So, let’s dig into the detail!

The Package Appearance

Package Front

Package Back

Package Sides

The internal packaging
The black and red colour scheme is still covered in Mayan patterns, complemented by the ROG logo that can be seen everywhere

The design of the opposite door is still the flagship, with the product placed in the middle

The space in the middle of the headset body is made with a monument-like design, on which players are welcomed into the elite community, full of ceremony

The contents of the accessories – includes 2 x D-shape lightweight earmuffs, a 3.5mm detachable microphone, a Type-c extension cable, an instruction manual and a warranty card

The main body of ROG Theta 7.1
The overall design combines the previous flagship ROG Centurion and ROG Delta

Front of the headset with microphone

Two sides of the headset with microphone

The headset weighs 604g, about twice as much as the Delta and 1/3 as much as the Centurion

The Left and right symmetrical design

5-levels Headband expansion arm

The rotating structure of the headset and its extension length

The extra-soft headband inside is a padded foam mesh fabric similar to the ROG Hybrid ear cups, which breaths well

The famous ROG logo on the headband

The headset is complemented by a cooling grid on both sides

At the bottom of the right side of the headset, there is a slider for switching between PC and phone and a 2-in-1 microphone volume potentiometer

On the bottom left side of the headset, there is a separate microphone jack

The D-shape earmuffs have a ROG logo integrated

The ROG logo with RGB translucency design

Software Analysis

Asus has integrated their peripheral controls into the ROG Armoury II software, if users are using an Asus motherboard, they can also use the Armoury Crate directly to control.

The main page of the control panel
Users can utilise this software to adjust almost all functions including Sampling options, EQ adjustment, bass boost, sound selection, virtual surround, channel selection and microphone AI noise reduction options

The RGB settings of the headset can also be adjusted under the Lightning tab

The AURA Sync settings

Disassembling Analysis

The greatest selling point of these headphones is the true 7.1 + separate DAC design. To see what’s inside, we decided to take it apart

The headphone unit part has to be disassembled from the inside of the rotating structure

Snap-in construction of the headset section, locked by a Phillips screw

The headband part

The extra pair of lightweight D-shape earmuffs

The body of the headphones, with the 8 units clearly visible. These are 40mm front units, 30mm centre units, 30mm left and right units and 30mm rear surround units. As all units are independently driven, the subwoofer section could be simulated by an algorithm, meaning that it is also sounded by these units

Remove the headset casing to reveal the motherboard components. The headset is a semi-modular design with relatively neat internal routing

Disassembly of the right half part includes rotating structure, motherboard and housing

Disassembly of the left half part

The motherboard model name and version number

The AURA 82UA0 RGB controller chip

Potentiometers and diverter switches side

The SupremeFX CODECs S1220 conroller chip, Realtek ALC4042H QFN Audio CODEC IC and Wolfson WM8960G stereo audio codec driver chip

ESS Sabre 9601K amps

The Hearing Analysis

Test premise: EPIC PC does not compare the listening experience of PC peripheral headphones with Hi-Fi/Hi-End or Monitor-grade headphones. All comparative terms used in the test are comparisons between PC peripherals.

Compatability
This headset has excellent support and compatibility with the new generation of gaming consoles and mobile devices due to its Type-c interface.

On the Android platform, we tested with the ROG Phone 3. Because they are Asus’ own products, Theta 7.1 can be directly recognised by the ROG Phone 3 and automatically optimised to the game. Although PUBG Mobile does not support a 7.1 soundtrack, in-game footsteps are slightly amplified, making it easy to determine the location of enemies, and the reverberation of gunfire is great in terms of distance and proximity. And in ‘Genshin Impact’, players can enjoy the game’s high-quality music, vocals and effects. Theta 7.1 performs impeccably in both ‘Deemo’ and ‘Cytus II’, as well as ‘Lanota’.

