 "Razer Electra Review")
The gaming hardware market has expanded in India and the number of accessories that are available today seem nothing short of being impressive. The market is flooded with gaming mice, mousepads and headphones and all the big names have made their presence known. Razer has been among the first ones to have entered the market and there’s no shortage of new products being launched. The Electra is one of their more affordable gaming headsets being sold.
Design and build quality
Razer’s profile is filled with somewhat unconventional themed devices. Their gaming mice all stand out from the rest and it’s no different with this new Razer Electra gaming headset. The shape and design is defined by sharper edges and little curves and colours. The headphone is mostly black in colour, which is only contrasted by the light fluorescent green band at the top. There is the usual Razer logo branding on either sides of the cans. While this should catch everyone’s eye, we’re not sure if it’s for the right reasons. Some people tend to like this colour scheme, some don’t. The cables too are coloured in the same green theme. They’re strong, but at 1.3m, they’re not really long; you can’t sit too far back from the PC. There are two cables, one with with a microphone element, one without.
Green cloth lining the insides of the cans
The headband, which is made up of two thin closely placed panels and some cushioning added in between, makes wearing the Electra fairly comfortable. A synthetic cloth-like material is used in place of the plain plastic of false-leather fabrics used on most other headphones. There are no signs of wood and the entire headphone is made up of plastic. The earpads move a little bit, so wearing them for long hours is comfortable. The general build quality is good and it doesn’t look like there’s any chance of damage in the long run.
Features
The Electra is a pretty basic headset in terms of features. The detachable cables make it easy to carry around. We would’ve liked longer cables, but the current length is just about right and the quality of the cables is good. The headphones can also be folded, so carrying them in a small bag is easy. On the inside, the headphones use two 40mm neodymium drivers to generate sound. The mentioned frequency range of the product is 25 to 16,000 Hz, slightly less than what other brands and models are advertised as. The impedance on these cans is 32 Ohms, so driving them is easy - pretty much any sound solution from a PMP to a sound card can drive these headphones.
Standard design for a headphone - nothing extraordinary here
The separate microphone unit has a frequency response range of 100Hz to 10kHz. When the microphone module is connected to the headphone, it places it roughly at the same level as your mouth. Unfortunately, you can only use this with audio devices that have a common jack for microphone input and audio output. This means, phones, PMPs and tablets should be able to use them just fine. You need a PC audio port that supports both microphone and audio output connects in a single jack, though.
Performance
The Electra is a bass heavy headphone and it doesn’t do too badly at music. There’s a fair amount of detail across instruments, but the bass is a little overpowering. If the bass were a little lower, it would’ve been a better detailed headphone. The bass is punchy and the upper range of the frequency spectrum is not very prominent. Even at lower volumes, bass is delivered and there’s a good bit of punch. We tried all kinds of genres of music on the headphones. .
Two cables, one with a microphone cable, one without
The bass is also relatively accurate and there’s no spillover in each beat. This should all help in the performance during gaming. Most gaming headphones tend to have a bass-heavy signature sound to them. It’s no is different in the case of the Razer Electra. The bass heavy end and somewhat recessed mids means vocals and guitars sound slightly duller. The microphone quality is average and the sound intensity is decent for gaming.
Verdict
Gaudy colour - some like it, some don’t
The Electra doesn’t cost as much as some of the high-end audiophile class headphones and it’s definitely not the most expensive gaming headphone offering. At Rs. 3,000, it’s fairly inexpensive . We wouldn’t recommend these to music enthusiasts, but gamers, on the other hand will find it handy. They’re good for gaming, but not necessary usable on every single PC. We would’ve preferred a traditional microphone that’s bundled into the headphone as the additional microphone cable only adds to the confusion.
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