Introduction

Normally my after-hours gaming experience finds me slumming it with a Wal-Mart pair of headphones that includes a cheesy microphone. So the thought of reviewing a high quality product like the SteelSound 5H USB was a welcome change. For most of my long gaming sessions, the people in the immediately area of my computer would rather do without the incessant firing of a MG-42 or the revving of a Toyota Supra twin-turbo engine for hours on end.

Common courtesy dictates that when my roommates/girlfriend want quiet but all I can think about is sharing a bazooka round with that sniper sitting in the bombed out house, SteelSeries’ SteelSound 5H USB headphones can be a real life saver. (Or, that sniper’s case, a life ender. Hehehe.)

Packaging, Documentation, and Installation

SteelSeries’ protects their products in fairly impressive packaging. Upon removing the headphones from the box they were shipped in, the product was carefully positioned and displayed in a clear plastic box which displayed a few features and pictures of the SteelSound headphones.

Installation was also quite easy. The SteelSound 5H USB, as the title implies, comes with a USB plug-and-play soundcard. The plug-and-play aspect of these headphones turned out to be particularly true. Although the sound quality was substantially worse without installing the drivers, the headphones work from Windows sound driver simply by plugging the USB soundcard into the PC. Installing the drivers was a breeze, as well. SteelSeries provided me with a mini-disc to be put in my CD-ROM drive. With a few clicks and the selection of a few settings, the USB soundcard was up and running and I could get to the fun part.

There was, however, a bit of a glitch on trying to remove the USB soundcard drivers from the computer when I wanted to test the headphones on my computer’s original soundcard. After much trial and error I learned that the SteelSound driver install actually removes the previous audio drivers the user had on their system. While this seems perfectly logical to avoid having different sound cards stepping on their digital toes, uninstalling the SteelSound driver and reinstalling a factory driver was a bit tricky. For one thing, installing the USB soundcard driver meant that the other audio ports found on my motherboard were deactivated so I was forced to use the SteelSeries USB device. Upon uninstalling their driver I also found that I now had absolutely no sound at all. When trying to reinstall my old drivers I found that SteelSeries had not completely uninstalled them and had left a substantial “footprint” of the old drivers. At that point the disk that came with my motherboard continually told me that the audio driver was already installed although I still clearly had no driver producing sound.

Figuring the problem out was a bit tricky, but eventually I got the original drivers to take by reinstalling the SteelSeries drivers and installing the motherboard drivers over that. I was also disappointed by the complete lack of technical support at the SteelSeries website. If I was unable to eventually resolve this sound card issue, there was no way for me to consult an FAQ or reach any technical support team at SteelSeries. Luckily, the USB soundcard has enough processing power to handle most conventional speaker setups. For the less technology inclined, I would recommend anyone who installs the USB card just use it for both the headphones and their speaker setup as well.

The Software

The software that was included with the SteelSeries drivers was well designed and very easy to understand. Very little explanation was necessary to convey the purpose of most of the options in their menu which is subtly placed in the system tray. Apart from standard sound card options like speak configuration, the card also had a fantastic equalizer with a large variety of presets to suit each gamer’s musical taste. From acoustic and vocal to metal and grunge, there were a wide variety of presets for almost any style of music a gamer may want to relax to. If the equalizer’s saved settings weren’t enough, the software also gave me full reign over the standard frequencies found in an equalizer for fine tuning. As an added perk, I could save and name my settings so it would be easy for me to custom tailor my equalization for each game I played and quickly switch between them.

The SteelSound software also came with some good diagnostics for the microphone which allowed me to test the sound quality and to alter some aspects of the voice output. The less mature side of me got a kick out of changing my voice to several octaves lower and uttering stereotypical Star Wars quotes about paternity into the microphone. All in all, the software for the headphones and sound card was very well designed and easy for beginners to use while still providing a number of advanced options for real sound junkies.