Reviews on Razer Kraken Ultimate

Razer is well known for offering a wide range of very similar gaming headsets, so it's no surprise that the company's newest, the Razer Kraken Ultimate, is a little hard to tell apart from the myriad of other offerings from the Kraken brand. This appears to be the premium offering in the Kraken product line, with colored LED lights and surround sound.

Is that enough to justify the price hike?

Editor's Note: This review was updated on June 21, 2021 to reflect the price update.

Who is the Razer Kraken Ultimate for?

PC Gamers

who want full functionality

gaming headset

they can sync with their LED-riddled gaming setups.

home workers

looking for something light and comfortable to attend endless conference calls in an office that recently switched to Zoom-based interactions.

What's in the box?

Oh, there's also a little plastic cap for the USB socket.

The Razer Kraken Ultimate doesn't come with much, it's just the headset and a brief quick start guide manual.

What does the Razer Kraken Ultimate look like?

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

To be honest, if you used a

Razer Kraken

before you already know more or less what it's like to use the Razer Kraken Ultimate. It's not that there's nothing new here, just nothing that changes the experience so drastically for the make it really new. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

This helmet is constructed essentially the same as all the others

Kraken helmet

.It has an aluminum frame, with a foam cushion along the headband.The headphones are large, with thick ear pads filled with cooling gel and foam, and covered with leatherette on the sides and soft fabric on the the top (where the earphones touch the face. The retractable microphone is in the left earcup. Basically, everything feels very familiar, and very comfortable. Oh, and it now lights up too, if

you're in it

.

The ear pads are among the Razer Kraken Ultimate's only physical changes from previous models.

The headset pads are thick and soft, so

achieve a comfortable seal

is easy. The fabric of the ear pads doesn't cause as much heat buildup as leatherette, so your ears and head will stay cool even after wearing them for hours. Gamers with glasses should also enjoy of this headset, as there are hidden bezel channels etched into the pads to lessen the strain that is so common and make it easier to get a decent seal. A velor option would still be appreciated, but Razer uses this solution for a while, and it works well.

Using the headset is a pretty simple affair. The Razer Kraken Ultimate has a mic mute button placed on the mic - just press the tip to mute. Plus, there's a thumbwheel volume knob and a surround sound button on the back of the left headset. The hinges of the headset don't provide a very wide range of motion, so it takes a little adjustment to get the perfect fit. Overall this gaming headset really doesn't require a lot of work.

Synapse is still a little troublesome, despite its abilities.

However, this particular Kraken runs on fewer platforms than most. It's a

USB gaming headset

, which means that there is really only

works on pc

.In addition to this, the headset depends on the connection to

Razer Synapse

for surround sound. This means that the surround sound on and off button won't do anything but light up until you turn the setting on in Synapse. Turning it on is also a bit tricky, because many games will still use stereo sound by default until you change their individual settings in Synapse.

Playing with the Razer Kraken Ultimate

Big headphones are great for long gaming sessions.

Despite the issues I encountered with the Razer Synapse, the Kraken Ultimate delivered a uniformly solid gaming experience. Playing games like

Intrepid

,

Eternal destiny

, and

Surveillance

offered no struggle for the headset. The combination of fabric and cooling gel in the ear pads made it easier to wear the headset for multi-hour gaming sessions. It's a fairly lightweight headset, so extended periods with cause it minimal tension.

It's a PC-only affair.

The Razer Kraken Ultimate brings

surround sound

using THX Spatial Audio, which apparently offers a 3 to 60 degree sphere for more realistic audio depth. When enabled, surround sound worked very well, but not necessarily better than other competing standards, especially in

Loss,

where staying on the move while surrounded by a wide variety of enemies is basically the only way to survive. I never had trouble distinguishing what types of enemies were in different positions. I still died a lot , but surround sound won't make you better in a game, it's just one more piece of the puzzle.

How does the Razer Kraken Ultimate sound?

The slight de-emphasis in the mids and highs makes the boosted bass sound a bit ominous.

The Razer Kraken Ultimate offers reasonably accurate sound for a gaming headset. There's over-emphasis in low-end sounds in the 50-90Hz range, and consistent, albeit slight, de-emphasis in the mid and high ranges. this topic won't get things too out of whack, but a frequency response like this creates the risk of auditory masking, where some noises drown out others due to poor balancing.

In music, this means EDM and other genres of music, which feature

big booming bass

will likely sound great on the Razer Kraken Ultimate. However, where prominent bass exists in tandem with mid and high tones, it may seem that the vocals or sounds of certain strings and cymbals struggle to follow.

