MSI have recently started moving into the gaming peripheral space. They’re generally known for their motherboards and graphics cards, but they’ve got a full range of mice, keyboard and gaming headsets, and we’ve been lucky enough to check out their new gaming range. This review though, is going to concentrate on the new MSI Immerse GH50 gaming headset.
The MSI GH50 gaming headset has a very simplisic approach. There’s no buttons surrounding the earcups. Instead MSI rely on an in-line remote a few inches down the cable which house the volume wheel, mute button 7.1 activation and vibration activation. However, due to its size and position down the cable, makes it a little more of a hinderance than useful.
The cable is braided and makes the in-line remote twist and turn, and it gets caught on the front of my desk. Would it be better if the remote was further down the cable, and could actually stick to your desk, so all the buttons are in front of you? Probably. But during intense gameplay, especially in something like Call of Duty Modern Warfare, you’re not going to be changing many settings on the fly, as you’ll be spending too long feeling your way around the remote.
Oh and speaking of cables, it’s non-removable and has a USB Type-A at the end to plug into your desktop. At £80, it should have really been wireless, or at least have some Bluetooth capability.
The heatset itself is built well, although lacks some premium touches seen from other gaming headsets at this price point. However, the MSI Immerse GH50 looks good. It’s covered in a smooth grey plastic, while the earcup accent is a glossy black, which helps with the projection pf the RGB side lights, which fall in line with MSI’s Mystic Light effects. And as you know by now if you’ve read my other MSI peripheral reviews, I kept it on its own lighting effect.
The two large faux lether earcups have sufficient enough padding to make this headset feel nice and snug, as well as comfy for longer periods of gameplay. Even the crown padding is thick and spongy. The padding also isolates outside noise too, and although the GH50s don’t have active noise cancellation, the isolation is enough to keep background noise to a bare minimum.
Because the headset is also built with plastic, it keeps the weight down. Compared to my LucidSound LS25 headset that I’ve been very fond of over the last two years, it’s a feather. There is a metal band running through the headband though to give it some reinforcement. It does fold down too for storage reasons, and to fit inside the felt bag that’s supplied to keep it free from scratches during transport.
Underneath the padded earcups are two 40mm neodynium drivers, capable of virtual 7.1 surround sound, and to be honest with you, sound is a bit of a mixed bag. So before I start analysing what you get, I will say that the Dragon Centre driver, that houses an equiliser and mic settings would just not work for me. *EDIT*
But saying that, I couldn’t find much issue with the sound. The only thing that I couldn’t get on with too well is the rumble feature, which essentialy fills the headset with so much bass, that it causes it to rumble on your head. It’s good for single player games, and very nice for an extra inch of immersion, but when you’re listening out for footsteps, with gunfire going off around you, not so much. Turn it off though, and the blend of highs and lows was decent.
I also wouldn’t rate the virtual 7.1 surround sound too much either. It never really helped with pinpointing enemy locations on the map. Instead it muddies the sound somewhat. Gunfire and loud noises sounded great, especially in the middle of a gunfight, but again, footsteps, glass breaking and other subtle sounds that could give away an enemy position just got lost. It’s safe to say this headset sounded best without any post-processing added. Of course, I couldn’t get into the equiliser to fine tune to my liking, but out the box, as a plug-and-play headset, it’s solid.
The microphone quality isn’t too bad. I was surprised at how clear the small boom arm was, and the fact that the microphone couldn’t actually get too close to my mouth. It does bend, but it doesn’t hold its shape very well like on a HyperX Cloud headset for example. Okay, so the clarity is no match for say a Mod Mic, or if like me you’ve got a condenser microphone set up on your desk for gaming, but if you’re just wanting something to jump into a Discord party with to play with your friends, then it’s not a bad option.
The MSI Immerse GH50 gaming headset is a mid-range headset at best. It sounds great, but has some issues with the post-processing effects, and the driver was just impossible for me to use for whatever reason. It’s priced on the MSI website at around £79.99 at time of writing which is a little steep, and I would like to see some of the post-processing effects removed and the price tag dropped a bit to around £50-60. Though the build quality is nice and it is comfy to wear for a long period of time. For more information, head over to the MSI website.
*UPDATE*
I wrote before that the driver wouldn’t work, which it didn’t. But since writing this, MSI have updated the Dragon Centre software, and now I have full access to the driver. So here’s my review.
The Dragon Centre driver is very basic, and when inside the GH50 gaming headset area, there’s only a handful of options you can change. The first, of the options you’re greeted with are your Sound Options, and these are used for panning and voice volume. You can set how much sound comes through each earcup, and how much voice you hear from software such as Discord.
The Sample Rate options change things like your Render Sample rate from 44.1kHz up to 96kHz. I kept mine at a cool 48kHz because I’m not sure I heard any difference in my audio, especially in games at the higher resolution. However, your experience may differ, and that’s a whole other argument in itself.
However, I did change the default 16-bit render depth to 24-bit render depth. But again, unless you’re playing the same game, with the same noise, at the same time with your four ears, you’re not going to really hear the difference. It all feels to me like marketing speak. Our headphones are better than yours kind of thing.
Next up is the EQ, and this is where the headphones really shine. Remove the post-processing effects, and you can adjust your sound to exactly how you like it. Bit of extra bass, bit more treble and less bass? Your choice.
The Xears Effects I didn’t get on with much at all, and really kept them off. They offer various effects to improve audio quality in the virtual surround sound, vocal clarity on Discord and others, improved bass, smart volume and more. There’s also the option to choose music or movie mode, depending on what you’re doing on your PC, and the ability to virtually place yourself inside of a room surrounded by speakers, which ranges from small, middle and big.
Finally, the microphone settings offer you spoken voice volume which I set to max and a monitor option which you can have in your left or right ear or even both, so you can monitor yourself over your game volume. Great feature for streamers I might add. And I kept this at 48kHz too.
