Creative Sound BlasterX H5 headset review

The Sound BlasterX H5 headset arrived neatly packaged inside a plastic display case. The brushed metal forks and subtle no thrills design instantly appealed to me. From a visual aspect, these H5’s are exactly what I would go for. I don’t need pointless moulded plastic grills and vents or bright LED lights.

The Sound BlasterX H5’s feature prong shaped arms that connect to the earcups to provide vertical swivel.  There’s no horizontal axis point in the design. This doesn’t really concern me, I don’t tend to wear my headset like a DJ or need to pack it down particularly small. I’d rather have durability over portability.  An additional axis point would only introduce a new and unnecessary point of weakness.

There is just enough freedom to twist built into the design, to provide a perfect and consistent amount of contact around the ears.

The brushed metal arms have 12 fine points of adjustment to suit all head sizes. It feels to me that they pass through 2 sprung steel sheets concealed under the padded foam head cushion.

When I pull the ear cups wide apart, there is absolutely no feeling of weakness.

The microphone is fully detachable and highly adjustable with a flexible arm that maintains its position. The wide shaped input jack fits securely in a slot at the bottom of the left earcup.

Directly behind the mic port is a 3.5mm audio input for the braided cord.  This upper section  is 4 feet long (1.2m) and has a male connector at each end.

Another equally long cable is also provided with one female 3.5mm jack at one end.  The other end splits to a traditional audio-in and mic-out connection for your PC’s soundcard.

I don’t usually create a new section just to discuss the level of comfort. For the Sound BlasterX H5 however, I’m making an exception.

These are the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever owned. Even after an 8 hour gaming session while wearing glasses, they are still perfectly comfortable. I simply cannot fault them. The padding is made from ‘marshmallow soft’  memory foam covered in a leatherette material. They fully engulf the ears and the pressure from the sprung steel core is just enough to hold them in place. It’s ridiculous how comfortable these are… Seriously!

To temper my obvious pleasure regarding their comfort, there is a possibility of a future niggle. As they fit so well , I’d say there’s a small chance they might get a little warm during the summer months. I won’t know that for sometime yet. As of now, the Sound BlasterX H5’s are perfect.

Creative provide optional software to fine tune the Sound BlasterX H5 for particular game styles. It’s called the “SoundBlaster Acoustic Engine” – Link here.  After spending some time cycling through the various presets, I’d say it would only really benefit pro gamers looking for that extra edge. For me, I’m happy with the ‘out of the box’ audio setup.

The Sound BlasterX H5 gaming headset is not cheap, coming in at around $130. But at that price you get an extremely well put together set of headphones. The clarity of sound is superb, they easily hold ground alongside many high fidelity headsets.