A rather long time ago (in computer years) when real audio first came out on the computer the market was pretty bare for not only sound cards, but also for anything to use to listen to them. I can vividly remember buying an expensive ISA Soundblaster card and not being able to find any decent speakers to use with it. There simply was not a lot of choice out there to reproduce your audio. Of course before that I can still remember only having 8-bit audio through the motherboard speaker so decent is relative there. Now the market is flood of products many are just plain terrible (bad design, bad quality and bad audio playback). There are a few companies that have been working to break the “good enough” trend in audio. Cooler Master is one of them as we have shown you with their CMStorm Sirus headset. Now Cooler Master has another gaming headset available. This one is called the Sonuz and features a pair of massive 53mm drivers to push the sound deep into your skull. Let’s listen to them shall we?
Value -Value is another very subjective topic. What is expensive to some might be a deal to others. You can look at this topic in multiple ways. One is raw price and the other is what you get for the money. Each is accurate and both are correct ways to look at price/value. We tend to look at features, performance and real-property when we discuss value. However, we also take into account the raw cash cost of the item. The CMStorm Sonuz are only $70 from most online stores which is an excellent deal considering the quality and at that price you can overlook the mud in the base and the sweaty ears. In fact to our knowledge you will not find another pair of headphones with a 53mm driver at this price. The build quality also means that you will be able to keep a hold of your investment for a while. This makes the price even better when you look at it with that in mind. Cooler Master also stands behind their products with a one year limited warranty on parts and labor needed to fix any issues.
Conclusion -The $70 CMStorm Sonuz have a lot going for them. We found that they were able to produce some amazing in game audio as well as reproduce most movie and video sounds with excellent quality. However when it came to MP3 and CD audio they started to falter with slight distortion in the mids and mud in the bass for most of the audio choices we use for testing. They were still good, but not as good as some of the other headsets we have tested. There were also some minor comfort issues with the choice of ear pads. After extended use heat will begin to build up and they become uncomfortable the placement of the head strap also made them feel a little awkward after wearing them for a while. Still for $70 you really cannot beat the audio quality that the 53mm drivers provide if you are looking for a set of gaming headphones. The price is good enough that you can even overlook the slight mud and comfort issues that we noted.For its excellent value combined with great gaming audio quality we are happy to award the CMStorm Sonuz our Silver Key Award.Discuss this in our Forum
