Roccat Kulo Stereo Gaming Headset Review

1. Introduction2. Packaging and Bundle3. The Headset: Design4. The Headset: Comfort and Performance5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

Comfort

Thanks in part to it's light weight, the Roccat Kulo is a very comfortable headset to wear, even for long periods of time.  To achieve the most comfortable fit, though, you must adjust the headband on either side to the appropriate size for your head.  This headband has a padded leatherette inner lining which spreads the weight of the headset evenly across your head.  As a result of this, the earpieces only press lightly on your ears which does not cause any discomfort.

Music Playback

We tested the Kulo with a number of different tracks from our music collection, encompassing a wide spectrum of genres, using our trusty SteelSeries Siberia V2 as a reference.  In our classical piano track, Einaudi's Le Onde, the overall sound was well balanced but we noticed some  distortion in the higher registers when compared to the Siberia V2.  This distortion seemed to crop up again and again in the track which contributed to a less than impressive experience overall.

In our dance test track, Afrojack's Take Over Control, we found the bass level to be sufficient but not quite prominent enough for our taste; the treble registers seemed to overpower it in quite a few places.  Compared to the Siberia V2, the maximum volume level is much higher.  In fact turning the volume up to maximum is painful, so it is important to be very careful at higher volumes, especially over prolonged durations.

Movie Playback

For our movie playback test we popped in Batman: The Dark Knight which is one of our favorites for this test.  In the opening sequence, the deep bass notes were prominent and the sound panning was reasonably effective.  But the Kulo didn't seem to give us the same level of immersion as the Siberia V2.  A half decent set of speakers would beat this headset hands down in this test, especially if they supported surround sound.

Gaming Performance

Our first port of call in our gaming tests was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The overall sound was well balanced, allowing us to hear background noises clearly without gunfire overshadowing them too much.  There was a degree of sound panning noticeable in game, allowing us to identify with reasonable accuracy where the bullets originated.  But this wasn't anywhere near as effective as the Kave and its dedicated surround sound.  We also tested the Kulo with F1 2010 which contrasts completely with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.  The sounds from our revving engine were rendered clearly and accurately and the sound was well balanced.

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