Razer Tiamat 7.1 Review (8/10)

Ideally, this would be a review of just the Razer Tiamat 7.1 and it is - in part. Ultimately, I can't really review the Razer without bringing up the Logitech contenders:

• Logitech G35 Review (7/10)
• Logitech G930 Review (9/10)
• Logitech G930 vs G35: A second look

When I first heard of the Razer headphones, so, so, so long ago, I simply could not wait -- I had such a wonderful experience with their Barracuda HP1 headset. Logitech simply beat them to market. 

I think Logitech dropped the ball terribly with the G35. While I imagine the  G930 had the same audio components and as such, capabilities, Logitech decided to restrict the G35's functionality by differentiating the drivers/software (the G930's were able to set individual channel volume) and the gimmicky adjustable headband for the G35 was, in my opinion, a failure and fails to stay on my head (maybe I have a weird shaped head!). Win for G930. 

Not so fast though. The G930 (and G35) has a substantial design problem though -- the plate that holds cup-piece together cracks and breaks very easily -- I've gone through five G930/G35s worth of broken plates. My hypothesis is, that when you slide one cup forward/backward (similar to how a DJ might wear their headphones), you introduce more strain on the plate than the design could handle. I certainly wasn't pretending to be a DJ -- just sliding a cup off so I could listen if the doorbell rang or to quickly yell at a housemate etc. You can see the damage here:

I won't lie, the Barracuda suffered a similar fate -- but spread over years of ownership rather than a mere month or two. Enter the Tiamat 7.1. Or rather, the disappointing paper launch -- unacceptable really for a premium-brand flagship product launch. The Razer was due October/November (don't remember which) 2011 and this was pushed back, one month at a time until pretty much Q2-2012 (with 'limited availability' i.e., out of stock everywhere).

Fast forward to now with my very own pair of  Tiamat 7.1 headphones.

Hits

• Packaging & presentation. Normally I don't care about presentation - so long as what's in the box is good, that's enough for me. Every so often though, a product is packaged and presented so damn well that it deserves particular mention (the only other product to impress me with presentation was the Jawbone Era - it doesn't look like much but when you pop the paper cover off, there's a lot under the packaging).
• Overall Construction & Feel. While I've only had these headphones for a short little bit, they definitely feel like a premium product. The G930 hit this as well (in an ever so slightly different way); the lack of confidence in whether or not the G35's would stay on my head wrecked any chance of impressing me. The Tiamat uses a braided cable like the G35 but it's much softer and much less kink-prone and in general feels a lot better. I suspect that the Razer unit will be less prone to the damage that can break the Logitech units.
• Connects with speakers. The control pod has a pass-through option to let you hook up directly to speakers. This was a totally bonus feature for me -- they should market this better (there's only a single pissy entry in the FAQ page!) While I don't have a use for this (my speakers are hooked up entirely on a different sound card), this is actually quite nice.
• Stow-able microphone. For people who don't care so much for the microphone, having it stow away  completely is pretty awesome (it stows into the left cup). This is nice so that it won't catch on things inadvertently.
• Comfort & Noise cancelling.The comfort is superb. The G930 is an exceptionally comfortable headset and has a very nice, snug fit -- no complaints whatsoever. Instead of the ratcheted fit system, the Razer unit on the otherhand, uses essentially a sling to perfectly fit the headphones to your head and as such it feels lighter on your head. Both units offer very good (and comparable) passive sound cancellation.

