I guess there are many people out there that, when they got into gaming, started with a budget headset and always wondered what the top end, premium headsets were like. For most of my gaming career, I have used various makes and models of headsets around the £50 or under mark. With the release of the PS5, I decided to go a bit deeper and splashed out on the Sony Pulse Elite headset at £130.
After five years of use, those Elites literally snapped and broke through bad design and poor build quality. It was then that Razer stepped up to the plate to send me a top of the range Blackshark V3 Pro headset. So now, finally, I can answer the question a lot of average gamers probably want to know: Is there much difference in a top of the range, £250 gaming headset from the kinds of headsets I’ve used for years before? Is spending that much more on a gaming headset really worth it?
Short answer? Yes, but not quite in the way I thought I’d want them. Let me explain.
As headsets go, you can’t get a much more highly regarded piece of kit than these. The Blackshark V3 Pro is the number 1 ranked headset for PC gaming and the headset used by the Esports pros for competition gaming. I cannot think of a higher accolade for a headset than that.
Rather than list the headset features, I’ll leave a link here of what the headset can do, with the technical details for you, dear reader, to peruse at your leisure and not pad this review out.
What I’ll focus on here in the review is my experience of living with this headset, the good and bad, whilst using it with my PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, phone, and for listening to, amongst other things, music and ASMR videos on YouTube.
First Impressions
I have to be honest, my first impressions weren’t great. To start with, the instruction manual is on black paper with tiny silver writing. It’s really hard to actually read the details. Then, when I turned it on and started using it with my PS5 for the first time, I thought the sound was pretty horrific. Not horrific in quality but the balance for each of the 5 presets the headphones have pre-programmed.
No matter which preset I tried, all of the “S” sounds had an “-izt” sound to them. They resonated too much. When I listen to music, I’m very much a person who prefers the deep base lines and drum beats to shine through. Nothing here did. That’s fine, especially as some of the presets (Game, Esports) are set for gaming, not music.
I then noticed in the manual that Razer has an app for which you change the EQ settings. I’m not the most technically gifted person, but it only took me a few moments to download the app, pair my headset and change these EQ settings on the default preset to how I like things, and boy, did that make a difference!
It was only then I felt that I could start to understand what the mechanics of the headset could fully do. Listening to music that I’ve heard a thousand times already felt new. This is because the powerful drivers in the headset are magically defining each instrument with clarity that I’d never heard before. With previous headsets, the whole sound was one mush. Here, I could clearly pick out the definitions of each instrument and tiny new details I’d never heard before. It’s subtle but noticeable.
I also really appreciated that the volume control is an easy to find twist knob and not a built-in roller. With something on your head, you need to instinctively be able to find things rather than have to take them off to locate them, and the volume control is most certainly this. My only issue with the volume is that I can’t quite get it as loud as I really want when listening to music. I was hoping the headphones would give me that “I’m at a concert, and this is just the other side of comfortable” – loud, but they never quite got there.
Fit and Function
The build quality and fit are fantastic. Part of the reason the Sony Pulse Elites snapped and broke is because they seemed to have been built for people with very small heads, and mine were stretched to the max to fit them on my head. I don’t have to worry about that at all with these Razers. They fit and have room to spare over my head (to be clear, I’ve never had to worry about size with any other headset I’ve owned, which shows how small the Sony Pulse Elites were). The ear cups are especially comfortable. I’ve worn these headphones for hours on end, and unlike anything I’ve used before, they did not make my ears or head feel uncomfortable at all. The headband never felt like a weight on my head. The metal cradle holding the earpieces feels solid and well designed to help users move the headset whilst on their heads. In short, the build quality is fantastic, and I can already see that these will last far longer than my Sony headset did.
To use the Blackshark V3 Pro’s with a PS5, however, you need to use the supplied dongle. The instruction manual is a little confusing as it says to just pair like you would any other Bluetooth device. As we all know, though, the PS5 will only pair this way with Sony items, such as the aforementioned Sony Pulse Elite.
