it out with
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a firm tug so that's no problem and the reason steel Series has these short
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cables is because if you have a supported keyboard with an audio pass
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through you can actually plug them right into the keyboard have a nice short
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cable and keep it right on your head when you're gaming so it keeps the cord
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from like getting in the way and then they also include an extended audio
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cable so the extended audio cables if you do have to go around to the back of
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your computer that's a nice long cable you'll be able to go pretty much
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wherever you need to go with it these are goldplated connectors on both ends
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so you don't have to worry about that and they are quite clearly labeled if
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you want to come have a look close up here so you can see that this is the
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microphone it is also color coded here but on there there's a little headphone
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icon and then on this one it just
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clearly says mic right on the connector the last piece included and this is
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optional so this only comes with the USB version is a USB sound card so you plug
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this into a USB port and then without any interaction from the sound card you
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can just have audio running off of USB I
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mean it's not the best thing in the world but if you want all of your
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settings configurable um then and you
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can just move the thing from one computer to another it'll actually keep
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that consistency if you're if you're that much of a pro another thing that
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steel series does provide with their software for the sound card is virtual
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surround so they say you've got virtual surround 7.1 you can actually configure
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uh how many speakers and exactly where you want them positioned so that's
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another thing that pretty cool about the USB sound card and it's not an expensive
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Adder I think it only costs another 20 bucks or so so I think that pretty much
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covers everything I wanted to say I'm going to go ahead and put the headset
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back together really quickly here um hopefully to demonstrate just how easy
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it
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is there we go that was easy oh you know
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what we should also show you know let's just show the headset a little bit closer up so you got your steel series
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logo up along the top here on either side you've got these
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kind of metall looking steel series logos the ear cups actually rotate like
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this which I don't believe was a feature of the 5v2 no it was not so that's going
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to give you a more comfortable listening experience whether your heads are
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whether your ears are positioned like closer to the back of your head or closer to the front the angle will
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adjust itself such that you can be very very comfortable also I didn't talk
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about the retractable mic this is a steel series staple uh it's existed on
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their high-end headsets for quite a while now but they've refined look at
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the microphone a little bit it looks more professional and less kind of like
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a big teardrop so that's one another
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thing that's cool and let me see what else I have to say about it I think that
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pretty much covers it I'm going to be doing probably either a separate video
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or uh or I'll do some annotations on top of this video once I have a chance to
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listen to it I'll be comparing it against the Sennheiser HD 555s as well
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as the Sennheiser PC 350s so thank you for checking out my video on the steel
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series 7h USB don't forget to subscribe to lus Tech tips okay I missed two small
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things sorry about that first of all there is an inline volume control and
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mic shut off key so if I could just get the camera to have a close look here you
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can see it's labeled mic for the button right here and then there is a volume control slider right there very
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convenient and last but not least I never did take a close look at the
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interchangeable ear cups so you have the cloth ear cup option which is as simple
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as just pulling off the pley ones that
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are included which uh hopefully I can
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figure out now that I'm on the spot I've been shown this before it
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wasn't it wasn't difficult when I saw it
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so um there we go just get your fingernail under there pop that
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up there we go and there's a little instruction here align top with the dot
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on the cushion so you can see the one I pulled off has a little orange dot on it
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the one that I'm putting on has a little orange dot on it and it says simple as
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that I guess let's go ahead and put that
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on okay you just snap that right on so
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once I have that in place I can actually hear quite a lot more through my left
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ear than I can through my right ear and the point of that like I mentioned
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before is to give it a more open feeling listening experience versus an entirely
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closed experience because this makes a much better seal with your head than a
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cloth ear cup does