After the success of the Hyper X Cloud Pro Gaming headset Kingston went back to the drawing board to make a product that would be a worthy successor. The question was, how do you top something that is that good? The Hyper X Cloud Pro was (and still is) an amazing headset. The sealed enclosures for the larger than normal drivers along with the tuning make them one of the best headsets you can get for the money. Kingston’s team decided that throwing in their own USB audio controller, complete with simulated surround and amp, would be a good start. We had the chance to play with a set during CES 2015 and also got one to bring home. Since then we have used them in multiple environments and with more audio sources than we can really put in a single article. So now we can tell you if the Hyper X Cloud Pro II is worthy of the name or not.
Performance -With audio gear it is hard to be objective. After all different people like different music and even people that like the same music might like to listen to it in different ways. To make sure that I cover the audio products that we get here at DecryptedTech I like to have more than one opinion. Usually I gather 5 other people to listen to different audio types (gaming, movies, MP3 and CD-Audio). I then ask for a rating of one to five with one being the worst and 5 being the best for each category. I then follow up with my personal feelings and observations. The Cloud II headphones are intended to be a gaming headset so while we wanted to make sure we cover the gaming end of things we also wanted to find out how well they operate with other audio content. We will also add in a few words about what you get when you enable the 7.1 feature.
Music (MP3 and CD-Audio) -For Music I have a few favorite tracks that I like to use. These are not always other people’s favorites but they serve as a baseline and have some impressive audio features to them that can distinguish between good audio and bad. One of them is Stevie Ray Vaughn’s rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing. It is an amazing track. Others are A Day in the Life by the Beetles, Are you Experienced by Jimi Hendrix, and Cage the Elephant’s Ain’t no Rest for the Wicked. To this listing we added some jazz, funk, and of course Reggae. The numbers for this are below.
Our take -Much like the original Cloud, you get very tight sound from almost all of the audio you listen to. The bass is clean and the mid and high end have no mud in them. You can hear great separation in the tones so you are getting a really top notch audio experience even before you plug in the USB audio controller. Once you do this there is a slight hint of distortion in the audio at higher playback levels. More than likely this is simply due to the extra amplification in the controller over what you usually see in a laptop or desktop. Still it was there and was not really expected.
When we kick on the 7.1 feature we found that we did not really get surround sound. Instead the audio... expanded. There is not really a good way to describe this effect. As an example on the Avenge Sevenfold track “Hail to the King” has a guitar riff in the beginning that is normally audible in the left ear when listening in stereo. When listening in 7.1 it was everywhere with a slight echo to it. The audio was still very clean, but it was certainly not really surround and added an unexpected “item” to the songs.
Gaming -So for this test we did something a little different. In addition to our normal testing with desktop games, we decided that we would also throw in a couple of games on our Galaxy Note III just to see how good the audio reproduction is there. Our normal games are Medal of Honor, BioShock Infinite and Modern Warfare 3. These games have different audio qualities that can push a headset nicely.
Our take -Both the Cloud and Cloud II have more than enough power and sound to make your gaming experience great. With the Cloud II plugged directly into the audio card we found the sound to be (once again) clean, tight and vibrant. The sounds in Medal of Honor when you are playing the AC130 mission are very impressive with Cloud II on. With the USB audio adapter the extra power can be heard in the audio especially when the game developer takes the time to put together an immersive audio package.
The 7.1 button brought more volume to the sounds (space not measure of loudness). In outdoor environments this made the audio seem more realistic and open. It was an impressive experience. The size of the drivers combined with the close cabinets also allowed the Cloud II to push sound in a way that made it seem more alive than what we have heard from other virtual surround systems. It was very different than what we noted with simple audio tracks.
Movies/Video -Movies was an easy one also, I have several Blu-ray titles that are great for this including Pirates of the Caribbean. So I loaded up this title and then dropped in a couple of other movies that have good surround effects. The numbers are shown below.
Our Take - The HyperX Cloud 2 held its own against the original cloud when you plug it straight into your system. It has the same power and acoustic performance that you would expect. When you plug in the USB audio adapter you get a little more power behind the audio and it shows in the vibrance of the sound. Once we turned on the 7.1 we saw similar performance to what we had in gaming, the audio expanded to fill up more volume, but it was not really surround sound.
Microphone Performance -The Mic on the Cloud 2 is just as good as what we saw on the original HyperX Cloud. You get solid voice reproduction without a ton of background noise. This is good when you are using the Cloud 2 in a noisy environment (like a LAN Party). We tested it with Skype and it was more than acceptable. The ability to remove the mic, mute it or just adjust the volume independently of the speaker volume is a nice touch as well.
Comfort -The Cloud 2 is sadly not as comfortable as the original. The thinner crossbar padding makes it feel more solid and less “light”. The Cloud 2 also has a very short cable for use without the USB adapter. Now, this might not be a major issue, it can be if you do not want (or cannot) use the USB audio adapter. This is ok if you have your system close to you (like a laptop) but it really does not work for a desktop. Again this is not a deal breaker, but it is something to be aware of when you are looking to buy.