Misses

• Control pod. Looking at the control pod and using it quickly, it seems like a very premium and well designed component and for the most part, it is. There are three gripes:
1. Wholly inadequate labelling/backlighting of the buttons at the bottom and the rotary switch at the top. Go ahead, look at the picture above (in full resolution if you want; here's a close up). With the rotary switch, you can tell that there are 7 settings but they are not backlit nor easy to read without turning the lights on and squinting (the rotary toggles between main-volume and individual channel volume) -- they should have much bigger (and backlit) letters such as C, S, LFR etc). To highlight how abysmal this is, have a look at this -- with a flashlight, you can make out what the right side of the dial says -- but you need to shine it pretty much on target with what you're trying to read -- note how the left side lettering isn't readable). Also worth noting -- how often do we need hardware control of individual audio channels?
2. The moment of the main dial itself is different. It's not a fully smooth scroller like what you might find on some home theater receivers - there are definitely detents in the scrolling movement but they aren't clean detentes  It feels that, instead of a physical click for each detent that there happens to be regular spacing of dust in the oiling of the wheel and it just sticks a little. If you ever get a chance to use the Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1, this has a superb feel.
3. Clicking the volume wheel will mute/unmute the audio -- but with 200-300ms delay. This is actually quite disappointing -- you're actually better off cranking the volume to zero or using an alternative mute option if you want the audio to cut out now (i.e. if you're trying to check if the phone/doorbell is ringing etc). If you don't have speakers hooked up, you can use the switch-to-speakers button to instantly mute the audio but switching back to headphone mode (i.e. unmute) still has the lag.
• Volume. Most people have stereo music/audio and running with the 7.1-mode enabled, the audio output is simply too quiet (at maximum volume). This is, of course, understandable -- you're driving less speakers. Even when I enable fake-surround mode on my soundcard, it is slightly better but still too quiet (for what I would expect from maximum volume). Luckily I have some audio tracks that I've mastered in 5.1 (none yet in 7.1) and these are noticeably better (but still on the quiet side, again, for maximum volume). With any audio source, switching the 7.1-mode off and playing in stereo-mode (again at maximum volume), the volume was finally "good" but definitely not even close to the immersion of the G930/G35s. 
• Addendum: looks like you really have to consciously be aware and toggle between stereo and surround mode. For "true surround" this shouldn't be an issue -- whether you're playing stereo in stereo-mode or in 7.1-mode, there should only be audio coming from the LR speakers but apparently not. While we're all familiar with fake-surround where audio-processing attempts to upmix 2.0 into 7.1 (like on the Logitech's), I've never quite heard the opposite haha. What happens if you're listening to stereo music while you're playing a video game? /fail
• Microphone usability. While it's nice that the microphone can be totally stowed away - Logitech scores huge on the usability -- swing it close and it's muted and there's a red light on the tip of the microphone that lets you know if it's muted or not that's easily in your peripheral vision. The swing range of the Razer unit is also extremely limited and it's difficult to put the microphone away without jostling the entire headphones around and/or having to use two hands and/or simply taking the entire headset off your head.
• Color coded plugs. Most cables you'll encounter color the entire plug the designated color (i.e., green, pink, orange etc.). The Razer cables color just the stripe on the actual connector which can make them a bit tricky to identify which plug is which if you're crawled around in a corner or whatnot. The coloring is relatively faint as well so that won't help. The upside is that you'll only need to do this once.

The headphones are analog - meaning you need to plug in a series of 3.5mm stereo jacks into a sound card of some sort. The upside is that makes the Razer unit compatible with just about anything under the sun but the downside is that, to get 7.1 surround, you'll need a 7.1 capable sound card and you'll need to crawl around to plug them in. They need USB power so if you have aspirations of using these headphones with your ipod or whatnot, you'll need to carry a USB power source haha. I happen to use Windows-based systems exclusively so the G930, for me, offers the better convenience of setup (plug in a USB dongle, install drivers) but your mileage may vary. While I like routing my audio through a dedicated sound card, there is something to be said for the convenience of having a soundcard built into the Logitech headphones -- I can use the same headphones on multiple different systems simply plugging the the USB cable in. Mostly a preference point.

Final Tally
Had the Razer been available when I was originally in the market (or even when they originally said they would launch), this might be a different but alas:

