2.4GHz wireless communication, a broadcast-quality microphone, memory-foam ear cups and a 100 hour battery life. Yeah, you heard that right, 100 hours. Let’s see if the Sennheiser GSP 370 is as good as it sounds.
Product on Review: Sennheiser GSP 370 Wireless Gaming Headset
Manufacturer: Sennheiser
Street Price: GBP £169.00 / USD $199.95 / AUS $349.95
Sennheiser have been a trend-setter within the audio market since they were founded way back in 1945, becoming well-known throughout the industry for their excellent performance and high quality.
We had the pleasure of evaluating Sennheiser’s first go at a wireless headset a few months back, the GSP 670, this headset received an Ultimate award from Dave but it’s £300/$350/$500 in the UK/US/Aus respectively, so it’s certainly not considered as “affordable” by most. With that, we lead straight into today’s review, of Sennheiser’s second effort at a wireless gaming headset, the GSP 370.
Arguably the largest stand-out feature, when compared to the GSP 670, is the price, at a little over half of its larger brother. However, for your £169, $199, $349, you still get Sennheiser’s trademark sound quality, 2.4GHz wireless communication and ‘broadcast-quality’, noise cancelling microphone.
Alongside that is a claimed 100-hour battery life, five times that of the GSP 670; an amount that almost seems unrealistic. You could go two or three weeks of reasonable usage between charging, something that’s pretty much unheard of in the wireless headset market.
The GSP 370 is compatible with PC, Mac and the Sony PS4 via the USB dongle, though the Sennheiser Gaming Software is currently only available for the PC.
With its considerably lower price point, have Sennheiser had to cut one too many corners to bring this to market or does it still a compelling purchase? Let’s find out.
Sennheiser on the GSP 370:
With up to 100 hours of battery life, the wireless GSP 370 is the perfect gaming headset for everyone who loves the Sennheiser gaming sound but wants wireless freedom.
Technical Specifications
Frequency response (Microphone): 100-6,300 Hz
Ear coupling: Around Ear
Cable length: 1,5m charging cable
Weight: 285g
Pick-up pattern: Unidirectional
Microphone sensitivity: -41 DBV/Pa
Connection: Wireless
Frequency response (Headphones): 20-20,000 Hz
Transducer principle (headphones): Dynamic, closed
Sound pressure level (SPL): 117 DB
Ear coupling: Around Ear
Cable length: 1,5m charging cable
Weight: 285g
Pick-up pattern: Unidirectional
Microphone sensitivity: -41 DBV/Pa
Connection: Wireless
Frequency response (Headphones): 20-20,000 Hz
Transducer principle (headphones): Dynamic, closed
Sound pressure level (SPL): 117 DB
Packaging & Bundle
Packaging wise, Sennheiser have done a decent job. The box is sturdy and sized appropriately with a good, clear picture of the headset on the front. The low latency connection logo in the bottom-left looks more like a depiction of a window-wiper on a car than anything else, we thought. Low latency is a difficult picture to paint though, granted.
The reverse of the box gives an exploded image of the headset to show the construction and gives a multi-lingual breakdown of features.
Included with the GSP 370 is a small 2.4GHz wireless USB dongle, a 1.5M Micro-USB cable and some setup/warranty information.
Closer Look
The headset utilises a fairly typical layout with a swing down microphone boom and extendable design for comfort. The grey/black colour scheme contrasts well and feels premium. Weighing in at 285g, the headset isn’t too heavy either, particularly considering there’s a 100-hour battery in here.
The cloth-covered foam on the inside of the headband is extremely soft and forgiving, putting up no fight whatsoever when it’s squashed. The foam covers the majority of the top so comfort should be good.
The outer edges of the ear pads, the part that doesn’t touch your ears, is made from a soft leatherette to provide better sound isolation; the inner part that makes contact with your head is suede that will reduce heat build up to prevent sweating and discomfort. The earcups are designed to sit around the ear, instead of on it, but if you have medium or large ears, these cups look a little small for that.
