Fatality of the Fatal1ty brought out the Roccat from its Kave

About a week ago, I finally understood how using the front audio ports of a case can be a bad idea, especially if they case is on the floor. My 2 year old Creative Fatal1ty headset’s cable was hanging from the top, and they got entangled with my feet when I tried to go to the kitchen, and they broke because of the force. This is not the first time this entangling happened, but this is the first time for this new case (i.e Silverstone Raven RV03). The ports are very tight. So instead of them coming off the socket, the cables came off at this little box like thing where the two cables (i.e. audio out and mic in) separate from the thicker one that goes towards the headset.

R.I.P Fatal1ty, you served me well.

No point trying to repair it. It would give bad sound quality anyways. This would be my excuse to try out a new and better headset.

After looking at the Logitech G35, Corsair HS1, Audio Technica AD500, AD700 etc, headsets by Steelseries and Razer, I settled for the Roccat Kave. It is a true 5.1 headset, while others are all emulated surround. While they are comfortable to wear (was a must!), they are heavy! Very heavy for my little head. I mean, there are 8 speakers in this thing!!! 4 in each can. If I don’t worry about it, I will eventually forget that I am wearing them, but if you try to move your head or look down, you will feel the burden you are carrying. They cannot stay fit if you look down, unlike the Fatal1ty. Heck, I thought it was heavy at first. But they were nowhere near as heavy as this thing.

 

The thing

The monster cans

Other than the size and weight, there is one other problem, which would have not been a problem if I bought a G35. The control box. This has a significantly large controller instead of the little inline volume controller you find in most headsets. This is used for controlling volume of each channel, setting either to game mode or movie mode, muting mic and the master volume controller. Right now it is on the floor as there isn’t room for my to keep it on the desk, and it will be a matter of time I step on that thing and break it.

The control box. When are you getting the foot treatment??

I am not very good with audio. I can tell if it is extremely bad, but I cannot differentiate between good and great. So I cannot really say how better they are compared to the Fatal1ty in music, but in games, it seems to lack a bit of bass compared to the Fatal1ty even though the positional audio is great. TBH, I don’t have the Fatal1ty to do a one to one comparison, can I?

Read a review will ya?

Do I regret getting this headset? Well, not really. Weight is unavoidable, but they could have brought the control box functionality on to the headset itself, like the G35, but that would have made it even heavier, which is unacceptable once again. 

And one more thing. Now I have to connect the speakers to the front audio port. I am thinking about getting a decent audio card, but they are so damn expensive! They don’t release sound cards that often. Especially the midrange ones. Most people who are having the Kave say that until they bought a proper sound card, the Kave didn’t really come out of its cave. Hmm….