The apple platform lives up to its nobility. To hear quality music on the iPhone with Theta 7.1, we not only need an expensive Hub with a Lightning connector that comes with a chip and has Apple certification, but we also need to purchase Apple’s hi-res lossless music service. With all these front-end items taken care of, we finally got a taste of the quality of these headphones on the iPhone, which actually doesn’t sound much different from the Android platform. Incidentally, the iPad Pro, which comes with a Type-c port, is also directly compatible with this headphone.

Listening experience
The audition tracks include popular male/female voices, rock music, small compilation strings, and large-scale symphonies. All Hi-Res quality 88200Hz 24bit, around 4kbps. This headphone is very well tuned to music, the high frequencies are not sharp and harsh but slightly softer, the sense of transparency is perfect, no EQ adjustment, the mid-range is rich and the resolution is very strong; the low frequencies are simulated but surprisingly thick and layered, good sinking, and no sense of passage and fading. Without EQ on, the vocals are relatively forward and the nasal resonance is very well reproduced; for pop songs, the vocals are slightly overshadowed by the instruments and seem underpowered; in classical music, the beautiful vocal performance in opera is outstanding, especially in the baritone, tenor and florid soprano, and in Mozart’s “der höllerache”(from “die zauberflöte” K. 620 II), Diana Damrau’s florid part brought me goosebumps, very stunning!

On Desktop/Laptop during gaming
To know that the ROG Centurion is already outstanding. Keep in mind that the ROG Centurion was already very good, while the Theta 7.1 upgraded the rear and side speakers to 30mm, but neutered the original 40mm subwoofer and changed it to a virtual approach, making the bass, while present, underpowered by its shorter duration. In the FPS genre, the headset reinforces the weighting of footsteps and players can reinforce their judgement with the ability to adjust the position of the surround points in the software, while the AI noise-cancelled microphone does filter out the noise of keyboard taps to ensure efficient communication between players. This is equally suitable for RTS and MOBA games. In theory, larger units can improve the quality of fine sound, but in games, it actually has very little impact, as the sound is calculated by simulation and is a collaboration between several units, the difference is actually minimal when distributed evenly. To sum up, if you already have a true 7.1 headset like the ROG Centurion or Razer Tiamat, the relative improvement of the Theta 7.1 is considerably limited.

Overall

Overall, Theta 7.1 doesn’t bring a quantum leap in the gaming experience because its predecessor, the ROG Delta, was already quite good and because most current competitive games don’t support 7.1 surround sound. Since Virtual 7.1 was already at the top of its game a few years ago, the upgrade to Theta 7.1’s DAC is only icing on the cake. The relatively heavy weight also reduces the player’s immersion, increases fatigue, and puts pressure on the cervical spine. It also means that Theta 7.1 will not be chosen by true gaming players at all.

When it comes to the price, the AU$549 “price tag” will dissuade the majority of consumers, and perhaps the quality of this extreme material build-up will be perfectly unleashed in a AAA gaming masterpiece. Even though Theta 7.1 has great compatibility and can be used across multiple platforms, it is still a wired product. As the quality of this headset is already top of the line in the PC peripheral world, with luxurious materials, multiple device support, a high price tag and ROG’s faith added, limiting the users to high-end gamers with deep wallets. Asus has rarely innovated in terms of peripherals anymore, will such a ROG series continue to capture the hearts of all gamers or will it gradually fall by the wayside with the brand premium? It’s up to the gamer to choose in the future.

EPIC PC RATE SCORE: 92/100

EPIC REWARD: EPIC DESIGN AWARD, EXTREME POWER AWARD

 
 
 

ASUS ROG THETA 7.1 OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE

The Tiamat 7.1 V2 has 10 independent neodymium magnet units and is no different from the previous generation. The eye-catching acrylic window design makes this headset still a stunning appearance for a gaming headset. The Tiamat 7.1 V2 also supports Razer Chroma Symphony, and it is estimated that many users will like this headset because of the visual appearance.

