Ozone Gaming Gear target the masses with the Rage ST headset that promises to exceed expectation. Will it find light in this brutally competitive market segment?
Product on Review: Ozone Gaming Gear RAGE ST
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Ozone
Street Price: £29.99 (At time of Review)
Headsets are very much a norm today as they can offer relatively high quality audio and the ability to communicate with others for competitive play or social excursions, while retaining privacy and reducing peace disruption. Being a tool of communication and escapism, the headset has become vital to the gaming arsenal. When you consider the hundreds, if-not Thousands of headsets that fall into the £15-50 region, it can soon become clear how competitive the market is and why marketing becomes very important.
Of course, this is basic stuff to anyone who understands the industry and given their track record, Ozone Gaming Gear relish being in the heart of the furnace. Dedicated to evolution and delivering products at a reasonable price, Ozone release the Rage ST into the war zone. Interestingly, in the name of variety and choice, the Rage ST is their first headset that allows the buyer to shy away from the angsty red on black chic (that isn’t a limited edition), that is adorned so brazen by Ozones product line up and gives customers the choice of five colours. Black, White, Red, Yellow and Blue.
Ozone’s Overview
Specification & Features
– Driver Diameter: ø6.0×5.0mm
– Directivity: Omnidirectional
– Impedance: <2.2KOhm
– Sensitivity: -38dB(at 1KHz)
SPEAKER
– Driver dimensions: ø40mm
– Frequency response: 20~20kHz
– Sensitivity (SPL): 85dB(At1.0 kHz)
– Impedance: 32Ohm
GENERAL
– Cable Length: 2.5m
– Plug: 3.5 plug
– Net Weight: 300 gr
Clever Ergonomic design
Thanks to its clever ergonomics you’re likely to forget you’re wearing a headset at all and you´ll get a reduced background noise.
XL cloth padded ear cushions
Rage ear cups are covered with an super-soft micro-texture cloth for comfortable fit during long gaming sessions.
Premium Sound
Rage ST is a high quality stereo headset, specifically developed for gaming, but with a great performance for music and movies. You´ll always get crystal clear clarity and precise sound.
Detachable Mic
RAGE features a flexible and detachable microphone with advanced noise canceling technology that ensures clean conversations every time you chat using RAGE.
Packaging & Accessories
The box is plastered with grungy style red on black with a large window displaying the product itself. Not too over the top and allows for an informed choice of what you are picking up.
On the back of the box we see a diagram of the headset which points out the key features. At the bottom we see multilingual small print the details the specifications.
Nothing unnecessary to be found here, in the box we fine a quick guide and the detachable microphone. The detachable mic is such a good idea when implemented well. Having a mic attached to your headset that you aren’t using can often get in the way or even adds excess weight to the product. While it may end up being easily lost, it does allow further flexibility as it allows you to use the headset to listen to music on your portable device without a hench robotic aerial of a microphone sticking out of the side of your head that will undoubtedly lead to jokes, quotes and imitations of fighter pilots. The only thing missing to make a true dimorphic headphone/headset, would be to tackle that pink 3.5mm jack flopping around.
Closer Look
Initial impressions of this headset is that it is very light and sturdy. The ear cups do not fold and the design is relatively sleek and attractive.
The ear cups are covered in a rubber that has the Ozone logo on it. This coating is the variant between the difference colours, this of course is the black edition. The cut outs along the edge create a slight industrial/gamer aesthetic.
The foam padding is thin but has a nice squidgyness to it which promises comfort. Alone the top we can see the Ozone brand name.
The ear cup is fairly large and the black cloth is broken up by some signature red. The foam padding is thick and looks like it should provide a comfortable fit.
The inline remote feels of good quality and isn’t as fragile as some other in lines I have experienced.
On the back of the in line controller we can find the microphone on/off switch.
Performance Testing
Comfort
The Rage ST is surprisingly light, almost unnoticeable, and the grip is perfectly adequate to hold the headset fast without slip without it feeling like a headlock. The foam on the ear cups work well and the fabric is breathable but are not perfect for someone who wears glasses, especially if they are thick framed as the foam is not forgiving enough to meld around the frame so you end up taking the full pinch of your glasses to your head, while not extreme, it was uncomfortable.
Durability
The majority of the Rage ST is made up of a sturdy plastic, meaning the adjustable strap will wear down over time with constant readjusting. I did test this by extending and retracting the strap a few times and wear was noticeable, however, the strap did not slip and the wear was not significant. The ear cups do not fold in so there are less moving parts so should prove more robust in that area. If you set your adjustment and keep it that way, there is no reason why this headset should wear too quickly. The cable is rubberised and flexible which allows for a fair bit of movement, as long as it doesn’t get pinched or cut the cable should hold up over time. The microphone though adjustable, will be prone to the same exertions as the cable.
Music
Starting with White Ring’s ‘Black Earth That Made Me’, it is clear very quickly that the bass is lacking. The low tones lack punch with the deeper bass sounding barely like a muffle. Mid tones were clear and strong. This is not really the genre of music that would best reflect the capabilities of this headset so I went with some classical music. Fauré’s Sicilienne proved strong mid to high tones. Listening to various electronic dance genres revealed some good quality listening though the lack of quality bass did reduce the overall impact of the music, for this price range it is still perfectly adequate.
Games
Skyrim gave an interesting experience, a dragon flying overhead tends to always make me want to duck and clear ambient noises really added to the experience. Explosions in Battlefield 3 were well pronounced despite the muddy bass, it didn’t really have a negative impact on immersion. It is clear to say that the Rage ST definitely performs better as a gaming headset than something to specifically listen to music with.
Microphone
The microphone at first was really sensitive but turning the level down to 40 and turning off the boost resulted in a good voice pick up. Though the mix also still picked up a lot of background noise too, so unless you wanted your friends to listen to you breathe, drink, eat, swallow and lick your lips, it would be best that you keep the microphone away from you and not directly in front of your mouth.
Conclusion
It is hard not to feel like one would expect more from such a product as Ozone have gone to lengths to reduce cost to which we assume is to provide the best value for money. When you consider that it is £5-10 more expensive than something like the Speedlink Medusa NX it begs to question, ‘What are you getting over the competition?’. A detachable microphone and choice of colour?
The Ozone Rage ST headset provides good, but not great, sound quality that is comparable with many in its price range and though the bass is weak, it can be slightly recovered by cranking up the low tones in your audio equaliser. Mid to high tones give good audio quality and this reflects well in games. Though the mic is not perfect it serves its purpose and can be removed when not in use. Overall Ozone have produced a robust, comfortable lightweight headset that gives decent audio quality at a good price. The edgy rubberised gamer aesthetic that comes in the choice of five colours says that the Rage ST will appeal to many and is worthy of the Vortez Silver Award.
+ Subtle and attractive gamer aesthetic in a choice of 5 colours
+ comfortable and lightweight
+ Good mid range audio reproduction
+ Affordable
+ Detachable microphone
Cons.
– Lacks a punchy bass
– Mic picks up a lot of background noise
– May not be so comfortable for those who wear glasses
– A lot of competition
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net. Thanks to Ozone for providing today’s review sample.
