After the older Steelseries Sibera V2 was discontinued to make way for the newer V3, gamers have been demanding the V2 to return. They loved its heavy-duty build, the huge 50mm drivers over each ear. It was a solid headset that was missed. Steelseries has listened to our cries and has released the new Steelseries Siberia 200 gaming headset, an upgraded model designed to mimick the fantastic features of the V2.
A major change that Steelseries has embraced is the custom colours the new Siberia 200 come in. Apart from the standard black and white we have seen many times before, the 200s also come in ‘Forged Red’, ‘Gaia Green’, ‘Proton Yellow’, ‘Sakura Purple’ and ‘Alchemy Gold’. We were sent the red pair but you can see all of the colours on the Steelseries website. Looks wise the Siberia 200s are near on identical to the discontinued V2. That’s probably because the parts are pretty much the same, as well as gamers wanting the V2s back. Steelseries has done a great job in designing the updated model. Yes it’s made from a plastic material, but that improves the comfort when wearing for longer sessions.
The headset plugs into your computer using a headphone jack and seperate microphone jack. Both are 3.5mm auxillary connections so pretty much all computers can accomodate. This means the headset produces analogue audio, which depending on preference can sound a lot nicer than a more modern digital sound. Steelseries has done a very good job of spliting up the bass and treble to produce a warm, all-rounded sound. This has huge advantages when playing first-person shooters like Counter Strike where listening to footsteps is important.
Inside the box you also get a handy headphone splitter so you can use the 200s with a mobile phone device as a hands-free headset and headphones. Pretty nifty. Music playback through the headphones I couldn’t find much wrong. The usual minor distortions at higher volumes but in other cases there is a fair blend of bass and treble frequencies on offer. I’m not sure I’d use them as my daily drivers though as they are quite garish. They look cool for a gaming headset but for a street-walking set of cans, they’re not very subtle.
Steelseries I must say have done an absolutely solid job of designing and building the Siberia 200. Sure, they’ve just basically rehashed an older model but they’ve tweaked it to appeal to a more modern audience. They were extremely comfy to use during our testing and sounded superb during our game times. Keep up the good work guys.
