Razer Kraken Ultimate review

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 other gaming headset offerings. Kraken brand. This appears to be the top offering in Kraken's 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 a full game< /p>

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.

Not much is included with the Razer Kraken Ultimate - it's just the headset and a brief quick start guide manual.

What does the Razer Kraken Ultimate look like?

< p> Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

To be honest, if you've ever used a

Razer Kraken

before, you already more or less know what it's like to use the Razer Kraken Ultimate. It's not that there's nothing new here, just nothing that alters the experience so drastically to make it truly 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 in leatherette on the sides and soft fabric on top (where the headphones touch the face. The retractable microphone sits in the left earbud. Basically, everything feels very familiar and very comfortable. Oh, and it now powers up too, if

you like it

.

The ear cushions are a few of 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 it for hours. in the pads to decrease the tension that is so common and make it easier to get a decent seal. A velvet option would still be appreciated, but Razer has used this solution for a while, and it works well.

Using the headset is a fairly simple affair. The Razer Kraken Ultimate features a mic mute button placed on the mic - just press the tip to mute. Additionally, there is a volume wheel and a surround sound button on the back of the left headset. The helmet hinges don't provide a very wide range of motion, so it takes a little tweaking to get the perfect fit. All in all, this gaming headset really doesn't require a lot of work.

Synapse is still a bit of a nuisance, despite its abilities.

However, this particular Kraken runs on fewer platforms than most. This is a

usb gaming headset

, which means it really only works

on pc

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

Razer's Synapse

for its surround sound. This means that the surround sound on and off button will do nothing but light up until you enable the setting in Synapse. Turning it on is also a bit finicky, as many games will always default to stereo sound 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. Play games like

Dauntless

,

Doom Eternal

and

Overwatch

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

This is a PC-only affair.

The Razer Kraken Ultimate brings

< p>surround sound

using THX Spatial Audio, which apparently offers a 3″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

doom,

where staying on the move while surrounded by a wide variety of enemies is basically the only way to survive. I never had any trouble distinguishing what types of enemies were in different positions. I still died a lot, but surround sound won't make you better at 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 noticeable bass boost in the 50-90Hz range, and consistent, if slight, de-emphasis in the mid and high ranges. Nothing about it will make things go too haywire, but a frequency response like this does create 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 look great on the Razer Kraken Ultimate. However, where significant 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 Go Down Smooth

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 bass line drives the whole song and sounds as dominant as it is supposed to be, while the melodic parts somehow blend together without being totally drowned out in a very pleasing way.

In the game, a

frequency response

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

The thick ear pads make it easy to get a decent seal.< /p>

The Razer Kraken Ultimate offers a very good

insulation

for a gaming headset. There's nothing close to active noise cancellation, but the headset's thick, soft ear cushions block out the kinds of sounds you encounter at home well. 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.

There's nothing terribly remarkable about the Razer Kraken Ultimate's microphone. Like most of

gaming headset mics

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

S, Sh

and

F

sounds) will be audible and clear, which is important for natural speech. 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 clarity issues during my time with him on calls on

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 helmet design. It features a matte black finish with minimal branding markings on the ear cups and headband, forgoing the jet black exterior and RGB accents found on 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 feels like you've got nothing on your head.

When it comes to sound quality, the BlackShark V2 is way better than the Kraken Ultimate. The BlackShark V2 offers a neutral frequency response, responding to both gameplay and general content consumption. Additionally, the inclusion of THX Spatial Audio and THX Gaming sound profiles 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 mic. It dramatically under-emphasizes low to mid frequencies, resulting in a loss of vocal clarity. While the Kraken Ultimate's microphone suffers from the same issues, our testing shows 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 less than $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 bit limited. The sound is good and the mic works quite well. Glasses channels and comfortable earpads are perfect for gamers with glasses. However, basically all of these features are just as good in the cheaper Kraken models. the

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

consoles

. If you really want all the features of the Kraken Ultimate, it's currently priced at 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 cheaper. the

Corsair HS60 Pro Surround

does everything but light up for about $40 USD. the

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 enter the Razer ecosystem, but don't care about colored LED lights, the new

Razer BlackShark V2

is pretty much a superior helmet in every other way.

Flashing LEDs aren't aggressive here, so they're not a turn-off in any way. 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.