A great gaming headset can deepen your appreciation for evocative music and impactful sound design in games. Sure, you could play through a game with basic earbuds, but you’ll miss out on the little details, not to mention the clear, crisp audio and comfort that a higher-quality headset can offer. Thankfully, there are many (almost too many) headsets out there that can elevate your gaming experience.
Despite their differences, buying a gaming headset is similar to buying headphones. If you want peerless build materials, sound quality, mic quality, long battery life, wireless connectivity, and comfort, then you’ll likely pay dearly. But if you simply want one or two of those boxes checked, you can get by on something that won’t cost you more than a couple of new games, at most.
Sound quality and comfort are subjective, of course, but we tried to pick a range of options to cover the widest range of tastes, preferences, and budgets. We’ll keep this guide updated regularly, and we plan to update it when notable headsets become available.
The Razer BlackShark V2 has a reputation as a great esports companion. Its combo of stellar audio, adjustable microphone, and above-average sound isolation offers everything a high-performance wired headset should at the reasonable price of $99.99 (in fact, it often costs less).
How to buy the right gaming headset for you
In case you need a crash course on wireless versus wired headsets, wireless models grant you more freedom to move around, but are prone to interference, audio lag, and signal dropouts. Going wired tethers you to your controller or console, but you won’t have to worry about any of the possible wireless mishaps.
If you encounter a wireless headset that’s advertised to work
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