With the Creative Tactic3D Sigma headset being designed for gaming its only fair that we observe its performance in the gaming environment. Although it is primarily a gaming peripheral, that isn't to say it won't be used for other applications such as music and movies. Therefore, it is useful to those reading this article that I report the headsets performance in multiple environments. So bearing all these aspects in mind - gaming, music and movies will be considered to give a decent and profound assumption of the performance of our headset today.

Its always good practise to compare the headset in question against other solutions too, so I will be testing the Tactic3D Sigma headset along-side the Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty, SteelSeries Siberia V2 and 7H and ROCCAT Kulo. These headsets are well regarded gaming peripherals within the community. They are recognised as being quality audio solutions. It's also important to keep the testing on a fair plane - so for the purpose of this examination, audio will be provided via the 5.1 onboard solution found on the ASUS Rampage III Formula.

Gaming

Gaming headsets are generally designed with FPS (First Person Shooter) gamers in mind, so with this in mind the following games were loaded up for some hardcore FPS gaming sessions.

Call of Duty Black Ops
Battlefield Bad Company 2

Both of the above are extremely popular gaming titles and feature not only intense visual action but also strong, pulsating audio tones from explosions, gunfire and other audio effects.

Overall sound quality in-game was good, using the minijack for audio playback offered good sound quality and using USB upped that sound quality to great - giving greater clarity and a much punchier bass. The Tactic3D Sigma offers pleasing balance across both titles, sound is accurate and precise. Compared to other rivals from SteelSeries and ROCCAT the Creative representative stands out as a solid gaming headset.

NOTE: I did test the microphone out and discovered no apparent flaws. It was precise, accurate and crisp as with other mics we have tested on headsets.

Music & Movies

For this series of tests. I played the following tracks which offer a vast range of audio tones and also watched a short action scene of Clash of the Titans on Blu-Ray.

The Naked and the Famous - Punching in a dream
Milk Inc. - In My eyes
Linkin Park - Waiting for the End

Audio playback featured in the tracks above and the movie scene were handled rather well by the Tactic3D Sigma, although bass was quite a bit overpowering using the USB variant. Thankfully though, various sound attributes can be modified using the headsets software...



Music was good using the Tactic3D Sigma but I felt it could be better. Clarity seemed to be affected by this overwhelming bass – although it can be tweaked within the software it was still present. The action scene that was played on our movie featured some dramatic background music and sword action with plenty of well-planned choreography . The audio delivered via the Tactic3D Sigma was good. Primarily this headset is designed for gaming use and in that arena it does extremely well – for music and movies the performance isn’t as exact but still, this headset offers good overall performance.

Comfort

Our headset under the spotlight today presented no comfort issues at all. Even after many hours of gaming. Thanks to the soft cushioning and weight the headset doesn’t add additional weight that can often by a problem with closed gaming headsets – simply because they are big.