Asus’s ROG product lineup covers just about anything you might want to use for gaming and that includes a full range of peripherals and headsets. While I have had a lot of Asus hardware in the office over the years, I haven’t had one of their headsets in to test for a whopping 9 years. Going back to 2015 when I took a look at the Strix 7.1 Gaming Headset. They have continued to evolve their designs including adding wireless options. That Strix 7.1 headset had multiple issues in my testing, so I’m excited to see how their latest headset, the ROG Delta II will compare. So let’s dig in and see what the ROG Delta II has to offer and how it performs.

Product Name: Asus ROG DELTA II Headset

Review Sample Provided by: Asus

Written by: Wes Compton

Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE

Packaging and Accessories

ROG packaging has had the same styling, keeping everything consistent and easy to spot if you are shopping in retail and that is no different here with the ROG Delta II. The box has a black background with just barely visible ROG logos and sayings all printed on the background. Then a large picture of the headset with its lighting glowing takes up most of the front. The ROG logo has a reflective red finish and is in the top left corner and then the model name is along the bottom which also has a reflective finish as well. They let you know that it supports 2.4 GHz wireless and Bluetooth and works with the PS5 with logos in the top right corner. The bottom edge of the box does have a basic specification listing which is great to see. Then on the back, You get another picture of the headset as well as breakdowns on some of the key features like its Tri-Mode connectivity 50mm drivers, fast charging, and even a list of what all comes in the box. Overall Asus has done a great job of giving anyone shopping in person the information needed to know what the Delta II is all about.

When you open the box up the lid has foam padding attached to keep things safe. Then the headset itself comes sitting in a cardboard cocoon keeping things more sustainable where they can. There is a pull out guide that shows you what all of the buttons and LEDs do. Then under that is a box with the extra set of earcup pads inside. The cardboard that wraps around the headset then houses some of the other accessories you get. For documentation, on top of the quick guide, you get a warranty information book and a more in-depth quick start guide as well.

Beyond the documentation and the headset itself, the ROG Delta II does come with more accessories than a lot of other headsets. Being wireless, the wireless dongle isn’t a surprise. But I was surprised to see the dongle use a Type-C connection. That also helps that the dongle be noticeably smaller as well. Then you get two different cables, both having a nice black sleeving on them. One is a male-to-male 3.5 mm cable that lets you run the Delta II complexly wired. The second cable is the USB cable which the base cable is a USB Type-A to Type-C cable but for shipping the Type-A to Type-C adapter comes plugged into this cable. This is the charging cable, the Delta II doesn’t function as a headset when plugged in via USB but my PC did pick the device up which I assume means they may use the USB connection also for firmware updates when needed as well. You have the detachable boom microphone and then a pair of earcup pads. These pads have a soft fabric finish giving you a second option to the leather-like pads that come preinstalled. 

Photos and Features

Going all the way back to that first Strix headset, Asus used a unique triangular shape to its earcups and the original ROG Delta had a similar shape and the new Delta II does as well. The new Delta II looks very similar to the original Delta designs, but you can see big changes with the earcup mounting having just one side attached whereas the old design had arms on both the front and back. The earcups have a similar shape but have changed and the headband design is new as well. The Delta II is black with a few of the touches like the arms being a dark grey. This design has full-sized earcups designed to go around your ears and they advertise it as a lightweight wireless headset sitting at 318 grams but it does weigh more than the older Delta S Wireless which was 310 grams. They are lighter than something like the Astro A50 X Wireless or the Logitech G pro X 2 Lightspeed which was 345 grams. Corsair’s HS80 Max Wireless is 352 grams and Razer’s Kraken V4 is 350 grams so Asus is coming in significantly lower than the competition there. Frankly, I’m just happy to see that weight is finally being focused on at all because it plays a big role in how comfortable a headset is in extended use.

