Cooler Master CH331 USB Gaming Headset Review – Fits, doesn’t wobble, but has a lot room for improvement

Comfort

The thick and very soft ear pads are extremely comfortable to wear. Although I was meticulous about it, I couldn’t feel a seam and even after wearing it for a long time, no uncomfortable pressure points showed up. However, I expect a slight “sticking” to the skin over a longer period of time due to the very soft PU leather, and it was also allowed to get quite cozy under the completely closed ear cups at higher room temperatures – you know that from this type of construction.

The metal earpiece construction makes a sturdy impression and the ear pads are replaceable, which should result in a reasonable lifespan overall, which is unfortunately not a matter of course for inexpensive devices.

 

Microphone check

The microphone makes a surprisingly good impression. I have some voice recordings ready to show here in particular also the effect of automatic gain control (a kind of automatic detection of the ideal recording volume). Since the microphone comes without software, the corresponding function has to be set in the Windows sound settings:

 

Recording without AGC

Recording with AGC

Overall, the recording is a bit more noisy with AGC enabled, and you can also notice a low hum in recordings when no sound is recorded. Overall, I would still recommend activating the function.

PS: I apologize for the grating voice, the wave of colds has now also caught me.

 

Sound check

The CH331 achieves a decent volume overall, which is more than sufficient for normal music listening. The closed ear cushions shield ambient noise very well, which I don’t particularly like in principle, but can actually increase concentration especially during competitive gaming sessions.

Music

Besides the typical bathtub sound, the CH331 massively lacks resolution and clarity in my opinion. The treble is very muffled and swallows up many subtleties in voices and instruments.
In the low frequency range, the driver can indeed grab hold and play very powerfully – but only as long as no other instrument vibrates the diaphragm. This means: Single hits on the bass drum are fun, but as soon as the string of a bass is played in the background, for example, the diaphragm apparently loses itself in continuous wobbling and that’s it for powerful bass.

By boosting the frequencies from 2,500 – 16,000Hz by several dB using the equalizer, I was able to adjust the sound of the headset somewhat to my preferences and achieve an acceptable result considering the price. However, the lower frequencies should be left untouched, as they are already booming without additional boosting of the low frequencies. Overall, the sound is okay with the equalizer, but I would like to point out that you cannot turn a 45€ headset into an audiophile headphone with any equalizer in the world.

 

Gaming

For the “locating test” I used CS:GO as usual. A simple botmatch is more than sufficient for the assessment and at this point the CH331 was able to deliver a strong performance.

Despite (or maybe because of) the somewhat tinny sound, locating the enemies or generally all the sounds in the game was really good. The good shielding of the pleasantly soft ear pads also proved their worth and reliably kept ambient noise away from the ear.