When the Sony Pulse Elite dongle was plugged into the PS5, but the headphones turned off, the sound still came through the TV speakers. Unfortunately, the Razer dongle cuts the sound to the TV speakers the moment it’s plugged into the PS5. What’s the issue, I hear you ask?
The issue is, basically, every time I want to use the Razer with my PS5, I have to plug in the dongle. First of all, there is increased wear and tear on the connection points each time, but also, if you have your PS5 stored in a cabinet under the TV, it’s a pain in the backside to get to a connection point too. At least with the Sony Pulse Elite headset, I could plug the dongle in and forget it. Not here with the Razer, unfortunately.
It is much simpler, easier, and with less clutter to use these with other devices that can be connected via Bluetooth technology, such as my Nintendo Switch 2 and phone. It was a doddle to hook up to them with the headset, no wires, no dongle required.
Sound and Features
Both earpieces have function buttons on them. The left has the Bluetooth and Power buttons, as well as the dial for volume and connection for the microphone. The right ear cup has the roller for game/voice chat adjustment, as well as the preset and noise cancelling buttons. Everything is easy to use and easy to find, even when the headset is on your head. Ergonomically, at least, this is spot on and very accessible.
The sound is an odd one but all in a good way. It’s extremely clear, precise, and easy to understand why these are used as headsets for professional gamers. You can really pick out distinct individual sounds with ease of, say, approaching enemies in FPS shooter games. Using them for other genres of games was also especially pleasing, bordering on exceptional. This is most apparent in open-world games that have a lot of stuff going on. The headphones help you “feel” the world around you. Close your eyes, and you are there thanks to the genius mechanics of drivers producing wonderful sound quality.
My only non-exceptional comment about them would be towards using the headphones to listen to music and movies. I simply couldn’t get the bass tones deep enough, or indeed, the volume high enough for my preferred settings to blow me away. Yes, once again, the sound is sharp, precise, and clear but just not deep enough. I wanted the headphone sounds here to envelop and move me, but they just educated me on what was going on instead.
That’s not to say the quality still isn’t fantastic or that it’s poor, it’s just this small aspect of specific listening moments that could have been done better. I wasn’t figuratively or literally blown away by them, but I was still impressed, nonetheless.
What I have been blown away by is the battery life. This is exceptional. I have a good 3 to 4 gaming sessions before I have to think about recharging, and then I realize I’ve still got tons of use before I actually have to begin charging. After charging the headphones through the type C charging cable, you can get up to 70 hours of use! The Razer app really comes into play here as it gives you a detailed and accurate figure of how much battery life is left in them. In short, though, these headphones have the best battery life I’ve ever seen in a set by a country mile.
Overall
Earlier on in the review, I said these headphones were worth every penny but not in the way I expected them to be. The reason I said that is because these headphones are by far the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever tried. Their construction is also extremely good, so they will undoubtedly last a long time too. The Razer app that allows you to tweak the settings is also a wonderful addition, which means anyone can tailor their preferred listening preferences to their liking. The battery life is amazing. The ergonomics of use while having the headphones on your head is instinctive. The sound quality is, overall, exceptional. Details I’d never heard in things I have listened to a thousand times already made each experience of listening to them again feel brand new. To mention negatives after that list above now feels like nit-picking.
However, if your preferred type of sound when listening to music is of the deeper bass variety, you may feel like these headphones don’t quite get you where you really want to be. Even for someone like me who does, I’m not disappointed, I just feel that with a little more bass, they would have been perfect. For someone who likes classical or pop music, this will not be an issue at all.
The only other negative is a PS5-specific one, which is constantly having to plug in/out the dongle when I wanted to use the headset so as to not cut out the TV sound when I’m not using headphones. That’s not necessarily the fault of Razer, more so a PlayStation connectivity quirk, but it’s a quirk any PS5 users will need to be aware of if they were thinking of getting these. Using these headphones with other devices through Bluetooth was a doddle, though.
So yes, for the average gamer wanting to take a leap of faith from the basic/mid headphones to something premium that will blow their minds, this is the brand, and these are the headphones to get. I do think there will be headphones out there that will be better for listening to a specific type of music, but for the majority, this is the set that you need to purchase to see what the fuss is all about.
