Be sure to visit IGN Tech for all the latest comprehensive hands-on reviews and best-of roundups. Note that if you click on one of these links to buy the product, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use. The Razer ManO'War (See if on Amazon) / (See it on Amazon UK)is the company's flagship headset, and improves on the mid-level Razer Kraken Pro V2 by adding wireless functionality, 7.1 surround sound, a lighter design, and RGB lighting. These are certainly big improvements, so let's see if they justify its exorbitant $169 MSRP, which is more than twice as much as the Kraken V2 Pro. label=Design%20and%20Features The ManO'War has the same beefy 50mm audio drivers as the Kraken Pro V2, which produce great sound and bone-rattling bass. The ear pieces are covered with a comfortable, supple foam sheathed in soft leather. The top piece has a gel pad that keeps the plastic cross brace off the top of your head, but it's a little too rigid for my liking. The pad isn't uncomfortable, but it's noticeable. For a $169 headset, I expected a bit of aluminum in the design since the Kraken has a metal frame, but the entire headset is made of plastic. Razer told me its goal was to make the ManO'War as light as possible, and though it certainly succeeded, and the plastic is rugged and the headset feels well made, it just seems kind of cheap at this price point. For example, the padding for the cross brace is held in by two fragile-looking plastic tabs and there's a lot of flex too; not because the plastic is necessarily pliable but rather because it's thin. Instead of feeling indestructible they feel brittle, and I wouldn't want to pack them in a bag for travel for fear of them snapping in half. The ManO'War features 7.1 surround sound, as opposed to the "virtual" kind featured on its less expensive headsets, and it can also be fine-tuned in the Razer Synapse software. Both earpieces are adorned with a Chroma-enabled Razer logo, and if you have a Razer keyboard and mouse you can sync all your devices to dance to the same lighting effect, which is cool. The lighting effect options include Static, Breathing, or Spectrum Cycling, where the logos cycle through every color of the rainbow. The left earpiece hides a retractable, unidirectional mic for voice communication along with a wheel for the mic volume level as well as an indicator LED and power button. The right earpiece also has a volume control wheel as well. As I wrote above, the signature feature of the ManO'War is wireless connectivity, but it's a costly addition as Razer also sells a wired version for $50 less. Communication is made via a tiny 2.4GHz wireless adapter that can be tucked away inside the left earpiece when not in use; a nice touch that is both handy and great design. Included with the set is a USB charging cable for the headset, a USB extension hub that lets you connect it to the back of your PC and then connect the dongle to it as it rests on your desktop. Putting the wireless adapter into the extension hub extends the maximum range of the headset from 12 to 14 meters, which is a bit silly as either should be fine when you're sitting at your PC or in a living room. In testing I had no problem with the wireless connection walking from my office to the adjoining kitchen in my house, so the range seems totally adequate. title=More%20Expert%20Tech%20Roundups&type=articles%2Cvideos&tags=tech-roundup&count=6&columnCount=6&theme=article The ManO'War works with both PC and PS4, but unfortunately it only operates as a stereo headset with the Playstation and you can only use Spectrum lighting as well. If you only have a PS4, there's no reason to spend $169 on the ManO'War when there are better 7.1 surround wireless PS4 headsets available. label=Software Any and all adjustments beyond volume control are done with Razer's Synapse software. If you already own a Razer product, you probably already have Synapse installed. The software downloads the drivers for the ManO'War as soon as you connect it for the first time and automatically adds it to the Synapse suite. It's full-featured software suite as there are seven different categories in the software for the headset: calibration, audio, mic, mixer, EQ, lighting, and onscreen display (OSD). Calibration opens up a wizard that lets you make adjustments to the surround sound to optimize it to your hearing. A helicopter sound "flies" around your head, and you can tweak the direction on all seven channels individually. . So for example, clicking the right channel lets you move the sound a bit toward the right-front or back to the right-rear. If the test sound doesn't sound like it's coming from where it should be, you can move it around until it sounds right. I found I had to make a few minor adjustments, so I appreciated