At the beginning of

You descend gently

by Lake Street Dive

, the big straight bass line is loud and clear, but the somewhat harsher hi-hat and tambourine sounds should be heard. Conversely, in a song like

Kappa Conga Kappa

by Danny Baranowsky

, the rhythmic bassline drives the whole song and sounds as dominant as it's meant to be, while the melodic parts somehow blend together without being totally drowned out in a very pleasing way.

In game, a

response frequency

as this means the sounds of booming explosions and gunfire will be a bit louder than normal which is fine if you are playing solo. If you are playing during a voice chat you may find that the In-game sounds more easily mask what others are saying. The underemphasis of mid and high sounds, where most vocal sounds live, doesn't pair very well with boosted bass in this regard.

Thick ear pads make it easy to get a decent seal.

The Razer Kraken Ultimate offers very good

insulation

for a gaming headset. There's nothing close to active noise cancellation, but the headset's thick, soft ear cushions do a good job of blocking out the kinds of sounds you'd encounter at home. This is a PC-only headset, after all, it's not like you have to block cafes or noisy buses while on the go.

What is the quality of the microphone?

This is a fairly typical gaming headset microphone.

The Razer Kraken Ultimate's microphone isn't terribly remarkable. Like most

gaming headset mics

, there is a fairly steep de-emphasis in the bass range, up to about 400 Hz, and a slight boost in the treble. This means sibilant sounds, (

S, Sh

, and

F

sounds) will be audible and clear, which is important for making speech sound natural. However, people with deeper voices will sometimes find that they sound a bit like they're talking into a tin can, as the less accentuated bass can drain a lot of natural timbre.

I never encountered any clarity issues during my time with him on calls made

Zoom

,

Skype

, Where

Discord

, but the bass underemphasis was quite noticeable. Listen for yourself:

https://www.soundguys.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Razer-Kraken-Ultimate-mic-sample.mp3

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How does the Razer Kraken Ultimate compare to the Razer BlackShark V2?

The Razer BlackShark V2 does not feature random grids or glowing logos.

The

Razer BlackShark V2

signals the company's departure from traditional headset design. It features a matte black finish with minimal branding markings on the earcups and headband, forgoing the jet black exterior and RGB accents found on headphones. headsets like the Razer Kraken Ultimate. Both headsets are very comfortable, but the BlackShark V2 comes with soft, padded ear cushions covered in mesh fabric and leatherette, providing a level of comfort that makes it feel like nothing's wrong. is on the head.

When it comes to sound quality, the BlackShark V2 is much better than the Kraken Ultimate. The BlackShark V2 offers a neutral frequency response, catering to both gameplay and general content consumption. THX Spatial Audio and THX sound profiles for gaming leads to a more immersive gaming experience, compared to traditional 7.1 virtual surround sound.

However, a major caveat of the BlackShark V2 is its microphone. It significantly underemphasizes low to mid frequencies, resulting in a loss of vocal clarity. While the Kraken Ultimate's microphone suffers from the same issues, our tests show that the Kraken Ultimate seems to reproduce midrange sounds slightly better than the BlackShark V2.

Razer BlackShark V2 Microphone Demo

https://www.soundguys.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Blackshark-V2-mic-sample.mp3

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Retailing for under $100, the BlackShark V2 is a worthwhile alternative to the Kraken Ultimate, especially if you don't really need RGB lighting on your gaming headset.

Should you buy the Razer Kraken Ultimate?

If you've already invested in Razer's Chroma devices, of course.

You can find some pretty nice colors for LEDs.

There's a lot to like about the Razer Kraken Ultimate. It's comfortable, lightweight, and with Synapse its features are solidly executed, if a little limited. Sound is good and the mic works reasonably well. glasses and the comfortable earpads are great for gamers with glasses. However, basically all of these features are just as good in the cheaper Kraken models.

Razer Kraken X

is a fraction of the cost, and on PC the only functional difference is its different surround sound standard, plus it runs on

console

.If you really want all the features of the Kraken Ultimate, it currently lasts around

half price

.

If you're looking for a PC headset, there are plenty of options that are just as comfortable and full-featured, and often less expensive.

Corsair HS60 Pro Surround

does everything but light up for about $40 USD.

Logitech G Pro X

offers all the same audio features as the Kraken Ultimate, but it also offers some really useful software with BlueVo!ce mic features. If you still want to get into the Razer ecosystem, but don't care about colored LED lights , new

Razer BlackShark V2

is pretty much a superior headset in every way.

The flashing LEDs aren't aggressive here, so they're by no means a turn-off. However, if that's not your thing and you're just looking for a PC gaming headset, the margin over the regular Razer Kraken is a bit steep.