Add Dolby sound with this headset

Gone are the days when head phones just reproduced the sound of the source. If the music from the player was good, the headset sound was good. If it was poor, too bad. Headphones offered fidelity to the source—and little else. 

All that is so yesterday. After Bose invented electronic noise cancelling, headsets were able to neutralize the ambient noise by cancelling it wave by wave. Then some active elements helped improve the incoming sound, albeit marginally.

But the HyperX Cloud Revolver S is something else. It is the first pair of headphones I have tried where you can add the effect of Dolby 7 Surround Sound to a mundane track—at the flick of a switch. This feature resides in a USB dongle that you can plug into the headphones, thanks to some very clever and miniaturized electronics. 

The headset look and feels heavy at first sight—actually 376 with the plug-in rubber encased microphone. But the headband with its metal support has been so engineered that the phones seem to float on the ears and seem lighter than they actually are.

This is a headset aimed at professional gamers and the new breed of e-sports fans who want to hear the 3-D and 360 degree action they are watching. There are 3 pre set settings of the equalizer plus independent volume buttons, backed by LED displays. The frequency response is the full gamut from 12 Hz to 28 KHz. The Revolver S can fool you into thinking the sound comes from all over stage, not a fixed point. And yes, the mike has some basic noise cancelling which helps when taking a call.

Professional and serious amateur gamers won't grudge the asking price of Rs 12,999—but I did notice it is available at a discount on some sites. The headphones work with gaming platforms like XBox One, PC, PS4, Wii U, Mac and mobile phones.