So both sides of the Delta II have things going on. Often with wireless headsets or headsets in general you will see all of the functions packed into one side. The left earcup is the main side though. That side has the plug for the detachable microphone which has a standard 3.5 mm plug but a unique shape around it to lock the microphone in place. It is tight, but if you wanted you could plug in a different microphone like a lapel microphone if you wanted but I don’t know if it would work. That side then has the charging port which is a USB Type-C plug. This is great news if you already have USB Type-C charging at your desk, which a lot of people do for other devices including their phones. Then there is an on and off switch but this is specifically for turning on 2.4 Ghz mode using their dongle, powering on Bluetooth mode is on the other side and is a little confusing. Next to that is a single button, this is what they call the function button. One press is play or pause, two presses goes to the next song, and three presses will go to the previous song. Then you can press and hold for 5 seconds to turn the RGB lighting on or off and hold for 15 seconds to factory reset the Delta II’s settings. They really pack a lot into one button. Next to that is a volume wheel, again just for the 2.4 Ghz audio, you can also press down here and mute or unmute your microphone. On the right-hand side, you have a second audio volume wheel, this is for controlling your Bluetooth volume but it doesn’t have the microphone mute function like the other volume wheel. Below it is another function button that has the same play/pause, next, and previous functions. Holding it for three seconds turns Bluetooth mode on or off and if you are receiving a call pressing once will answer or end the call and two presses will reject the call which seems risky to me lol. The reason for the confusing double set of controls is because the ROG Delta II can connect to both audio sources at the same time. In fact, you can also plug in using the 3.5 mm wired plug which they include to help with console compatibility as well.

The earcup shape of the Delta II is more defined from the side profile but this is also where some of the visual changes from the past Delta’s can be seen. The biggest change is in the mounting arm that comes down from the headband and holds each earcup. In the past, these would split and hold the earcup from the front and back but that has changed to a thicker aluminum mount with just the one arm going to the back for a cleaner look. That arm can pivot side to side and allows the earcup to tilt up and down as well to get the best possible fit for all head shapes. In typical ROG fashion, the Delta II does have RGB lighting with a full ring around the earcup as well as the ROG logo on the side. Asus went with 50mm titanium-plated diaphragm drivers. They have a frequency response range of 20Hz - 20KHz and the headphones have an impedance of 32 ohm. On the inside the padding has that same unique shape with the stock padding having a leather-like finish and the second swappable pads having a softer fabric finish depending on what your preference is. The leather-like finish will seal out more background noise but will be hotter whereas the fabric will breathe a little but let in background noise. Inside over the drivers they have the ROG logo again as well.

The thick aluminum mounts on each earcup lead up into the headband and can be adjusted in and out to fit a range of head sizes. The outside of the headband up on top has that leather-like finish with the full ROG branding embossed into it. Then on the underside, there is padding but that starts just past the silver straps you see. Anything below that has fabric over it but no padding. The top has thick padding however and that’s the only place the headset should be touching your head, beyond the earcups.

The front edge of the left earcup has the boom microphone and this is removable. It comes detached and plugs in with a standard 3.5mm jack and has a specific shape inset on the headset to lock the microphone in place. It has a rubber covering on the flexible boom and at the end a thick foam pop filter that goes over the microphone. The pickup pattern for the capsule is unidirectional so it will be focused at your mouth to help cut down background noise. It has a frequency response of 100Hz - 10KHz and a sensitivity of -40 dB.

Performance

To start my testing, I did need to get the ROG Delta II up and running. You can run the headset without software, plugging the dongle in Windows picked it up right away and I was up and running. Not to mention you can connect via Bluetooth as well. That said for the dongle and headset to be updated and to get some of the features the Delta II does work with Asus’s Armoury Crate software with its British spelling of Armory or if you don't have other Asus products you can use their compact version which works with some of Asus's peripherals called Armoury Crate Gear. If you have run any other Asus products there is a good chance you have used this software before. It isn’t their only software, but it does handle things like your lighting, peripherals, and driver updates for motherboards as well. The landing page when you open it up has your CPU clock speeds, fan profiles, and Aura Sync profiles all there. You can also launch a few of your commonly played games with the game launcher. On the left side, the second option down is where you can open up pages specific to whatever devices you have installed which in this case would be the ROG Delta II.

