Roccat Kave 5.1 XTD Digital Headset Review

Control and Software

The heart of the Kave XTD is the control/soundcard/multi-function part. The original Kave was a volume button and small EQ. This is far beyond that and indeed is probably the most serious inline remote you’re ever likely to see. Going clockwise from the top left we have, movie or game toggle, channel selector (to adjust the Overall/Front/Centre/Bass/Rear volume), speaker passthrough, microphone mute, Bluetooth pairing, call answering and, in the middle, the volume itself.

What’s that? Oh yes the Kave 5.1 XTD has all the gadgets. You can pair it up with your phone via Bluetooth so that you can game safe is the knowledge that if the phone rings you can answer it with a button press and carry on playing. Ideal if you spend hours and hours locked into your game. The speaker passthrough is because this is largely an external 5.1 soundcard and it has the speaker jacks at the top just like you’d find on your motherboard, so you can plug in an external set of speakers for those times when nobody is around, and switch to the headset if needed without having to faff about with cables. Impressive stuff.

      

      

The software beautifully apes the Roccat design ethos and isn’t too obtrusive in use either. There are masses of tweaks and adjustments you can make should you so desire, with everything available from a basic equaliser through to incoming speech enhancement and even a selection of four fx to distort and disguise your own voice. So if you’ve ever fancied ringing your ex and telling them how you feel, this could be just the tool for the job.