having the calibration tool. The Audio tab lets you adjust the master volume, as well as turn on and off bass boost, sound normalization, voice clarity, and communication volume. Bass boost can also be adjusted via a slider, and can turned up or down to deliver as much bass as you feel comfortable with, including way too much. At its highest level, the bass pretty much takes over everything, so I kept it to a middling 55, personally. Sound normalization, which smooths out loudness variations, is adjusted by slider when turned on, and the voice clarity feature, which improves communication, is similarly adjustable. Adjustments to the mic include volume and sensitivity, as well as an ambient noise filter to help remove background noise from your real-world environment. The mic's ambient noise filter works incredibly well, and it completely blocked out the sounds of my family from the other room and still did a fine job picking up the sound of my own voice.The mixer allows for application-specific volume adjustments, letting you turn Chrome's volume up while reducing iTunes', for example. The equalizer lets you fine-tune levels to get the exact sound you're after, and there are also 11 presets ranging from New Age to Techno. Oddly there's no Hip Hop preset, and there are also no presets for games or movies but you can make your own EQ presets and save them. The lighting tab lets you play with the Chroma-enabled logos on the earpieces. There are only four lighting effects; Static, Breathing, Spectrum Cycling, or none. You can also click a box to apply the lighting scheme on the ManO'War to all your Chroma-enabled devices. Finally, you can also pick one of three positions for the on-screen volume display: left, right, or none at all. Overall the software is superb and offers a ton of useful features, is easy to use, and allows anyone to customize every facet of the ManO'War to his or her liking. label=Gaming The first big revelation I had while testing the ManO'War is that I'm going to have a hard time going back to my stereo headset. The 7.1 surround sound not only sounds fantastic in movies, but it also helped my Counter-Strike game. I was able to get a leg-up on more than a few opponents because I could hear the direction of their approaching footsteps, and I even got more than a few extra kills because of it. The bass reproduction is easily the ManO'War's strong suit, as these things can thump. If you like to listen to bass-heavy music, or play lots of shooters or games with explosive sound effects, the ManO'War seriously deliver. The headset can also get really loud. My personal volume limit was 60 out of 100, and anything higher made me afraid I might damage my ears. But holy cow; at that level I could literally feel the bass rumbling in my cheekbones. It also didn't lose fidelity when I turned the volume way up, as everything still sounded thick and rich. The act of listening to music with the ManO'War was also pure joy. Volume is easily adjusted via a dial on the right earpiece, and it controls the Windows sound level as opposed to just the audio, which is something I really liked. What I didn't like was the ManO'War's lackluster ability to block ambient noise. The on-ear design does little to muffle environmental noise, though the tradeoff is they are able to breath a bit more, making them more comfortable for long gaming sessions. Also, if you want full-coverage Razer offers them as an accessory for $20. title=More%20Comprehensive%20Headset%20Reviews&type=articles%2Cvideos&tags=tech-fancyheadset-review&count=6&columnCount=6&theme=article Speaking of comfort, throughout testing I found the ManO'War to be supremely comfy, even after extended gaming periods. The ear-pads remained cool, and they're soft enough that I could wear them with my glasses and not feel any pressure or discomfort. I also enjoyed being freed from the shackles of wires. I never noticed how much I subconsciously limit my movements when plugged in until I was emancipated. Battery life is decent but doesn't seem to be what Razer claims, as it says you can get 14 hours of continuous use on a single charge (or 20 hours with Chroma lighting turned off), but I burned through a quarter of the battery in just under an hour. One handy feature is when the ManO'War gets to 20% battery capacity, a warning pops up on your monitor to let you know, and the set can be used while charging, which is nice. However, the included charging cable is only three feet long, so I ended up using the range extension dock as an ad-hoc charging extension cable when I forgot to plug it in overnight. label=Purchasing%20Guide The Razer ManO'War Gaming Headset has an MSRP of $169.99, and like a lot of tech products can often be found online for a modest $20-$30 discount: |
