Ever heard of EPOS? Well, we won’t blame you if you haven’t. They’re a fairly new standalone contender to the gaming headset industry, but they’ve been around for quite a while. You might have also seen their name on the livery or jumpsuits of the new Aston Martin F1 team and wondered who they were. Well, after a bit of research, and it’s a little tricky, EPOS is pretty much Sennheiser, and with some complex partnerships became Sennheiser EPOS and now are just known as EPOS. So, we’ve actually seen them before, but EPOS are going at the gaming market by themselves, and to let you know before deep diving into this headset… they’re doing a great job! Today, we’re going to be looking at their new EPOS H3 gaming headset in a bit more detail.
The headset is primarily made from plastic, which enables the EPOS H3 to have an extremely lightweight design. The top strap however that spans your crown is covered in a soft to touch foam on both sides, The underside, however, is significantly more padded to ease the strain on the top of your head, of which there is none anyway due to the H3s being so light. There’s a metal rod that runs through the headband giving it some support and the headset itself is pretty flexible too and didn’t feel as if it was going to snap at all under pressure.
The UI on the side of the right earcup is incredibly simple. It’s literally a volume wheel which is great by design. There are no buttons you have to scramble around finding during heated moments inside of games. It’s smooth to turn and pretty accurate, and there’s no fear of accidentally nudging it either. On the right is a detachable 3.5mm aux cable which is braided by the way to not snag on the back of a desk, and also the microphone which is on a boom arm which does bend if you need to move it closer to your mouth.
The earcups themselves are made from leather and are packed with memory foam and they completely shrouded my ears and offered a decent level of noise isolation from the outside world though my ears aren’t particularly big unless you look at my earlobes of course. I never had any issue at all with the cups surrounding my ears, but your mileage may vary. They never caused any stress on my ears, put it that way. They achieve this with their soft padded design, as well as the ability to really clamp to my head. But the best part is they don’t feel uncomfortable, so I could wear them for a good amount of time, especially in long several hour gaming sessions. Even as a glasses wearer, I had to fatigue on the side of my head from the arms of my glasses.
There are two types of connections you can use with the EPOS H3 gaming headset, and I’ve used the 3.5mm braided cable as I am going straight into my GoXLR Mini. It’s the console controller cable, which means you can use the H3 with an Xbox or Playstation controller, but it works with my GoXLR fine for audio needs. If you don’t have an audio interface, then you’re going to want to use the splitter, which again is a 3.5mm aux cable to plug into the earcup, and on the other end is the pink and green 3.5mm jacks for sound and microphone use. Again, it’s braided to minimise snagging. I would have liked to have seen this cable a little longer though. It measures at 1.5m, but closer to three would have been better, especially for those who keep their PCs on the floor. A great thing about the EPOS H3 is the fact it’s fully plug and play, and there’s no need for any additional software like you’d traditionally find with USB interfaced headsets. It’s get up and go, no-frills gaming.
Now, audio quality is second to none, and I don’t want to waste any more time making that clear. Since separating from Sennheiser, EPOS has done an absolutely fantastic job in keeping the decent audio quality found in Sennheiser gaming headsets in this one here, and I must say that the EPOS H3 has quickly become my favourite gaming headset. I play a mixture of games, and right from something like the whiny engines of Formula 1 car, to the pin-drop quiet atmospheric sounds of Resident Evil Village, the EPOS H3 can handle it all. If you’re running through a game of Battlefield V, bombs dropping and grenades exploding all around you feel insanely meaty, and even in something like Warzone, where footsteps, reloads or broken glass can be the difference between survival and a trip to the gulag, all felt very superior. Even my battlecry inside of the newly launched Chivaly 2 was heard clearly amongst the fray. And just to touch upon it, music through the likes of Spotify, which is my go-to service when I’m sitting here writing reviews sounded punchy, and bass never overpowered the likes of the mids or treble, and vocals shone through music clearly too.
I was a huge fan of the couple of Sennheiser models we’ve tried and tested over the years, but here, the massive reduction in weight, the hugely comfortable padded ear cups and the finely tuned audio that never ever felt muddy, it’s just absolutely awesome. For more information, head over to the EPOS website.
