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We mentioned in the introduction that the Sonar's feature list reminded us of the Arctic P531 headset. On closer inspection, we would go as far to say that they are made by the same OEM as the specifications of the two units are absolutely identical and there are a number of similarities in the design of the two units.
The Sonar is finished in black and grey rubberised paint with the odd red accent here and there. This, combined with the rather exotic design, gives the headset a very distinctive design. We imagine that this will be a bit of a ‘marmit'e deal for people; we don't really like it but we can imagine that some people will love it.
As the Sonar sports full surround sound, it has four driver units in each earpiece. Unfortunately this adds significantly to the weight of the headset which is quite substantial compared to most other gaming headsets. The overall build quality of the headset is reasonable but not the best we've seen.
About an arm's length down the cable we find the inline control which provides separate rollers switches for each of the four audio channels as well as an overall volume control and a microphone mute switch. We feel that this is a little too far down the cable as it makes easy access impossible.
The uni-directional boom microphone folds up when not in use so it doesn't get in the way. The boom itself is actually flexible so you can position the microphone as you like. Unfortunately the microphone is always in your field of view when it is deployed which can be distracting.
At the end of the 3m plastic shielded cable there is a single USB connector which provides both the sound and power to the headset. It actually features an inbuilt soundcard which feeds the drivers with the 5.1 surround sound output.
