Initial Impressions
Initial Impressions
The SteelSeries Siberia V2 headset comes in a brash and bold box that takes no time in making sure you know this is a serious product aimed squarely at gaming enthusiasts. The front of this box is divided nearly down the middle with the left half being taken up almost entirely by a large plastic film window which allows you to get a very good look at the Siberia V2s. The other half is taken up in market blurbs and bullet point style highlights.
The rear of the box consists of two large photos, various graphic boxes that highlight and describe the main features the SteelSeries Siberia V2’s have as well as lots of descriptive details listed in marketing speech.
Even on just a cursory glance the first thing that pops out is that the Siberia V2 is a downright gorgeous looking headset regardless of the colour our sample came in. The over-ear pieces are quite sleek for a gaming headset while the microphone is cleverly hidden yet can be pulled out if a better soundstage is needed for conversations. Unlike many headsets which use merely a flexible mic with fairly limited arm movement, the Siberia V2’s microphone quite flexible as well.
This arm is made from flexible thin wire rather than from cheap plastic. Not only does this make it extremely flexible but when you don’t need the microphone (say during travel) the microphone arm retracts into the left ear cup with only the tip sticking out. Compared the to the original Siberia’s detachable mic arm setup, this is simply a more elegant way of doing things.
The top of SteelSeries’ Siberia V2 is not a band of plastic at all, nor even a solid piece design. Rather, it consists of two main components just like the orginal. The first component is a head strap that is self tensioning and will snugly fit against the head to help stabilize the Siberia V2’s ear cups. Using this self tensioning mechanism, it will automatically adjust itself to fit a wide variety head sizes.
The other part is the actual support beams which make the whole thing a cohesive whole. Unlike the leather headstrap, these two separate wire bands do not come in contact with your head, nor do they even come in contact with the headband. Their only job is to keep the earcups together and to provide enough tension to keep the them firmly – yet gently - on your ears.
To be perfectly honest, this combination works amazingly well and we are glad to see this carried over from the original Siberia. Even though I wear glasses, the amount of tension the earcups put on my ears was not enough to cause discomfort, but was still more than enough to keep the Siberia V2 firmly in place.
Unfortunately, there are a few things which kept this headset from being perfect from an ergonomics point of view. The fist issue is the earcups themselves are a touch on the small side. This means most ears will not fit inside completely inside the closed cups and instead they will have to rest gently up against the ear’s cartilage. We have a strong dislike for small earcups as usually this gentle pressure on the cartilage becomes annoying after awhile. Luckily, the amount of pressure the Siberia V2 places on your ears is minor, making this a minor annoyance instead of a full blown issue.
The inner portion of the earcups is made of leather with thick dense foam which is great from an ascetic point of view and also works well in helping reduce ambient noise levels. However, is not good at keeping you from sweating over extended periods. To be blunt, leather is hot and leather does not breathe. This is something you do not want in a headset when you are gaming for extended periods of time. Nonetheless, the V2s are easily one of the most comfortable headsets we have used, regardless of price.
From an audiophile point of view there is one other thing which is less than optimal about the Siberia V2s: they use a closed headset design which introduces resonance into some situations. Very few good “audiophile grade” headphones are closed because it is so hard to get them to be neutral and of the ones that are, very few manage to do this without costing a lot more than the MSRP of the Siberia V2s. In other words, this inherent limitation can be overcome but it takes a lot of money to do so. We’ll see in upcoming sections whether SteelSeries has managed to work around this inherent limitation.
On the flip side of the coin, closed style headphones have some tangible benefits for gaming enthusiasts in the form of noise dampening abilities. In theory, this closed design should help passively block a lot of ambient noise and allow you to game in a room you share with others without disturbing them.
As for the drivers themselves, SteelSeries has opted to use 50mm units instead of 40mm. While bigger is not always better in this case, a 50mm based design usually features a more accurate sound reproduction at higher levels than smaller 40mm designs can. In the case of the Siberia V2s they have an above average SPL rating of 112DBa, which is up from 104DBa of the originals.
Most headphones and headsets come with one standard length cord, be it 6 feet, 8 feet, 10 feet, etc. SteelSeries has taken a difference approach by making the Siberia V2’s cord 1 meter long and then included a separate 2 meter extension cord for both the mic and headphones. This is certainly a nice little feature that will make many gaming enthusiasts happy.
The other noteworthy features we feel we need to point out before moving on is the inline volume level and microphone mute controller. We really like seeing this on our gaming peripherals as it allows users to tweak the sound level in each game without having to go to the desktop and adjusting the master volume levels. Unfortunately, the toggle switch for the mute feature should have been finished in a different material since it is far too slick.