The Delta II software page has tabs along the top that split the controls up by audio, microphone, settings, lighting, power, and firmware. The audio page has a drop-down of equalizer profiles or you can make your own. This is also where you can turn on the virtual surround sound options, bass boost, reverb, and a voice clarity setting that can tune the audio for voices if you need it.

The microphone tab doesn’t have as many options but it does have a few and from when I first got the Delta II in until now Asus has added features here. You have a noise gate to help prevent you from being distorted and blowing out your friend's ears when you yell and a perfect voice setting. The new feature is the echo cancellation and noise reduction option which when you have it turned on has three levels. The next page is the settings page. This mostly just has the same options you would find in your Windows sound settings like the microphone volume, turning on listening, and setting the bits and frequency. Beyond that though you can change the voice prompt language in the headset here and you can turn on and adjust your sidetone. Sidetone picks up outside noise and feeds it into the headphones so you don’t miss things going on around you. For some you might put your headphones on to block out noise, this isn’t for you. But if you have a kid, are expecting a call or visitor, or maybe have food cooking this is a great way to still use your headphones without having to keep an ear off.

For the lighting on the Delta II, the lighting tab has a few basic effects that you can switch between. Depending on which option you pick you get additional settings on the side to pick colors, set the effect speed or direction, and adjust the brightness. You can also get into the full Auro Creator took here to make your own lighting effects as well but given that the lighting on the headset isn’t completely over the top most people are going to be happy with the basic effects. You can tie your headset lighting in with all of your other Aura Sync lighting as well when you get into the main lighting page in the Armoury Crate, not just the page specific to the Delta II.

The power tab shows you the current battery level for the headset. More importantly, you can adjust how many minutes before sleep mode kicks in when you are idle. You can also set up visual notifications for a low battery here along with the voice prompts in the headset. You can also adjust at what battery level those kick in here. The last page is the firmware update page and this is where you can check and update the firmware, as the tab name implies.

Overall the software lets you get into any settings you might need and I’m always happy to see when you don’t have specific software needed for each device. The only issue I ran into in my testing here was opening the ROG Delta Ii page does take a little time to open up each time. This isn’t specific to the headset, opening up the page for my motherboard does the same thing. Other pages are snappy, but just not the first loading of the product-specific pages.

With the software out of the way, let’s talk a little about how the ROG Delta II headset performed. Headset performance for me is mostly focused around comfort and audio performance but with this being wireless battery life and wireless range also play a role. I’ve been using the ROG Delta II anytime I need a headset for a few months now, often for extended use when gaming or listening to music when working. I’ve been a fan of large around the ear headphones and headsets and the ROG Delta II does have that larger earcup size to do that. Going in though I was concerned that the triangle shape of the earcups might cause them to sit on my ears in spots, not around them. In the end, though they do fit around them but they do touch a little on the inside because of the shape. I would still prefer a more traditional shape, but I can’t complain too much. For the extended use sessions, that is normally where those problems would show and I haven’t had any discomfort wearing the ROG Delta II. Because it is a sealed earcup design and because the preinstalled padding doesn’t breathe my ears did get warm but that is to be expected with that configuration. Swapping to the fabric earcup pads helped with that somewhat. Being a wireless headset, weight can be an issue when it comes to the top padding putting pressure on the top of your head but that wasn’t bad as well.

For audio performance, the 50 mm titanium-coated drivers had more bass than I expected, especially for a wireless headset and that was even before getting into the software side bass boost options. Overall the audio quality was solid, the 20 Hz to 20 KHz range is in line with the Logitech Pro X2 Lightspeed headset but is smaller than the HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless (15 Hz to 21 KHz)and Razer BlackShark V2 Pro (15 Hz to 28 KHz) with both of those headsets reaching lower and higher frequencies. For the microphone, I put the ROG Delta II up against all of the microphones we have tested recently in the video below. This way you can see for yourself. What I found was that the microphone was surprisingly sensitive, picking my voice up loudly even compared to the other microphones tested. There is a good chance you will want to tone it down, all of the mics tested were set to 95% but it was sensitive enough to pick up some of my breathing, until I turned the noise cancelation setting on. With that on you can still hear the keyboard and mouse sounds initially but they quickly are picked up and toned down. Adjusting the microphone level down slightly should get that to be silent.

