I have proof that low-latency headphones actually made me a better gamer

digitaltrends.com:

Latency. It’s the invisible pain point of gamers around the world. Especially in the past few years, gaming has been about the lowest latency possible, as marketing ploys promising you’ll be a better gamer float around on everything from graphics cards to earbuds.

The latest example is the Urbanista Seoul, a pair of Bluetooth true wireless earbuds that come with a dedicated gaming mode for phones, not the traditional 2.4GHz low-latency connection you find on the best gaming headsets. I wanted to see if latency actually improves your gaming performance when mere milliseconds are on the line. And to my surprise, it does.

I could tell you that low-latency headphones made a difference to my gaming with some lofty anecdotal experience, but that’s not what I’d call hard proof. So instead, I devised a short test that could put some hard numbers on the differences between Bluetooth and low-latency gaming modes.

I played through the demo mission of the upcoming rhythm-based first-person shooter Metal: Hellsinger, switching off between Bluetooth and the low-latency connection between each run. I also ran the mission five times with my pair of wired Audioengine A2+ speakers to set a baseline, which is how I normally play games.

Instead of the overall score, which factors in things like your hit streak and headshots, I paid attention to the “hits on beat” metric alone. I didn’t use the game’s built-in latency compensation either to get as close of a comparison as possible.

Headphones and earbuds are all a little different, and they come with differences in latency. Instead of focusing solely on the Urbanista Seoul, I tested a few different gaming headsets with Bluetooth and low-latency connections:

I’m glad I tested a wide range of