I’ve been in need of a new headset for some time now. We have an assortment lying about the house, but the quality of the mic is dodgy a lot of the time. Too many times I’ll be playing in the same room as my fiancée, but she’s talking as well, so the people we are talking to can hear us multiple times. Frustrating, to say the least. Here is where the Razer Kraken v3 Hypersense comes into the picture.
First thing I want to touch on is how the headset looks. I’ve always been a fan of black on black on black, and that’s exactly what I got here. In fact, the only spot of colour comes when the headset is plugged in and the RGB lights turn up on the outside of the earcaps. Apart from that, it’s black as far as the eye can see, and I am here for it.
To say that the Kraken v3 Hypersense is a good headset, would be a massive understatement. From the moment I pulled it from the box and put it on, I was hooked. I pulled up Spotify on my laptop and played some music to get a feel for the sound quality. My choice was Red Flag by Billy Talent. Immediately, I could hear the bass pounding and vibrating in my ears. If you read my review for the OnePlus Buds Pro, you’d know I am not much of a fan of overpowering bass, and that’s not what I got here. While I could tell the bass was there, it was never the focal point, despite the vibrating speaker in my ear.
Everything about the sound I was hearing was crisp, clear, and nothing was missing. There were a few points that I would catch something in the music I had never heard before, which was a pleasant surprise. Razer definitely spared no expense when it comes to audio quality with the Kraken v3 Hypersense.
The microphone is simple enough, but also very good. It did what it was supposed to do, which is all I can ask for from a microphone on a headset. It is detachable from the headset itself for those times that voice communication is unnecessary, or for storage purposes, as it does not fold up and away like some other headsets. Razer has also included a foam pop filter to slide over the microphone to eliminate those pesky popping sounds. The microphone also features unidirectional pick-up, so your talking is the only thing the mic picks up; a great feature if you have a household with many sounds at any given time.
“The build of the Kraken v3 Hypersense impressed me a great deal.”
The build of the Kraken v3 Hypersense impressed me a great deal. Almost every headset I’ve used felt like it would break if it held it from one side, or if I held the earpiece by itself. I never felt like this with the Kraken v3 Hypersense. Maybe it was the steel-reinforced headband or the plush fabric ear cushions, but everything about this headset shouts comfort and durability. The earcaps don’t turn in any way, they pivot up and down to adjust to one’s headshape, but that’s it. No more having to worry about holding it by the earcaps to find it swinging away to a break.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the Hypersense Haptic feedback, after all, it’s right there in the name! Earlier in this review, I spoke about the bass I heard in the music I was listening to. It wasn’t until I played a game that I realised this was the Hypersense haptic feedback at work. I decided to play F1 2021, and there were so many things that came at me all at once. I felt the rumble of the engines in my ears, but it was never overpowering. I could feel the haptic feedback getting stronger on one side when I would overtake another driver, and slowly go back to normal as I distanced myself from that driver.
To say I was impressed with the Hypersense haptic feedback is putting it mildly. To be able to feel and hear where an enemy is based on the intensity of the rumble in your ears gives a huge advantage. Every enemy footstep, every explosion was amplified because of the haptics, and gaming will never be the same for me.
The Kraken v3 Hypersense connects easily enough to your PC/Mac or PS5, using a USB-A cable that is around 6.5 feet long. More than enough length if you’re sat at your computer as I was for the duration of my experience with it. Where the headset faulters a bit is the length of the cable. 6.5 feet is nowhere near long enough to be used with a PS5 unless one is sitting at a desk or that close to their console. As one who prefers to sit on my couch with my PS5, the length of the cable was not nearly enough to reach. I have a 55” TV that is hooked up to my PS5 and I did not fancy sitting 6 feet away. A 10–12-foot cable/cable extension would have been amazing but, alas, it was not included.
Razer did an amazing job with the Kraken v3 Hypersense. That much is clear. The issue of cable length, almost alienating an entire demographic that they are appealing to, is off-putting. I had been excited to use this with both my PC and PS5 but being limited to the length of a cable is disappointing. I’ll still use it when I play Diablo II: Resurrected and F1 2021 because I really like the sound. I’m just…. disappointed.