As for the lighting on the ROG Delta II, you have a ring of addressable LEDs around the outside of both earcups as well as the ROG logo on both ears that is backlit as well. Considering this is a wireless headset and battery life is affected by lighting I was surprised that Asus went that that extent. But it does fit the ROG theme and brand. The microphone boom has lighting in it as well that will light up red when you have the microphone muted to make it easy to see

Beyond the traditional performance areas of comfort and audio performance. The ROG Delta II has two wireless connection options as well as being able to be plugged in using a 3.5mm wired connection as well. That opens up a few other areas to check out like the wireless performance and battery life. But beyond that, it also has an interesting set of controls. In fact, when I first started using the ROG Delta II, the controls seemed a little unintuitive but that was because I didn’t fully understand how the tri-mode connectivity worked. I’ve had a few headsets that can connect using their wireless dongle or Bluetooth like the ROG Delta II. But with those you get one or the other. The reason for the unique controls on the ROG Delta II is because you can connect to your PC using the 2.4 GHz wireless dongle and also connect to a second device like your phone using Bluetooth. You can then play both at the same time. This is a cool way to be able to pipe in music from your phone for example while gaming and because you have volume controls for both feeds independent of each other you can adjust them to fine tune what you are looking for. The 2.4 GHz connection does support 24-bit 96 kHz audio or HD audio for those who are taking advantage of that with your music streaming services. 

As for the wireless performance, I was able to use the 2.4 GHz connection all around the house without it disconnecting. The Bluetooth started to cut out when I got to the bathroom in the back but with both, you don’t have to worry about missing out on anything when you run to the bathroom or another room. For battery life, the ROG Delta II has a total life of 110 hours if you have the RGB lighting turned off. Having that on did change that significantly taking it down to around 23 hours in my testing but for me that was the better part of a week of use normally as I still use speakers when I can. With that in mind, turning the lighting off is well worth it unless you really want to show it off. For charging, the Type-C charging port made keeping the headset charged easy as I already have that cable on my desk for my phone.

Overall and Final Verdict

With testing out of the way and having taken a closer look at the features that Asus offers on the ROG Delta II Headset, what stood out about the headset? Physically, I was impressed with the overall construction of the Delta II, namely the metal hinge design which changed from the previous Delta designs. That is where a lot of headsets are likely to break and it’s a relief to see that Asus is taking that seriously. For styling, they hit the mark in giving it that “ROG” look even if that is a little flashier than I would normally prefer. I also like that they included a second set of earcup pads with fabric if the fake leather isn’t your thing. Along with that the microphone being detachable is nice when you don’t need it.

For performance, the microphone was what impressed me the most. But if you like a little bass in your headset you will like the audio performance as well. Battery life was impressive IF you ran with the accent RGB lighting turned off. Running with it on took that down from 110 hours down for 23 hours in my testing. The design was comfortable, helped by the weight being a little lower than similar wireless headsets and the large earcup design was comfortable as well but did still touch my ears slightly due to the unique cup shape of the Delta’s. If you do like the lighting, because it uses Aura Sync, you can tie it in with all of the lighting in your PC. The coolest feature though has to be the flexibility that the Tri-Mode connectivity offers. You can connect using the 2.4 GHz wireless dongle, with Bluetooth, and with a standard 3.5mm audio jack. The 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth can even be run at the same time letting you overlap the audio from both to listen to music while also gaming for example.

The Asus ROG Delta II has an MSRP of $229.99 which is on the high end for wireless gaming headsets but right in the range of other competitors from other well known gaming brands like the Logitech G PRO X 2 Lightspeed Wireless Gaming Headset which launched at $249 but is down to $219. Feature wise the Delta II competes well with the X2 Lightspeed and having tested both they are surprisingly similar. I prefer the slightly simpler styling of the Logitech but love being able to run connected both to my phone and PC at the same time and the Delta II has more than twice the battery life compared to the X2.

Live Pricing: Here

Author Bio

Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org

Editor-in-chief

You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.