QPAD QH-1339 Pro Gaming Headset Review

Conclusion

As always we tested the QH-1339 on the excellent ASUS Phoebus with a variety of games, films and music to put it through its paces. The combination of QPAD and beyerdynamics have produced an absolute winner in terms of audio fidelity and reproduction quality.

It would, in truth, be easy to list of the array of things we used to test the QPAD QH-1339 and comment upon this and that but the reality is that by any measure, in comparison to anything you are likely to have ever heard before, the QH-1339 blows it away in every regard.

The build quality is amazing, with the combination of aluminium and steel providing a very sturdy spine, and yet it’s been designed in such a way as to be very light too. Comfort is always at a premium with something you’re likely to wear for a long period of time. Even in short battles at a LAN party the last thing you’d need is your headset distracting you, and the QH-1339 are very comfortable indeed. There is just enough pressure upon the ear-pieces to lock them firmly around your ears, yet not so much that you feel like your head is in a vice. Even those of us who are gifted in the head-size department found them a treat to wear.

Sound is where the beyerdynamics expertise really comes through and we can’t begin to express how rich the QH-1339 are. The aural experience is one of the hardest to express in a written form. Not only do we all have different auditory responses, but we all like different things from our music. So we must revert to superlatives in an attempt to get across how beautiful the fidelity of every type media comes through via the magic of the QH-1339. Are you a fan of bass? Like that percussive thump that makes it seem like your heart is going to burst through your chest? The QPAD has you covered. No woolly, flabby response here. It’s tight, focussed and pounding. But not dominating at all. The midrange, the area where so many of the things we hear resides, covers the full spectrum from driving rhythms to glorious harmonies with a definition that is simply staggering. Finally the top end, so often the preserve of harsh tinny sounds, is resplendent with a glassy quality that is still well-rounded.

If the measure of the quality of an audio device is to be able to listen to a film or album that you’ve heard a hundred times before and find yourself catching something that had hitherto gone unheard, then the QPAD QH-1339 is the yardstick by which all future headsets can be judged. Unfortunately this audio quality doesn’t come cheap, and the pricing is unquestionably the Achilles Heel of the QPAD QH-1339 when it comes to choosing a gaming headset. If you’re looking at this as a method of talking to your teammates in BF4 or Ghosts then you’re missing the point and thus the QH-1339 will seem prohibitively expensive. However, this is actually set of HiFi headphones that happens to have a microphone attached and by that measure the pricing is actually competitive. It still has to be taken into account with our final score though, but the sheer quality of the QPAD QH-1339 Pro Gaming Headset means that it takes home our Performance Award.

If this is the beginning of the collaboration between QPAD and beyerdynamics then the future is bright indeed.

      

Thanks to QPAD for supplying the QH-1339 for review. Discuss your thoughts in the OC3D Forums.