So, what’s the deal with the HyperX CloudX Gaming Headset? Let me put it this way: I was giving it a try with a few of my games when my kid scared the heck out of me by startling me from behind, poking my ribs. My kid laughed so hard when she looked at my face! According to her account of the events, she had come back from the mall, she had been ringing the bell and knocking on the door, the dog had been barking all this time and, after she finally found out her house keys and open the door, she had been calling me all the way to my home-office. I was so into the game I was playing that I never noticed any of the events she described – until the rib poking, that is. That’s how good this headset is.
The reason why I wanted to write about this headset is because, as a musician “wanna-be”, sound is very important to me. You see, “Indies” wear many “hats” and I’m one of the very few that create the music and sound effects for their own games. That is why I looked forward to test this headset: It’s not just that I know how it is supposed to sound, but I also have access to the tools to create those sounds.
A few months ago, I tried to apply for a job for a particular game development company and I thought I would rock the interview if I could bring my little tablet and show the games I’ve published. Following that strategy, I revisited my slalom game back then and one of the optimizations I did was to recompile the background music following the steps of this other article. As part of the accomplishments, I was quite happy to have reduced the audio file size to less than half (less bytes per second to process means faster overall performance). However, I did not notice any change in quality at the time. The rule of the house is that headsets are mandatory during code debugging, which is understandable considering that such tasks happen well after midnight and during weekdays. I was using a typical headset back then since it is standard practice that all development must be done using run-of-the-mill equipment. The idea behind this practice is that, if it sounds good using regular devices, it will sound great when using state-of-the-art equipment. Following that line of thought, when I got my hands on the HyperX headset, my slalom game was the very first game I tried – and boy did it sound amazing!
As a composer, I have an unhealthy inclination for high pitch instruments. Call it a “retro” style resembling the Nintendo era. However, to pull that off in these days, it is very important to counteract with low pitch instruments, usually playing the background arpeggio. As a result, my music scores have notes at both extremes of the audible bandwidth.
Here is what I noticed when testing the HyperX headset with the newly compiled background music of my slalom game: On one side, the high pitch instruments including a pan flute, a nylon guitar, a chorus and a harp (see the unhealthy inclination?) were crispier but not by much. However, the low pitch instruments including a clarinet and an acoustic bass were more imposing, giving a much better body to the overall music score. Even the sound effects (like braking) were striking.
I put my Xbox aside, I went straight to Microsoft’s DirectMusic Producer application and I started digging on my backup of “unfinished projects”, looking for some other midi files I had created in the past. I went this route because my other games have an unfortunate loss in quality due to a conversion from midi to wma to wav, consistent with the migration from DirectMusic Producer to XNA to DirectX. There was this particular score that focused on some dramatic percussion strikes that caught my attention. The difference was remarkable.
Thinking “outside-the-box” (no pun intended), I tried the headset with my iPod mini. It was a little bit disappointing to hear a noise in the background caused by peak cuts of the electronic signal. You see, sound devices are built assuming a particular type of speakers (in this case, the headset), measured as a “load” with a value that we call “impedance”. As a rule of thumb, we can only use speakers of the impedance defined in the technical specifications of our sound device. That said, I assume that the headset was a little bit too much for the little iPad – I guess I should have expected this, especially since it was the “mini” model.
Overall, I highly recommend this headset. It’s comfortable, it sounds incredible and it suppresses outside noise sources, immersing the player in the game at hand.
Please note that “Microsoft”, “Xbox”, “Nintendo”, “iPod mini” and “HyperX CloudX Gaming Headset” are register trademarks, and they are referred under the “fair use” clause of the Copyright law.
Software by Tarh Ik 