Review – SteelSeries Siberia v2

SteelSeries, a leader in the gaming peripheral arena, has finally been made widely available to Canadians. I got the chance to take their brand new Siberia v2 Full-size headset for a spin, and despite the hefty price tag, it is well worth it for a gamer. Considering how long a good headset will last, devoting more money into a headset is not necessarily a bad idea.

The most impressive feature of this headset is its comfort. Instead of using standard adjustable schemes, the headset uses a soft suspension band on top that essentially self-molds to your head. It fits as comfortably on my two-year-old’s head as it does on mine, as demonstrated here:

That’s my daughter, by the way, and not me. The ear pads are made of a soft leather of faux-leather and allows hours of straight play without discomfort. All other headsets I’ve used will hurt my ears after a couple of hours, but the combination of the suspension band and the soft pads did the trick.

I used the headset while playing World of Warcraft (in both arena and raid settings), Torchlight, and Dragon Age: Origins, as well as listening to some music through iTunes through my Soundblaster Audigy SE card. The increase in audio quality is noticeable as compared to my lower priced offering from Logitech that I was using previously. In terms of listening to music though, it fails to capture the same soundstage that my non-gaming, open Grado headphones provides. But the audio quality is perfect for games. Every intonation from the voice actors in Dragon Age is well conveyed and the booming explosions from Torchlight were… well, booming. The sounds are clean and crisp, and had no problems over Ventrilo either.

The microphone is retractable on the left side, making storage easy and not a hideous eyesore. The microphone is also soft and bendable but I found I had to have it fairly close to my mouth in order for it to carry sound to my teammates.  The noise reduction is probably sufficient for most LAN environments, though I hadn’t had time to go to one to test it there myself. However, I did test it with a child in the house, and though it (fortunately) did not block her out entirely, I was still able hear the dialogue in the games.

The Siberia v2 is a joy to use and is used around the world by some of the top eSports teams, including SK Gaming, and it’s easy to see why. If I was stuck in a long tournament, there is no other headset I would rather use due to the comfort factor.