Published: March 15, 2018 | Source: Roccat | Author: Bryan Waters

Roccat Khan AIMO Headset Review

Conclusion

The design of the Khan AIMO is, internal feature set and connectivity aside, identical to that of the Khan Pro and we feel the same about the AIMO as we did the Pro.

If you’ve not read that review we mean that the Khan is incredibly light and comfortable to use for long periods. The foam on both the headband and ear pieces is very soft and the headset itself doesn’t apply much pressure to your head, so they feel a little floaty. We know that some people prefer a headset to feel like it’s clamped on, whilst others despair at the tightness, thus your mileage may vary depending upon personal taste. However, there isn’t any sound leakage either in or out so if you do prefer a lighter feel to your headset then the Roccat Khan AIMO ticks all the boxes.

The lighting is a little strange. Yes we know that RGB lighting is a big ticket feature on every peripheral worth its salt these days, but the Roccat implementation is so subtle that it almost goes unnoticed. If you’re going to the trouble of putting in an RGB lighting system and yet designing one so light that the headset still counts as a featherweight we think you might as well double down and have the Roccat Logo and Khan description be the things that light up, rather than these tiny slits which are so small that the majority of the middle of them squeezes the colour out and tends to show white.

But a headset lives and dies on its sound quality. The Khan Pro had a beautifully neutral sound profile which aped HiFi headsets but required a bit of tweaking with third party applications to give it some girth. The Khan AIMO on the other hand has no such issues. By utilising a built in DAC the headset requires a bit of power, and that power comes from a USB connection. USB connections mean that it needs drivers of some description and they can be manipulated with software. Thus the decision to include a DAC means that the Roccat Khan AIMO is supported by the Roccat Swarm software and that has a built in equaliser. No ferreting around for 3rd party apps to get the sound you want. Even better than that, the virtual 7.1 is excellent. Normally virtual surround just adds tons of reverb to the sound which is death to music and films and only partly useful in gaming. The Roccat design though has none of that reverb issue and instead changes the sound profile quite comprehensively. In 2.0 mode the Khan AIMO sounds a lot like the Pro, all neutrality and flat, whereas in the 7.1 mode it sounds like a gaming headset with whomping bass and punchy midrange really lending an air of gristle to the mix. It also has the positional benefits that you would expect from a surround headset.

if the Roccat Khan Pro was a great idea – high quality, wide range audio drivers in a compact design – that didn’t quite find a home in the gaming market, the Khan AIMO redresses all these issues and it gives us a light, comfortable headset which is just as happy giving you soothing sonatas as the sounds of bullets ripping your enemies asunder.

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