SteelSeries 7H For i Devices Review

Conclusion

Quality and Ease of Use

No need to beat about the bush here, or even leave you wondering for a moment. The quality of the SteelSeries 7H is impeccable. Every single thing about them is designed without compromise.

The packaging is the first hint that you’ve purchased a premium item and the 7H leaves you in no doubt at all. The box is seriously rugged and the internals are outstanding. The 7H are kept snug in a purposely designed soft plastic container, with non-residue plastic coating any potential points of contact making certain that the headset is in perfect condition. We’ve seen a few headsets where the cable, not the easiest thing to pack in the world, is stuffed in wherever it will fit and requires a certain force applied to it to remove it from the packaging. Here we have no such issues with the cable coming out smoothly and without any stress upon it.

Making an item that you can take apart, without compromising the solid nature of it, is always tricky. If you build it too rugged then it wont come apart easily and will be frustrating to use, yet build it to be easily dismantled and it will quickly become wobbly in those places you don’t want it to be. SteelSeries have nailed the sweet spot between those two extremes perfectly. Very little force is required to change the ear covers or take the 7H apart for easy transportation, yet when its put back together it feels as crisp as it did the first time you took it out the box.

The remote is simplicity itself to use and the benefits of being able to control your audio and telephony without needing to endlessly remove your iPod/iPhone from your pocket cannot be overstated. Anyone who has put their iPod on shuffle and gone “skip, skip, skip, this one, skip, skip” etc will know how frustrating it can be. With the 7H you just double tap the logo on the remote and you’re on to the next song. Fantastic. Equally answering and ending a call, putting one on hold or ignoring it altogether couldn’t be simpler. If you’ve never experienced using an in-line remote in combination with your Apple product, you’re really missing out.

Comfort

Comfort is second only to audio quality in the desirability stakes, and the 7H’s are incredibly comfortable. Even though the sponge ear pieces are designed to be the comfort pair, the leather ones are soft enough that when combined with the light weight of the unit and the excellent headband padding you can wear these all day without any fatigue at all.

Audio

All these fancy tricks and prodigious build quality would be meaningless if the audio reproduction was anything other than stellar. Thankfully, but unsurprisingly, the audio is glorious. I’ve used a pair of SteelSeries 5H as my iPod headphones for months and these blow them away. No element of the soundscape is compromised or overly emphasised. Bass is tight and enough to make your fillings tremble, yet the mids are still crisp and clean with lovely glassy highs. The microphone is up to the normal high SteelSeries standards.

Given my plethora of superlatives regarding the build quality and comfort of the 7H the highest compliment I can give is that the audio itself is the most impressive part of the 7H. It truly is fantastic.

Overall

It’s rare that we get a product that hasn’t got any little niggles to spoil things. Even searching really intently for a quibble, there are none. The SteelSeries 7H are staggering. Even though the price is at the premium end of the non-audiophile headset market the product is so brilliant that they’re almost a bargain. Especially when you compare the price of the 7H to any official Apple audio item, and the SteelSeries totally trounce those in every department.

One of the easiest OC3D Gold Award winners we’ve seen.

      

Thanks to SteelSeries for supplying the 7H for iDevices for review. Discuss in our forums.