Roccat Syn Max Air review: Futuristic vibes

Price When Reviewed

249.99

Best Prices Today: Roccat Syn Max Air

Roccat’s current design aesthetic appears so futuristic you may simply switch any of the corporate’s merchandise—the Roccat Kone XP, or Roccat Burst Pro Air mice included—onto the set of a Blade Runner remake and nobody would even blink an eye fixed.

It’s with this similar brush that Roccat has primped the Syn Max Air, which is the successor to the corporate’s Syn Pro Air gaming headset. The Syn Max Air doesn’t reinvent the wheel however does go one higher than its predecessor by way of sound high quality, consolation, and the added comfort of a wi-fi charging station.

With glorious cross-platform compatibility and versatile connectivity within the type of twin wi-fi (Bluetooth and a couple of.4GHz Wi-Fi), it additionally makes doable one among my all-time favourite gaming pleasures—streaming music whereas gaming on my PC.

That mentioned, the Syn Max Air does have a really small sweet bag-sized cluster of niggling quirks, largely centering round its microphone. While these quirks don’t spoil the expertise, they may go away you questioning its somewhat excessive $249.99 price ticket.

Further studying: See our roundup of the best wireless gaming headsets to find out about competing merchandise.

How does the Syn Max Air’s design differ from different headsets?

Among the primary belongings you’ll discover is the sq. cuboid-shaped cups, which provide players a refreshing different to the mundane spherical cups which have grow to be the predominant model of selection. Of course, sq. cups aren’t something new, however glasses pleasant ones with ProSpec earpads just like the Syn Max Air’s are—the design of the cups offering grooves for spectacle frames to suit by way of.

Beyond that profit, although, personally I liked how the Max Air’s cup form jogged my memory of timeless characters from traditional sci-fi TV reveals just like the Cyberman from Dr Who. But what’s infinitely extra vital is that the cups match nicely, and fortunately, they did.

One criticism about this headset’s predecessor was the scratchy mesh material that made up the internal lining of every earcup. It’s scratchy no extra, I’m blissful to report. Gamers can now get pleasure from a mesh-like materials within the internal rim and plush leatherette across the sides, each of which really feel delicate and funky. The cups have loads of reminiscence foam cushioning on them too.

These consolation positive aspects aren’t compromised by the Syn Max Air’s 11.5 ounce (325 gram) weight both, which is just marginally heavier than the 10.97 ounce (311 gram) Syn Pro Air’s weight. Trying it on, I discovered it to really feel weighty however to not produce any sort of fatiguing stress.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

The building is an fascinating mixture of plastic and lightweight aluminum. The black matte plastic within the cups isn’t the flimsy type that seemingly had you in tears as a child as a result of your RC automobile bought pulverised by a truck. No, it’s quite a bit stronger than that. The band being clearly comprised of steel is stronger nonetheless—though surprisingly, there’s an entire absence of clamp stress.

What there’s no absence of, nonetheless, is RGB lighting. Here, Roccat’s price range may have been squandered on only a easy RGB ring, however it’s been put to good use illuminating honeycomb layers within the backside nook of every cup and beneath the charging station. All this RGB is programmable and in addition appropriate with the Roccat’s AIMO RGB ecosystem.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

The headband makes use of a novel cylindrical rod mechanism to regulate the peak of the cups. It holds its positioning at precisely the elevation you need it. The similar sort of cussed immovability might be discovered within the cups, sadly. They can swivel by way of 180 levels however are extremely tight to maneuver. In truth, when you’re susceptible to a getting a sore neck, don’t anticipate any easing from these cans.

What sort of controls do you get within the Syn Max Air?

There aren’t actually a number of controls on the Max Air to tinker with. You get a quantity wheel, a mic monitor button, energy button, and Bluetooth button. The Syn Max additionally comes with a removable unidirectional TruSpeak microphone that clips into the left earcup. This has flip-to-mute performance, which saves a number of fumbling round at nighttime.

For the $249.99 sticker value there’s no level mincing phrases concerning the sort of controls I want the Max Air had. For starters, I’d have appreciated to see the addition of a 3.5mm auxiliary port for the flexibleness of with the ability to hardwire my connection on the fly.

Additionally, I may have completed with an audio mixer and Bluetooth management—each of that are controls yow will discover within the Logitech G’s Astro A30 Wireless—which is a incredible gaming headset that ships for $20 much less. Still, the very fact you get a charging dock considerably makes up for the somewhat primary choice.

