Audio

Over the last year or so the PC Gaming market has seen an interesting re-birth. Although many developers seem to have embraced the new x86 console craze the peripheral manufacturers for the PC did not get the memo. One company that has leapt into the fray is Tesoro, so far they have dropped more than one high-end headset, keyboard and other accessories for the gamer to enhance their experience. Today we have another one of their products in the lab, the Kuven Pro 5.1 gaming headset. Let’s listen in and see how they sound.

A few years ago Thermaltake decided to introduce a new line of hardware, the Level10. The thought behind it was that this was the top of the line, period. The broke into the market with a case that was almost unique in its design. After that case they have released several more products including a pair of gaming mice that are outstanding in design and performance. Now we are taking a look at their headset, the Level10M headset. This gaming headset is designed in the tradition of the original level10 case and the mice that followed it. So let’s take a look and see if this headset deserves to be alongside the other products in the Level10 family.

As we have said many times before the peripherals market seems to be one of the PC related markets that continues to grow at a very rapid pace. Everyone wants to get in on the gravy train these days and we are starting to see peripherals from companies that you would not normally think of when it comes to keyboards, headsets or mice. Today we are taking a look at a new product from a company that, until recently, was known for their memory, SSDs, and flash drives. We are talking about Kingston and their HyperX Cloud gaming headset. Now the question we have to find the answer to is: can a memory maker make a product that gamers, PC enthusiasts and audiophiles will like? Let’s dive in and find out.

Personal computing has had its ups and downs of the last 10 years and these have not always been because of consumer reaction. In many cases the manufacturers have failed to meet the expectations of the people they are selling to. One of the biggest places where the market has failed the consumer is when they moved to “good enough” computing. We saw this as far back as the Pentium III when Intel pushed for onboard audio, networking, modem etc. These devices were not the greatest of components, but they were “good enough” in the eyes of the manufacturers. Now the situation is shifting (very slowly) as these components are no longer good enough in the consumer’s eyes. They are demanding more from their hardware. One place where this shift has been the most obvious is in the audio market. Today we have a product that is supposed to fall well outside the good enough range. This is the CMStorm Pulse-R gaming headset. Let’s take a look and see if it really can.