Cougar have sought to bring games to life for gamers looking for a more immersive experience. Featuring 50mm neodymium drivers, extra-large memory foam earpads for comfort, and virtual 7.1 surround to place you in the centre of the action.
Product on Review: Cougar IMMERSA PRO
Manufacturer: Cougar
Street Price: UK: £69.95, US: $89.95
About this time last year, we were blown away with the great performance and value of the Cougar IMMERSA headset, and now the IMMERSA PRO comes back with the intent on doing the same once again.
We see the return of the suspension style headset set with a burning orange aesthetic and its comfortable extra-large marshmallow like earpads. This time, audio is handled by the powerful 50mm drivers instead of the 40mm drivers used in the analogue version and we will find various new additions to the IMMERSA PRO come courtesy of a USB soundcard dongle. The soundcard itself provides up to 16bit/96KHz audio while powering customisable RGB LED lighting, an LED microphone mute indicator, and of course virtual surround. Another feature we enjoy here at Vortez, is integrated controls on the headset itself thus doing away with an in-line remote. This appears in the form of metallic, diamond cut dials on each side, one for mute and one for volume. As a finishing touch, Cougar have implmented a semi-modular cable attachment, allowing you to replace the USB connector for an analogue 3.5mm 4pole jack, ensuring compatibility with games consoles, mobiles devices and more.
Overview by Cougar
Immersa Pro is the definitive gaming headset. Its 7.1 Virtual Surround audio allows you to become truly immersed in the heat of battle, hearing your enemies’ steps while they approach you to meet their defeat. With fully customizable RGB backlight and various lighting modes, you are the center of attention! Besides, there are plenty of options with an impressive and comfortable design that awaits you!
Technical Specifications
Headphone
Driver: 50mm
Max. Input Power: 100mW
Sensitivity at 1KHz: 100dB ± 3dB
Impedance at 1KHz: 32Ω +/- 15%
Frequency Response: 20Hz – 20kHz
Cable Length: 2m
Microphone
Type: Noise Cancelling Condenser
Frequency Response: 100Hz to 16kHz
Sensitivity at 1KHZ: -40dB ± 3dB
Impedance: 2.2kOhm
COUGAR UIX System: Yes
Connector Type: USB / 3.5mm Phone Plug
Driver: 50mm
Max. Input Power: 100mW
Sensitivity at 1KHz: 100dB ± 3dB
Impedance at 1KHz: 32Ω +/- 15%
Frequency Response: 20Hz – 20kHz
Cable Length: 2m
Microphone
Type: Noise Cancelling Condenser
Frequency Response: 100Hz to 16kHz
Sensitivity at 1KHZ: -40dB ± 3dB
Impedance: 2.2kOhm
COUGAR UIX System: Yes
Connector Type: USB / 3.5mm Phone Plug
Packaging & First Look
The packaging is clean and attractive, sporting the vivid orange colour that helps identify the brand. There is a large image of the product and is supported with information on its features located at the bottom.
At the back there is a diagram showing of the various featured on the top half of the box, while the bottom part is reserved for the technical specifications in various languages.
Inside, Cougar have bundled the IMMERSA PRO with a USB soundcard dongle, and a USB-3.5mm jack adaptor.
The IMMERSA PRO features a large orange halo with a suspension style headband that spans between them. The large earpads are a prominent feature, but notably we can see the diamond cut metal dials on each side too.
Closer Look
The headband itself is made of a soft leatherette material with a thin layer of padding to ensure comfort on your head. The top of the headband features the Cougar logo set in the orange theme. As this is a suspension headset, the headband itself will automatically stretch to fit your head size, providing optimal pressure distribution and comfort.
On the side we find that the earcups are covered with a mesh material and there is a laser etched Cougar logo and a diamond cut metal dial. Rotating the dial on the left side controls the microphone mute, while the opposite controls the volume.
The headset itself is very flexible, allowing for easy adjustments to fit all head shapes. The earpads themselves have a 100mm diameter, and feature large openings suitable to cover most peoples ear size.
As with the analogue IMMERSA, the IMMERSA PRO features a flexible and retractable noise cancelling microphone, the orange tip on the IMMERSA PRO will light up while muted.
Software
The Cougar UIX software can be downloaded from the product page and is fairly quick to install. Once opened we are presented with a customisable EQ, microphone sensitivity adjustment and microphone monitor. On the second tab, there is a lighting adjustment with a selection of different modes, including steady, breathing, off, and a selection of ‘swift’ modes which is a seamless gradient change between each selected colour. Some of the audio changes took a little while to ‘apply’ but otherwise the software is easy to understand and use.
Performance Testing
Setup, Design & ObservationsOut the box, the headset will work without installing any software, but for additional features and controls it is worth installing the UIX software. If you intend to use the IMMERSA PRO with a console, you can easily swap the USB cable attachment for the 3.5mm jack, further enhancing the versatility of the headset.