Roccat Max Syn Air compatibility and connectivity

You can use the Roccat Syn Max Air with Microsoft Windows 10/11 PCs but additionally your Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5 and cellular phone too, which makes it a do-almost-everything machine.

The connectivity consists of two.4GHz Wi-Fi in addition to Bluetooth, or a wired connection through the provided USB-C to USB-A cable. The Wi-Fi and Bluetooth can be utilized concurrently, which is a really cool function. It means you may stream an extra audio supply of your option to your headset whereas enjoying—however extra on that later.

Putting all that connectivity to good use I primarily used the machine in Wi-Fi Mode on my desktop PC with the included 2.4GHz USB transmitter, however the Bluetooth grew to become extraordinarily helpful for gaming on my laptop computer when the restricted variety of ports had been all occupied.

I additionally used Bluetooth to get pleasure from a couple of hours of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on my Nintendo Switch. However, surprisingly sufficient, in Bluetooth mode you may’t simply alter the quantity utilizing the headset’s quantity wheel; as an alternative, you’ll want to alter the quantity on the machine itself, which is sort of inconvenient.

On the upside although, the charging doc is tremendous helpful. It meant I all the time had someplace to maintain my headset secure. It additionally made charging easy sufficient, though based on Roccat the Syn Max Air offers you solely 16 hours playtime on a single cost. Compare that to the 40 or so hours you get from the Razer Barracuda Pro and truthfully, 16 hours appears a bit of small.

Still, together with your charging station arrange subsequent to your rig, even 16 hours of battery life is rarely more likely to be a a lot of an issue.

What’s it like gaming with the Roccat Syn Max Air?

Updating the headset’s firmware within the Swarm companion software program app took longer than anticipated. Thankfully, I didn’t abort the mission, as a result of the audio was nicely well worth the wait. The Syn Max Air’s 50mm Nanoclear drivers produced a pleasant balanced sound that’s actually a marked enchancment on the audio high quality of its predecessor the Syn Pro Air.

Having a better hear revealed the Max Air’s drivers to be particularly tuned for mid-range frequencies, a proven fact that’s going to particularly favor esports gamers of video games like Fortnite or CounterStrike: Global Offensive.

Beyond these superficial musings, you must also know that in comparison with headsets just like the Arctis Nova 7X and Logitech G935, which ship a bit of cheaper, the Max Air’s audio sounds barely distant, as if the sound is coming from additional away. That isn’t essentially a foul factor, however it isn’t going to be to everybody’s liking. I had some success making the audio sound a bit of nearer by tweaking the 10-band Equalizer settings in Swarm, so it’s good to know you will have that choice.

When it involves the directionality of the sound, I had no complaints. In a recreation of Insurgency, for instance, I loved a pleasant soundscape of explosions and ricochets from all the principle instructions of a compass. This actually added to the sense of realism I bought.

Footsteps weren’t so pronounced, nonetheless. Turning up the quantity helped to repair this however made the remainder of my audio fairly loud too. A greater answer was merely switching on a setting referred to as Superhuman Hearing, which principally accentuates important recreation sounds similar to participant footfalls. Used correctly this function is usually a large asset for FPS gamers.

But the actual gem within the Max Air’s crown for me was the simultaneous Bluetooth performance. Pairing with my cellphone to stream music actually helped enhance my efficiency—I imply who can resist the uplifting energy of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers whereas lobbing a couple of grenades? That’s how I like to make use of this function anyway, however you may simply as simply use it to stream a podcast or take cellphone calls too—different equally uplifting issues.

That’s to not say all the things labored seamlessly. I had a grievance with the Max Air’s microphone really. Although it usually conveyed my voice clearly, it was a bit of too brief to succeed in my mouth, picked up a number of ambient noise, and at instances its indicator sound simply went off all by itself, like some sort of battery-operated children’ doll gone haywire.

These are points that didn’t go away a really constructive impression of the mic for me interval. But since I’m not an enormous mic consumer anyway, they didn’t do a lot to spoil my expertise.

Should you purchase the Roccat Syn Max Air?

The Syn Max Air is a leap forward of its predecessor the Syn Pro Air in sound high quality and is eminently extra snug. It additionally has commendable cross compatibility and simultaneous twin wi-fi connectivity—options any self-respecting players are going to like.

While an underperforming mic, and steep $250 price ticket could give some players purpose to pause on the checkout, simply as many will probably be blown away by options like its respectable 3D audio, glasses pleasant design, devoted charging dock, and good RGB. Those options alone make it a rarity amongst headsets and a strong selection value contemplating.