The Sennheiser GSP670 Wireless Gaming Headset Review: Cutting The Cord
by Andrei Frumusanu on July 5, 2019 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Gaming
- Headset
- Audio
- Sennheiser
- GSP670
Microphone Testing
Obviously enough, because this is a full headset we also have to take a look at the microphone performance.
My test setup for this was relatively ghetto as I wanted to get good repeatability and consistency. I used one of my main speakers as the audio source as the GSP670’s fitted nicely over it. I calibrated the speaker’s frequency response to be as flat as possible from the recording distance, and also included measurements from a calibrated reference measurement microphone as well as my cheap 13€ Neewer XLR mic with my cheap audio interface.
In terms of frequency response, it largely corresponds to what Sennheiser reports: 10Hz to 7KHz. Now this isn’t really a great FR for a microphone, and the particularly steep drop-off after 7KHz is very audible in the audio quality.
Again for the sake of repeatability, I opted for a recording of a playback on the above setup. Sir Patrick Stewart will have to make due for us (Credit: GameStorys YouTube clip of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow).
Unfortunately, the quality really isn’t the best and there’s an obvious lack of clarity due to the limited frequency range.
The fact that the GSP670 performs quite a lot worse than my 13€ mic is a bit shameful for Sennheiser. I don’t quite understand why the company had limited the frequency range on the new headphones to just 7KHz while the predecessor GSP600 has a fuller frequency range till 15KHz. Would this be actually meant in some way to improve competitive gaming by not interfering with the higher end treble and to not miss any enemies?
In any case, I don’t like it, and it’s a damn shame Sennheiser even puts this on the market.
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ZolaIII - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
I am glad you came on board. Unfortunately neither this headphones nor especially awful AMP/DAC or bad BT RF WiFi modules deserve any attention & can not be recommended. While premium quality materials do deserve high grade that's about it when it comes to those headphones. Drivers aren't anything special & better ones can be found on much cheaper alternatives. The pads look good and quality built while still offering comfort & preventin sweating to much but then again their property clipping mechanism is a big minus. Amp DAC is a rather laughable as even cheaper Chinese DAP's come with better ones. The sound judging by your impressions is also nothing special including separation & the sound stage. While bas look like relatively easy to iron the difference between channels is a spoiler, mids are tad pushed back which is also a spoiler but it can be easily equlised the highs are bad & hard to equlise. In practice this means being tied to the per channel full band EQ (30 bands parametric) which is hastle. All in all pretty much disappointing from such a famous brand. Keep up the good work, finding good headphones especially in value for money category is a very hard thing.Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Right, I forgot to share the EQ targets:https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9adunymvqjbqwqs/AACeWpI...
Here are the impulse responses to be used for convolution, preferably via Equalizer APO.
The C1 target keeps a bit more of the warmth and bass of the default of the headphones while the D1 is a more flat target with wider soundstage.
ZolaIII - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Thanks for sharing.igavus - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
This is an outstanding review. I really like how you followed up on the problems you found. I'm sure this will be of much interest to the team @ Sennheiser who developed & released this. I mean, they're probably not surprised, but I'm sure they didn't expect anyone to actually investigate the reasons for the poor performance. As usually audio review are just hand waving without much insight into what's wrong or concrete directions on how to improve.I just wish that they had engaged You or someone like you before releasing this dud to the public. Would have saved a lot of money and effort. As it stands, this headphone apart from the materials quality has nothing going for it. And the material quality is utterly wasted in this case.
Excellent journalism, wish there was a "give this man a beer" button somewhere, you definitely deserve it ;]
mooninite - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
You have to be very careful about the Sennheiser products you look at. Some of them are very high quality stuff, while most of it seems to be generically engineered to be mass-produced with their label stuck on as a profit booster. Most of their low-level consumer fruit is nothing special yet it still costs hundreds of dollars while their professional grade products are sometimes a little cheaper.Oliseo - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Personally I find open backed headphones far superior for game playing. It actually provides an advantage in shooters as you can easily pinpoit directional sounds much more than a closed back set.Of course, this has the disadvantage of disturbing those around you.
But, if you don't have that problem, then always go with open backed headphones, especially for gaming, as they simply deliver a far superior sound stage.
BenSkywalker - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
It's not just for gaming, closed headphones are just inferior in every way outside of isolating noise. Wireless are also flat out inferior, put them together and anything better than got garbage is actually noteworthy.Byte - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
You just need to broaden your horizons. I recently was in Japan had had a chance to listen to a bunch of headphones from $200-$4000 and it was amazing. There is no inherently "better" technology. Just which fits your tastes. In that regard, wireless is just trash, and so are "gaming" headphones.Sivar - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
Wireless is not necessarily trash. Sennheiser developed lossless wireless tech for their wireless HD650, though I doubt it is used in these gaming headphones.Lossy wireless isn't even necessarily bad. No human can reliably tell the difference between a properly encoded lossy audio file (AAC, Vorbis, etc.). True, headphones do not directly transmit such file formats, but in principle excellent fidelity is possible.
Bluetooth in general is not great for audio quality, but with aptX it has at least the potential for good listening, though I have not heard any supporting devices myself.
Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
There's really nothing preventing closed headphones of having good imaging and wide sound stage.