On the outside of the right earcup is a large infinity wheel that is used to adjust the headset’s volume. The prominent placement and substantial size should make it very easy to find and use.
Folding the microphone boom down, there’s a noticeable click when it reaches about eye-level, this unmutes the microphone so that you can quickly and easily mute yourself by swinging it up the way. The boom is around 150mm in length, from the centre of the hinge, putting it around the edge of my mouth so it should pick up my voice pretty well.
On the bottom of the left earcup is the power switch, with the sync function built-in, a Micro-USB charging port and a multi-colour LED that shows you current states of the headset such as when it’s syncing or charging.
Performance Testing & Software
Performance Testing
Considering the 100-hour battery life (which would typically require a high capacity battery) and relatively large dimensions, we expected the headset to be heavy and cumbersome but Sennheiser have done a good job of shaving the weight down to just 285g. It feels light on the head with a good, but not overpowering, gripping force to keep it in place.
Adjusting the earcups on either side was positive, just how it should be. They remained in place with a solid grip and provided a vast amount of adjustment for a range of head sizes. The earcups are mounted on a ball and socket design, allowing a great range of motion to form a flat, neutral contact patch on the sides of your head, reducing pressure in any specific area.
The large memory foam earcups, with a leatherette outer and a really fine suede inner, are around 18mm thick and offer lovely, soft comfort for hours of use; this has been the result of extensive ergonomics research of the human ear and is designed to reduce heat build-up and sweating around the ears. The flat surface covering the drivers has also been recessed further, helping to prevent any part of your ear coming into contact with the internal structure of the headset.
Now, for the audio quality. This is more than up to the job at hand, with clear highs, deep bass, and an overall balanced and rich soundscape within the headset. The 2.0 stereo sound is nothing short of superb, frankly. One weak point, however, is the upper volume limit. We found the headset wouldn’t really go quite loud enough for what we’d like; perhaps this is a limitation of the battery or just a safe volume limit that Sennheiser feel doesn’t need to be exceeded, but regardless of the reason, a bit more volume would be nice.
The software also features virtual 7.1 that can be toggled on, we tried this with music and videos and weren’t too impressed, finding it to muffle the sound a little and remove some of the clarity, but when using it to play video games, the experience was very different. We tried it out in a variety of games over our lengthy test period; our favourites were racing games and FPS games. Within racing games, the cockpit view is preferred, this can hinder your ability to see other racers around you but with the 7.1 audio enabled, it gave a genuine sense of naturally knowing where they are, if they dive down the inside in the braking zone or whatever. Likewise, with first person shooters, sometimes the audio can be just as, if not more, important than the visuals, listening out for opponents creeping in the adjacent room or for heavy machinery approaching from the east, whatever it may be, it’s often audible before it’s visible, and again, with the virtual 7.1 enabled, it was easy to pin-point the direction.
As we’ve mentioned a few times, Sennheiser reckon this headset can last up to 100 hours. This is one hell of a claim, considering the average wireless headset lasts between 15 and 20 hours, with the GSP 670, that this headset is based upon, being no exception. However, we found it to be absolutely true, the headset lasted about a fortnight of regular use before it needed charging. If you were using your computer for a couple of hours here and a couple of hours there, this could last a month or two on a single charge, not a bother at all. Charging from empty to full takes around 4 or 5 hours, but for sake of testing, we found that 15 minutes of charge allowed us about 8 hours of gaming without it complaining once.
Before we move onto the microphone testing, the actual boom of the microphone on the GSP 370 is enormous, it’s almost reminiscent of the coaches on the touchline during an American Football game, but it feels solid and hinges down to be in line with your mouth well. It can also be pushed up into its vertical position to mute, you feel the switch engage on its way up.
