Edifier G2 II Review

Gaming headsets can be expensive, commonly costing over £100 for big-name options. This gaming headset, the Edifier G2 II (an interesting name), offers a more affordable and sub-£100 gaming headset that touts features such as lighting effects, 7.1 virtual surround sound and a USB connection.

Video Review

Edifier G2 II

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Design

The headset is available in a few different colours, with this particular pair using a black colourway across the whole design with some silver accents on the earcups and headband. The headset features a fully plastic build which helps keep it lightweight, although this does feature a mixture of matte and glossy plastic finishes. I would’ve preferred this to be completely matte as I feel that this would stand up better to wear and tear over an extended period of use as glossy plastic can scratch and scuff quite easily.

The headband and earbuds feature soft and comfortable padding which ensures that the headset will be comfortable to wear during long gaming sessions and the earcups also feature clear lettering so you can make sure that they’re on the correct way round. Unfortunately, the headset doesn’t fold up to be more compact when not in use and the earcups don’t tilt or swivel.

If there’s anything that does make the headset feel “cheaper” it is the lack of ergonomic movement on the earcups, by having these able to tilt and swivel it would ensure for a more ergonomic and comfortable fit that would sit just that little bit snugger in the head. The left earcup features the microphone as well as a wired connection, both of these are permanently fixed to the headset and are not removable.

The cable features in-line controls for volume, microphone mute as well as lighting controls. It is nice to have the ability to quickly mute the microphone directly from the headset itself. The in-line controls feature a mix of matte and glossy plastics like the headset itself, if anything I do wish that these were matte as they are already showing signs of wear with scratches and scuffs.

Despite the headset being USB, there is no ability to customise the lighting effects – they’re either on or off, so the lighting effects on the headset are a repeating colour cycle. This effect is visible on the exterior of each earcup underneath the metal meshing.

Sound Quality

The headset features 50mm drivers which provide plenty of volume for your desired gaming volume. As I tested these on a Windows PC, I not only could adjust the volume within Windows itself but also with the dial on the headset’s in-line controls.

For the price and considering that these aren’t just headphones, but a complete headset, they do sound decent for the price with good clarity across the audio spectrum with a frequency response range of 20Hz to 20KHz – making them sound good for gaming but also listening to music. I do think that the headset could have a little more emphasis on sub-bass to really make thuds or explosions have more of an impact but the bass is still present.

I do feel like the mid frequencies could also do with a bit more brightness to add a bit of clarity to the sound as it sounds a little hollow at times, but otherwise, the general bass and treble response is decent. These won’t match a pair of monitoring headphones such as the Audio Technica M50X, but that’s okay as the G2 II is in a different price bracket and built for a different purpose – but if audio accuracy is important it’s worth weighing up your options.

When gaming, the headset provides an immersive experience with clear stereo separation to help you focus on what is important and pick up the little nuances within sound as you progress through your game. As a more budget-friendly option for a gaming headset, this definitely offers a decent sound and experience to go with it.

Microphone Quality

With a gaming headset, how it sounds is half the story, it’s also important to ensure that your team members will be able to clearly hear you over voice chat. The microphone on the headset is omnidirectional so it picks up sound from all directions, this is good if you’re in an environment which isn’t too noisy – but if you’re in a noisy room you do pose the risk of unintentionally picking up background noise.

The microphone features some foam around it which will help stop dust getting into the microphone as well as act as a bit of a windshield and pop filter, however this doesn’t fully stop plosives from being picked up when talking. Overall, the microphone sounds very good and picked up my voice incredibly clearly and it had a decent amount of range to it, leaving a recording which didn’t sound tinny or unnatural.

It is a bit of a downside that the microphone can’t be removed when not in use, although it can be pushed out to the side when you don’t wish to use it. One benefit of the microphone not being removable is that you won’t lose it – I guess?

Features

The main feature of this headset is its 7.1 virtual surround sound capabilities. I do want to preface this by saying that I’ve only been able to test out this headset on a Windows PC, so if you’re planning to buy this for a console I would recommend you watch or read a review of this headset where the reviewer has been able to test this with your console of choice – just to ensure that everything will work as you would expect as there could be some differences depending on your platform.

If you’re on Windows, it’s important to download and install the Edifier Gaming Center software from the G2 II product page as this will install all the necessary drivers for the headset to work as intended. The software itself is quite basic and doesn’t have many features, but the things we’re interested in is what’s added to the Control Panel sound settings for the headset, I also made sure to enable Windows Sonic for spatial audio.

The virtual surround sound effect is fairly immersive and impressive for a gaming headset that costs just over £50. I was able to hear the positioning of different sounds fairly clearly until they were directly behind me and when it games, I felt like I could hear the quieter and more subtle nuances of the virtual world around me.

Conclusion

If you’re looking to spend less than £100 on a decent gaming headset with some nice features, the Edifier G2 II is a good choice. The lighting effects are nice to have if you enjoy having an illuminating RGB setup and both the sound and microphone quality is good for the price as well.

The Edifier G2 II gaming headset is available to purchase on Amazon.