1. Logitech G930. 
• +Good fit and finish, very comfortable
• +Excellent overall volume, sound quality and passive noise cancellation
• +Able to disable the software fake-surround with a (physical!) switch
• +Wireless convenience (very long battery life, usable while charging)
• +Ear cups turn so you can have the entire headphones flat on a table
• +Excellent microphone design and usability
• +Excellent wireless functionality (40 feet+)
• +Macro-capable buttons on the headset (needs drivers and they aren't the same "G-keys" as per the keyboards -- but it's something)
• +Volume controls directly on the unit + mute of headphones
• --Can only run in 2.0 or 7.1 mode. No option to run, say, 5.1
• --Flimsy plate holding the cup. I guess if you take this into account, you can minimize the extra strain on the piece but really, should be designed better
• --The power-on switch should be a on-off physical switch rather than hold-the-button-down-for-a-certain-amount-of-time. Most of the time this is a non-issue but having a physical switch would be nice
• --Initial driver quality was terrible (the drivers are much better now) 
2. Razer Tiamat 7.1.
• +Excellent fit and finish (overall)
• +Stowable microphone (handy for people who predominantly don't use the mic)
• +Exceptionally comfortable, comparable sound cancelling and sound quality
• +Individual channel volume options
• +Control pod overall is well designed, falls easily to the hand
• +Excellent cable wrapping, plenty of cable length
• +Speaker pass-through
• +Genuine 7.1 audio with dedicated speakers
• +Seems to be better construction overall than the Logitech units
• +Works without specialized headphone-specific drivers
• --Most expensive of the three
• --Volume output is notably less than the Logitech units
• --You have to be very conscious of whether you are listening to 2.0 or surround content and switch the headphone mode accordingly (suggests that non-surround content is 'down-mixed'). This effectively means you can't play surround (games) and non-surround (mp3s) content simultaneously 
• --Microphone design and usability is inferior to the G930/G35
• --Lag on the control pod mute functionality
• --Terrible writing/backlighting on the control pod (fyi, the volume indicator wil
3. Logitech G35. 
• A distant third - there's next to no reason to get the G35 when the G930 offers individual channel volume and identical audio hardware, better fit (in my opinion), the additional option of wireless  and the price difference is so small. Compared to the Razer, the Tiamat is superior every way (except that you need to be aware of surround vs non-surround content)

I have, what likely is an unpopular opinion -- that the Logitech G930 is a better buy against the Razer Tiamat 7.1 (assuming you're on a Windows platform). If you're careful and aware of the weak point, there's almost no reason in the world to get the Razer. Sure, the Razer has genuine surround audio -- but at the cost of not being able to eleganty handle mixed stereo+surround audio and extra work for the user to toggle between modes. If you're exclusively using these nearly-$200 headphones for gaming (and/or if your audio content is surround audio) then this isn't such a problem.

Ignoring the surround-aspects, from an audio perspective, the Logitech and Razer units come out to a draw. Logitech wins hands-down on the microphone front (I'd also say the volume control for the Logitech's is better). For Windows-users, the G930 wins in the ease of setup as well as easy transferability between systems. The Logitech units have substantially better volume output (I typically run 4-6 out of 10 on the G930 whereas I have yet to roll the Tiamat's volume lower than 10)..

The only time where the Razer might eke a win is if you're:

1. Running non-windows
2. You explicitly need to have surround-speakers and headphones connected to the same sound card -- this is kind of a contrived advantage as with Windows 7 you have on-the-fly audio source switching for many audio sources (not available on Windows Vista/XP) and with not a lot of effort you can get multiple sound cards to fire simultaneously (i.e. route MP3 through sound card X, Skype through soun card Y and play games through headphones).
3. You explicitly need real surround audio and/or physical channel volume control
4. You don't want wireless audio -- the Tiamat is vastly superior to the G35.

If I could, would I return the Tiamat? No, they are very good headphones -- comfy, good audio quality and quite comfortable. For what it's worth, my volume gripes with the control pod are nullified by the fact that I don't see myself running less than maximum volume and I have a G510 keyboard with volume/media/mute controls. If, for Revision 2, they improved the visibility of the control pod and increased the volume output, this would be golden and be a G930 beater (unless you explicitly wanted wireless).

Would I have gotten a replacement G930? Hmm tough question - I still might get a replacement G930 (or rather, replacement plate) and have two headsets. To put this in perspective, my audio setup:

• Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro + Logitech Z5500 -- for daytime gaming, movies etc. This is my primary audio output
• Logitech G930 -- Skype is routed to this device so I can chat while wandering around the house doing other things
• Razer Tiamat 7.1 -- For when I can't use the Z5500 (i.e. late night gaming/movies etc.). Also nice to have a headset permanently attached to a system (meaning, I can now, as needed, take the G930 on trips etc) 

Ideas? Thoughts? Questions?