Build quality, all things considered, is excellent. It feels robust, well-engineered and made from premium materials, but there’s one small issue that we just can’t get by. There’s a toggle switch on the left earcup that turns the headset on or off. If you happen to listen music quietly, or if the headset is outputting no volume whatsoever, that switch can be heard rattling very clearly in the left earcup. I found this to be even more annoying when wearing a hoody and turning my head to the left for my left monitor – the switch would catch on the hood on top of my shoulder and make a ‘tick’ noise inside the headset.
We have since been made aware that our review sample is from an early production run and Sennheiser have since
Software & Microphone
Sennheiser’s GSP 370 uses the Sennheiser Gaming Suite software on Windows 10 PCs but goes without on Mac operating systems and the Sony PS4. Below is a demo of the software, which we found to be very basic but functional.
We’ll also use the software demo as an opportunity to demonstrate the microphone’s ability.
Conclusion
As you’d probably expect from Sennheiser, overall, the experience has been very positive, almost flawless in fact.The headset is sublimely comfortable to the point that you totally forget it’s on your head, even after wearing it for hours on end. The ergonomics research, investment in premium quality materials and well-thought-out, lightweight design, with ample adjustment, has paid off double here; we couldn’t be happier with the comfort offered.
As far as audio is concerned, Sennheiser have tuned the cans to perfection. They provide an excellent range and don’t appear to be too heavily biased on either the bass or treble, however, if you do find that you’d like to tweak things a little, the equaliser in the Sennheiser Gaming Suite offers just that; having said that, we’d perhaps like to see more than 5 bands to give a little more control.
The microphone, as you hopefully heard in the video on the previous page, is crisp and clear but not what we’d class as “broadcast-quality”, there’s definitely some room for improvement but considering the ease of use and the 100-hour battery life, it’s absolutely more than up to the job of communicating with team mates.
Wireless communication from the dongle was absolutely spot on, I was able to visit the fridge without a hitch. We feel we should say, we did have some issues with our dongle/headset firmware, that Sennheiser have now worked out, where you’d need to re-pair the devices every time the system was restarted; this was mildly annoying but is now resolved and shouldn’t effect anyone going forwards.
Onto the battery life. 100 hours from a wireless headset without it having a 12V car battery hanging off the back is nothing short of mind-blowing. We tested this headset over a period of about 10 weeks and we’ve only charged it twice. Even if you used it for 8 hours a day, every day, you’d get almost a fortnight from it. This, for us, was the crux of wireless headsets but Sennheiser have gone and set the bar high for the competition.
For balance, so we don’t sound like we’re being paid for the review, we did find a couple of flaws with the headset. The main problem we found was the power/sync switch being loose within the headset causing it to rattle/tap if you move your head from side to side. We’re told that this is an early production sample and subsequent production runs don’t suffer from the same problem. The other ‘problem’ we found was the inability to remove the microphone, this headset would make an absolutely awesome set of headphones if you happened to already own a microphone that you like to use. There’s nothing else on the market with this level of battery life and audio quality combined into one excellent bundle.
Genuinely the most comfortable headset I’ve ever worn, with excellent audio from the cans and a decent showing from the microphone. The 100 hour battery life steals the show though, you can forget to charge it for days on end without ever worrying.
Pros
+ 100-hour battery life!
+ Most comfortable headset I’ve worn to date
+ Beautifully clear sound quality
+ Solid build quality (mostly)
+ Good quality microphone with mute function
+ PS4 support
Cons
– Mute/sync switch can rattle (claimed to have been fixed in the latest revision)
– Software is a little too basic
– A USB Type-C charging cable would be a nice feature for 2020
+ 100-hour battery life!
+ Most comfortable headset I’ve worn to date
+ Beautifully clear sound quality
+ Solid build quality (mostly)
+ Good quality microphone with mute function
+ PS4 support
Cons
– Mute/sync switch can rattle (claimed to have been fixed in the latest revision)
– Software is a little too basic
– A USB Type-C charging cable would be a nice feature for 2020
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