Audio Quality and Comfort

For testing, I swapped the G533’s with my everyday headset. I typically only use my headphones for coms and skype calls but to completely test them out I made a point to use them for in game audio, music, and movies. This gave me more than enough time to get a feel for both the comfort and audio performance.

My initial impressions of the headset were good. The squared off earcups fit around my ears completely so there was no pressure on them, something that often becomes uncomfortable for me. I also had my wife test them out as well as I have a big head and she is a lot smaller and the G533’s had enough adjustment to fit both of us comfortably. The mesh that Logitech used on the earcups ended up being noticeable right away for me, it was mostly just at the seam but the seam is right on the front edge. I have the type of sensitive skin that gets red and irritated with anything hard rubbing on it and the mesh on the ear cups was a problem. It id get better over time, I think the material softened up for me a little but it was never as good as I would like it to be. The padding in the earcups was good as was the headband padding so a softer earcup material would have made all of the difference for my experience. My wife on the other hand never had an issue with the material, so it is going to really depend on how sensitive you are to it.

In extended use situations like long gaming nights or using the headset all day for music, it was a little hit and miss. When gaming and getting frustrated my ears warmed up and I did have to pull an earcup off at a time for a little while, but when calm the mesh did allow enough air in to keep things cool and comfortable. Overall for comfort, I would love to see a replaceable earcup padding to be able to swap to something softer, especially something like the velour would make the G533’s nearly perfect comfort wise.

For audio performance, the 40mm “Pro-G” drivers were crisp and clear and I would consider them to be on the high end of the gaming market for a wireless headset. That last part is something you have to keep in mind, wireless does have limitations and while the G533’s did sound surprisingly good I did notice that the overall volume levels they are capable of are less than some wired headsets. They were loud enough for me, but anyone looking to go completely deaf with the G533’s might be disappointed. The bass levels were also a little less boomy than some people might hope. But for me, they had a nice rounded sound.

I spent a lot of time messing around with the DTS Surround as well. I normally hate 7.1 audio in my headsets because you sacrifice a lot for music but the DTS implementation of 7.1 on the G533 was pretty good. I would only really use it in a few of the shooters that you can benefit from good directional audio though and that is where the Logitech software came in handy. I was able to bind it to my DOOM and it would only turn on when playing that specific game. Now I can hear the monsters coming before still turning around and being surprised when they eat my face.

The changed microphone design was also a focus point for me when testing. I wanted to see if the built-in pop filter would help, see if the microphone sounded good, and find out if the small amount of flexibility in the microphone boom would be good enough. Well for starters, the flexible section in the microphone boom was enough to at least tweak the mic to where I needed it. I would still prefer fully flexible, but this is a good start. As for quality, the new microphone comes in similar to the headphones. It is up on the top end of gaming headphones but not a standout. The SteelSeries microphone sounded better in my opinion, but that’s the only one that I would rank higher. The new built-in pop filter though was great. They kept the microphone small and didn’t have to put a huge pop filter to filter out some of my obnoxious heavy breathing when in game.

So then, the last thing I wanted to check out was the wireless performance. This was the range and also the battery life. Logitech advertised the G533 to have a 15/15 wireless performance meaning 15 meter (49 foot) range and 15-hour battery life. Well, I live in an older house with thick walls and with all of the devices that we have running there is more EMI than you would ever want. My range test was simple and completely unscientific, when I’m gaming I may run to the bathroom or to the kitchen to get something to drink. With other devices, I can typically get to both and have it cut out. The G533 didn’t have any more luck, in fact, it was about a foot shorter to the bathroom, the one location that it would have to go through two thick walls for. The kitchen, however, did get closer. So in my unusual situation, the G533’s wireless was better in a line of sight situation but worse through walls than my H Wireless and Bluetooth. The battery life, on the other hand, was amazing, It was the better part of a week before I had to charge the G533 for the first time. After that, I documented 16 hours of use before needing to be charged.