The Package Appearance

Package Front

Package Back

Package Sides

Opening the box

The headset main body and the accessories

The instruction menu and sticker

The headset additional unit protection cover with Razer logo
This unit protection cover has a matte texture and is magnetically fixed for stability.

The main body of Razer Tiamat 7.1 V2

The overall colour is still black, the head beam is nickel-plated black stainless steel, the inner head beam is made of PU + breathable mesh, the weight of the headset reaches 390g, the overall quality is also up there with Razers flagship gaming headsets. The wiring part uses a total of five 3.5mm interfaces including the microphone, which means it only can be used under a sound card that supports physical 8-channel output

The head beam angle of the headset has a maximum twisting angle of 90° and a 15° longitudinal adjustment, in order to have better sound insolation. Because nearly all kinds of gaming-grade headsets that support surround sound must have some degree of sound isolation. The overall head pressure of this headset is moderate. When you start wearing it, you will feel that the earmuff is thicker, or the earmuffs are deeper, which results in a good fit around the ear

The earmuffs are made of cortical sponges

The transparent acrylic unit cover allows you to see the internal unit housing and support Razer Chroma Symphony

The microphone is designed to be folded, not retracted into the housing

There is no extra button or potentiometer on the headset
After we removed the earmuff, the covers with five unit holes are exposed

The headset central controller

According to the scale thats printed on the panel, this controller can adjust the sound levels of the side unit, center unit, front unit, microphone, subwoofer unit, and rear unit. Unfortunately, there are no backlights for the knobs and scales

The main adjustment knob is printed with the Razer Logo, and is textured

The three buttons located in the bottom side are microphone mute button, external speaker and headset switch button and 7.1ch on/off button

The 5 headset cables and a USB power cable that comes with the central controller
The 3.5mm connectors correspond to the front channel, center & bass channel, side channel, rear channel, microphone input, USB is the interface for power supply and headset lighting module, In the Razer Synapse 2.0 software, only the lighting effect of the Tiamat 7.1 V2 can be adjusted, and nothing relating to the sound quality and effects can be set. All the settings of the sound are either through the sound card mixer software or the central controller of the headsets

The Product Disassembling
After removing the headset unit cover, we found a circus board with an integrated lighting controller

Emmm..we don’t know why the wiring and soldering joints are not protected with an interference shield. As we can imagine, interference could be a problem

The transparent cover has the led light bars integrated

The internal units’ layout

The largest unit in the center is the 40mm woofer, while the front unit is 30mm, so if you switch to 2.0 mode, you must remember to turn down the volume of the woofer and turn up the volume of the front unit, otherwise the sound channel will be limited to the middle and high ranges

The five 3.5mm expansion sockets located in the back of the central controller can be used as expansion interfaces also allowing the user to connect a 5.1 channel speaker and switch between them. We haven’t found a similar function on the other brands’ flagship headsets

Carefully open the indicator sticker on the central controller, there are 4 screws to disassemble

After removing the cable, the top cover has been taken off

The indicator board

The top switch potentiometer

The main switch potentiometer, manufactured by TTC

The potentiometer knobs

The ‘IB0505S-2W’ 2W isolated DC-DC converter manufactured by MORNSUN

The mbed NXP LPC11U24 microcontroller is designed for prototyping low-cost USB devices, battery-powered applications, and 32-bit ARM® Cortex™-M0 based designs

PT2258 is a 6-Channel electronic volume controller IC utilizing CMOS technology specially designed for the generation of av multi-channel audio systems

The rear audio port board

The back of the central controller board, solder joints look messy and the soldering tightness is not very secure

Software Analysis
The headset only can be controlled by sound card software and Razer Surround PRO

Calibration can be set up under ‘Calibration Wizard’

Unfortunately, we cannot find the Tiamat 7.1v2 in the list, instead, we have chosen the Tiamat 2.2

The calibration adjustment panel

Finish the calibration

The ‘Enhancements’ menu, the suggested settings are to enable all enhancement selections to improve the listening experiences

The EQ menu, users can adjust the EQ according to their needs

The Hearing Analysis

MUSIC MODE
Whether it is 2.1 or 7.1 mode, this headset will disappoint you while enjoying music. All frequencies are mixed together, giving the feeling of chaos, nearly no BASS and overly sharp, optimisation will make all the drums and guitars become like metal friction. The vocals in the music are being stretched and tapered like the HAL9000

MOVIE MODE
After the 7.1 mode is activated, this headset finally shows some glimmer of hope. It is awesome to watch HD movies, however, it’s not for the bass lover.

