Features, Audio Quality, and Comfort
Before getting into the 9H’s performance let’s take a look around the headset at its features starting with its USB sound card. To keep things flexible SteelSeries went with a cord design that allows you to switch between a USB sound card, mobile phone connection, and a standard two plug mic and headphone connection. The cable itself is sleeved in an orange and black sleeving. It plugs into the 9H itself with a small USB like connection and plugs into the adapter cables or USB sound card with a similar plug. To give you even more options the sound card also includes standard microphone and headphone plugs, allowing you to use it with another headset if you would like.
For the headband, the design still follows what I have seen in the past with SteelSeries’s H line of headsets. The only difference is the 9H does not break down into multiple pieces like past models. The top band is made of plastic and has the SteelSeries logo embossed in the top. On the underside, for your comfort you have almost an inch thick of padding in four “clumps”. Each side has almost two inches of adjustment for people with large heads and if you look close you can also see that each earcup has a slight amount of pivot in them to keep the earcups planted on your head properly.
The 9H has the same pull out design for a microphone that I have seen on all of their other models. The only noticeable change here is in the mic tip that is formed in a way that when it is pushed back into your headset it fits flush. Each earcup has three vents in them, still far from the open air design of the Siberia v2’s but maybe enough to hear if anything important happens behind you when you have them on. The faux leather ear padding isn’t going to help outside noise get in as well. Speaking of the earcups, I love the orange threading uses on them. It matches the orange inside the earcups as well.
So now that we know a little more about the 9H let’s talk a little about its comfort. First I want to point out that as a big guy I do sometimes run into headsets that don’t fit me well. With that said I was happy that the 9H fit me well, much better than the smaller 7H. My preference for headsets is a large earcup design that fits around my ears and doesn’t push on my ears; the 9H does a great job of doing this. The thick padding on the top also does a good job, I normally prefer a suspension design for comfort like the Siberia, but the 9H was just as comfortable. Part of that is because the 9H is extremely light, something that for comfort is a good feature but when I showed off the headset to others they pointed out that the headset felt a little cheap due to that same lightness. Overall I was extremely happy with the 9H for comfort, especially for people with larger heads. I even had room to spare for expansion on the side adjustments!
Audio performance for the 9H’s required a little more testing than normal because they come with the USB sound card as well as the ability to hook directly up to your own sound card. I started by testing through USB first to get a feel for everything. This is where I was able to take advantage of the new software that I wrote about in the software section. I found the audio performance to be good, but a little lacking, especially when I played songs that had more bass. Hooking up directly to my PC I was able to push the headset a little more and get a little more volume, with that they handled the bass a little better and seemed to have better audio quality. I found the overall performance to be good, but not stellar. I think most people will be more than happy with them, but if you are an audiophile I don’t think you are going to enjoy them.
Beyond the comfort and audio performance, there was one issue that I did run into while testing the 9H. The removable cord did give me a few fits where it would come slightly unplugged and I would lose audio or in one case my microphone was quieter than normal but audio was fine. Readjusting the connection fixed that issue. I also felt the pull out microphone was actually a little short, fully pulled out it would reach about ¾ of an inch away from my mouth, basically on my cheek. I haven’t had this issue with any other SteelSeries headset before, when I compared it to the Siberia v2 the length was the same but the Siberia mic hole is closer to the front where the mic hole on the 9H is actually behind the middle of the earcup.