The headset itself is very flexible and made from decent materials, the halo itself appear to be flexible metal pipes that have been covered with orange rubberised plastic. Inside you will undoubtedly find the wires which carry the signal from one driver to the next, meaning that the headband itself is completely cable free. The large 100mm earpads can be removed as they are attached to a plastic plate that clips in at four different places, which can be unfastened by gently pushing outwards from the inside of the earcup. On wearing the headset, we noticed that the earpads easily fully surrounded our ears, and the soft padding provided decent passive noise cancellation. The clamping force is moderate but comfortable, and the headband helped distribute the weight evenly, and so the headset remained comfortable for long periods of time.
On each side of the headset there is an easy to locate dial which helps control the microphone mute, and headset volume. The left side dial controls the microphone mute, and easily clicks each way, once muted the tip of the retractable microphone lights up as a reminder. The volume dial however was rather stiff and slow to turn, making it rather difficult to use. This could be a one-off issue, or if it was designed like this, then it needs fixing.
Multimedia
In our music tests, we use a mix of lossless and 320kbps MP3s which we are familiar with to determine the level of detail rendered by the drivers used in the headset. We found that the IMMERSA PRO has very good accuracy and pronunciation of the trebles and mids, and is supported by a hefty dose of bass to top it off. Overall this made for a very enjoyable music listening experience with little to complain about. Moving into games, the IMMERSA PRO came to life, while we didn’t notice a huge difference with the virtual 7.1 surround enabled, the headset had a relatively wide soundstage enabling decent spatial awareness and immersion, while the deep, rich bass was powerful enough to create an exciting and boomy kick, yet also allowed you to clearly pick out details and footsteps to ensure noone gets the jump on you.
Microphone
The microphone is loud and clear, but lacks a little in the lower register, despite that, your voice is easily picked up, the noise cancelling aspect done a good job of dimming mouse clicks and keyboard strikes, though, you may want to adjust the microphone sensitivity accordingly as at 100% it will pick up many environmental noises around you and potentially some noise leakage from the headset, however, when you consider that I found 45% was more than enough for good pickup, it is unlikely that you will ever need to have the microphone sensitivity set that high. Using the analogue connection, the microphone performance will vary depending on your audio setup (which is normal), but we still found the microphone to be capable of decent quality, low-noise voice transmittance.
Conclusion
When we first looked at the Cougar IMMERSA, we were impressed with its price/performance, though at this price point, it is much more difficult to see if the IMMERSA PRO can attract the attention it deserves. The £70 mark is where you will find many of the market leaders and while the Cougar IMMERSA PRO can easily trade blows with them regarding the long lasting comfort, and its rich, bassy audio, the orange aesthetic isn’t to everyone’s taste. We feel that a more neutral overall (white/black/grey) aesthetic would likely appeal to a broader audience, especially considering the inclusion of RGB LED lighting which can be customised. That being said, we very much like the aesthetic, and we are sure that others will too.
In our testing, we found that this is one headset that doesn’t skimp on precise, good quality bass, something that for many gamers is a must. Though there are some things that could be better. Firstly, the volume dial in our sample felt a little too stiff, and lacked the kind of smoothness we would want/expect from on-the-fly volume adjustments, and we hope that this is something that Cougar can address.
If you are looking for a surround headset, we felt that the virtual 7.1 mode here was a little interesting, firstly because the audio didn’t noticeably change that much, but maybe that is a good thing, especially since we found that it provided good spatial awareness anyway. This was a nice break from the virtual 7.1 surround modes some other headsets have where the audio will be artificially widened due to a sickening amount of reverb added. Finally, for those looking for a headset which can perform on multiple fronts, we particularly liked that Cougar have given us the tools needed to be able to use the IMMERSA PRO with any gaming system due to the included 3.5mm jack adaptor.
Make no mistake, its beastly audio can give brilliant depth and immersion to your games. So if you like the aesthetic, and are looking for an alternative headset, keep your eye out for the IMMERSA PRO.
Pros.
+ Comfortable
+ Large earpads (good passive noise cancellation)
+ Included 3.5mm 4pole jack adaptor (cross platform versatility)
+ Good, clear audio with deep bass
+ Easy to access on-headset controls
+ Noise cancelling retractable mic (with mute LED)
+ Attractive, RGB lighting
+ Relatively wide soundstage
Neutral
+- The orange aesthetic isn’t for everybody
Cons.
– Volume control is a little stiff
+ Comfortable
+ Large earpads (good passive noise cancellation)
+ Included 3.5mm 4pole jack adaptor (cross platform versatility)
+ Good, clear audio with deep bass
+ Easy to access on-headset controls
+ Noise cancelling retractable mic (with mute LED)
+ Attractive, RGB lighting
+ Relatively wide soundstage
Neutral
+- The orange aesthetic isn’t for everybody
Cons.
– Volume control is a little stiff
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