GAMING MODE
This headset was born for gaming with an HQ sound card supported. The performance of this headset in the game can be described as ‘legendary’. After nearly 1 hour of channel volume adjustment and testing, the footsteps in FPS games are very precise, and the spatial positioning is also amazing. You can clearly point out voice comms, the sound of the clip and the sound of firing. Plus, the soundproofing of the earmuffs is quite good, so you can immerse yourself inside the game. The only weakness of this headset is playing music games, the music has been over-analysed and we are not satisfied with the effect.

Overall
The Razer Tiamat 7.1 V2 has improved the quality on the previous generation and still is a physical 8-channel earphone with 3.5mm analog interface. It is necessary to pay for a decent sound card in a suitable movie or game scene, sound mode, and EQ settings. After the proper setting, it did have a very good sound layering and surround feeling, but don’t expect too much for this kind of headset in music playback, mainly because the front unit was designed to cut the size and weight (30mm driver rather than a 40mm). The overall weight of the earphone is around 390g. It’s quite good for a physical 7.1 headset. At the same time, it’s comfortable to wear because the head pressure is not very hard.

Let’s talk about the shortcomings, which is the Noise Floor problem. If the headset volume is reached to the maximum, there will be an obvious Noise Floor. Then you have to use the method of increasing the system volume and reducing the headset volume. Finally, the Tiamat 7.1 V2 is a choice for users who want to use a good 7.1-channel sound card to experience the surround effect, more suitable for people who already own multiple headsets. Another problem for this headset is it cannot be supported by the latest Razer Synapse 3, if you have several latest Razer products that controlled by RS3, you have to install both RS2.2 and RS3 together, which is complicated to control and use.

EPIC PC RATE SCORE: 87/100

EPIC REWARD: EDITOR’S CHOICE & DESIGN AWARD

RAZER TIAMAT 7.1 V2 OFFICIAL WEBSITE: https://www2.razer.com/au-en/gaming-audio/razer-tiamat-71-v2

The Sound

The Razer Kraken follows many of its predecessors in its presentation and sound. Typically, in a gaming headphone, the manufacturer produces them to overwhelm your senses with deep bass that will satisfy any gamer and prospective EDM lover but underwhelm the average user. The Kraken is no exception, but with a much cleaner bass representation than I have heard from a gaming headphone. Even at a higher price point, the SteelSeries Siberia 840 (~$390) and even Razer’s own Thresher Ultimate headphones (~$400) don’t present the bass as clean as the Kraken. For a headphone that is hundreds of dollars cheaper, you can see why I heap on praise to Razer. Razer does tout their headphones as being ‘balanced’ but this is by no means true. The bass still washes out the mids/highs and makes the AWP from CS:GO sound more like a cannon than a sniper rifle (just like the SteelSeries Siberia 840). The software does give users the ability to equalize the sound signature to reduce the bass which gives some nice customisation but most gamers will simply never be bothered to touch these settings.

The Razer Synapse Audio Tab

The Razer Synapse EQ Tab

The 7.1 works well but I haven’t seen any noticeable difference in-game when playing CSGO or PUBG compared to any other gaming headphone. I would say if you are in the market for surround sound, then there are better headphones.

The Build & Quality

The build quality of the Kraken is simply astounding. It’s as if they opened up the book of audiophile-grade equipment and actually took notes. The earpads are synthetic but are made to emulate the lambskin of some of the greatest headphone companies in the world (HiFiMAN or Audeze) and it does a decent job of it. They are soft and despite being synthetic, breathe well over long gaming periods. The stitching on the headband is clean and is better than I have seen on some cars.

