Gaming

Gaming

What we justify our high-dollar hardware purchases on, games. I used three headphones for this, the Immersa Pro, the AKG K7XX, and the Sennheiser HD6XX, switching between rounds.

PUBG 

The hottest game right now is, of course, PUBG. With the 1.0 release, it’s time to get dusty, dirty, and get that chicken dinner. The only mode that matters is first-person, since audio cues become much more important.

 
The first thing I notice are the footsteps. The Immersa Pro has some nice punch to the sound, making footsteps very audible, and thumping. The second quality is the soundstage, where the sound is between your ears and not out in front like with the AKG K7XX. This might be a good thing, since environmental sounds aren’t that important in PUBG. What is important is a good microphone. I do like the dial on the earcup that mutes the mic and turns on its LED. When going back to a recorded session, the Immersa Pro’s microphone is a little muffled, kind of like you’re talking through a roll of socks. Since we’ve all been accustomed now to listening to professional streamers, and their broadcast quality microphones, the Immersa Pro’s microphone could use a little more attention.

Project Cars 2

I do love a good driving game, and Project Cars 2 takes the original and add more tracks and more cars. My favourite is the snarly, snorting, Mercedes Benz 300SL. Oh, there are plenty of other cars that I would never have the chance to see, let alone drive, but the Merc is one of the more fun cars to drive in this game. That said, the sounds are faithfully created for the cars, and having it sound just right adds so much to the experience.

 
The Immersa Pro has a fairly narrow soundstage, meaning most of the sound is concentrated between your ears. This is good for first person shooters where an immediate sound is better, but works great for racing games where there’s not a lot of outside sounds that need to be kept track of. No, it’s still not fair to compare the Immersa Pro against the reference headphones, but then again, you do need a reference. But fear not! The Immersa Pro do a much better job than expected compared to the references, which brings me to value. You can get the Immersa Pro for a third the cost of a reference set of headphones and get 80% of the sound. That ain’t bad at all. And you get some blinkenlights to go with it.

Witcher 3

Ah, Witcher 3. It’s still a gorgeous game, and one that I will never fully complete. We pick up our hero, Geralt of Rivia, at Kaer Morhen. Track the missing witcher, follow the smell of the goat, kill the winged beastie, and finally a horse race. Say what you will about Roach, but she’s the fastest thing on four legs.
 

The Immersa Pro is impressive, all the environmental sounds were clear and punchy. A Witcher has senses, enabling you to hear far off monsters, and through the Immersa Pro, they were menacing. It didn’t quite capture the ‘hiss’ of the environment as well as the K7XX, but then again, the K7XX didn’t menace me with witcher senses. Odd. One major difference was the dialog. The Immersa Pro did fine, but missed out on Doug Cockle’s bone dry, New York detective, Geralt voice. The sound was darker, and lacking the crispness of my reference phones.

In games, where we spend a good portion of our lives, the Immersa Pro delivered very good sound. I would be happy living with these headphones, and in fact have replaced my ancient Asus Orion Pros. The only downside is the microphone, which is not as clear as the Orion Pro, but gets the job done. The Immersa Pro makes up for the lackluster microphone by having the mute knob on the earcup.