The headphone feels and looks sturdy. With an aluminum chassis running down the side and into the frame. During my extensive gaming periods, I haven’t felt that they would ever break even when stretching the headband out. This is mainly due to the headband being insanely flexible, being able to be pulled out at almost 90 degrees before I feel like I’m doing any damage to the headphones.

That being said, I do have a few gripes about the build quality. The cable just isn’t long enough. The cable measures in at 2m which makes it impossible to route behind my desk and instead I have to plug it into the front of my tower. This increases the chance of breaking the USB tongue by running into it with my chair or hitting my foot against it. It also increases the chance of running over the cable which is not removable. When will companies learn that gamers want their headphones to last longer than the cables attached to them? That being said, my desk is fairly wide, but it’s something to keep in mind when shopping for these headphones. Razer does deliver some convenience with its cable, having the Kraken run via one USB for both playback and recording.

Another more minor issue is that the cable between the headband and the cups run outside of the frame. This increases the chance of users breaking their headphones, especially if they want to keep them for long periods of time. This was obviously a necessary evil that Razer chose when deciding to make the headband-less chunky.

Razer opted to expose the cable

The headphones come in a range of options in terms of painting and decal. The Razer Kraken comes in default black, white, quartz (pink), green and my gunmetal version. You can even buy Razer Kitty Ears for your Kraken if that’s your thing…

RGB

RGB on headphones is something we can really live without. I can understand RBG on a keyboard or a PC tower because you can actually see it while your gaming. You can’t see it on a headphone but Razer has opted to implement it anyway.

There are two dedicated RGB areas on the Razer Kraken. These are on the two earcups and show an illuminated Razer Logo. Although it feels like you’re more of a brand ambassador for Razer than a gamer, I appreciate that they have made the logos smaller than many other competitors. The functionality is fairly limited and has 4 different settings: static, breathing, spectrum cycling and none. This is far from the Razer Lancehead TE which had endless customisation.

Software

I feel like a broken record writing about this having just reviewed the Razer Lancehead TE which shares similar software to the Kraken. Why do you need to sign up to use all the functionality of your headphones? Sure, the headphones are plug and play and you can get away with using them without the software, but to fiddle around with any of the additional settings Razer forces you to give them your email address, name and birthday.

The software isn’t bad. It’s not exactly great either. Perhaps its because the Kraken 7.1 is older than the Lancehead TE but Razer has opted to use the older Synapse software when compared to the new Razer Central. Razer Central has done leaps and bounds for the company’s software and it’s sad to see old products such as the Kraken 7.1 v2 not being uplifted onto the new software. Despite this, the software is well laid out and feature rich. The lighting tab is uncomprehensive as discussed earlier in my RBG section, but I don’t really blame them since gamers don’t really care about lights on their head. The software does feature plenty of features to tweak your audio, including a calibration for the 7.1 surround sound and a full equalizer.

Razer has once again outdone themselves on an affordable piece of tech for gamers of any calibre. The Razer Kraken 7.1 v2s build quality is outstanding, having taken a leaf from the great audiophile companies that exist today. The sound is decent, albeit reminiscent of the SteelSeries Siberia 840s but with a much cleaner bass presentation. All-in-all, I would strongly recommend checking out these headphones and they may have just overtaken the HyperX Cloud II’s as my go-to recommendation.

Verdict/Bottom Line

Pro

✔ Great value for money
✔ Decent sound quality
✔ Great build quality
✔ Extremely comfortable and lightweight
✔ All plugs in via one USB cable

Con

✖ Too bass heavy; although cleaner than many
✖ Software that you have to sign up for
✖ Cable isn’t embedded in the frame
✖ Cable just isn’t long enough

Rate: 4/5

What’s in the box?

– Razer Kraken Quick Start Guide
– Razer Kraken 7.1 V2 Headset
– Razer Marketing Material