SteelSeries Siberia 200 Review

👤by Tony Le Bourne Comments 📅01-11-15
Performance Testing

Setup, Design & Observations
The Siberia 200 is an analogue headset which has a hard-lined 1.8m cable which falls to 2x 3.5mm jacks, one for headphones and one for microphone. The cable itself is non tangle, and does away with braiding. Connecting it to your system will be as easy as plugging it into the relevant audio out jacks, or if you wish to use it with your phone or mobile device you can use the included 4 pole adaptor.

The Siberia 200 from memory does feel lighter than what I remember the V2 to feel, though considering some of the changes, its to no surprise. Comfort wise, the Siberia 200 feels good and has a light grip strength that is just enough so it can stay on your head. The soft earpads keeps things nice and cosy, though as suspected the earcup doesn't quite offer a large enough opening for my ears, causing a slight ear crush (on either the tip or the lobe) no matter what I do. This doesn't cause a major comfort issue for myself but it may for others. This is one of the most surprising things about the Siberia 200, having removing the listing for the standard V3 model, now only available in the PRISM/USB, it's safe to assume that the Siberia 200 is likely to be the stable analogue solution from SteelSeries for some time.

The direct refresh seems to have missed an opportunity in regards to actually 'improving' upon the V2. The V3 is easily the most comfortable headsets I have experienced, ever. Moving back directly to the V2 model due to demand may make business sense but the regression means we may lose some of the more innovative forward thinking seen in the V3. Not only is the opening offered by the padding a little too small to make the headset truly circum-aural, the padding itself doesn't appear to be the same plush memory foam as seen in the V3, we could then move on to note lack of a non native 4 pole jack. The in-line remote returns, something that I personally didn't miss, while the leather headband feels like it is cardboard wrapped in PU leather and some fuzzy material. Though the comfort is good, it raises some longevity questions... (what happened to the solid leather strap?).

The most notable changes, being the additional opening for the headset drivers, which may be a subjective measure at most, as well as including an improved microphone.



Multimedia
Music playback sounds great, featuring that deep creamy bass we have found on the Siberia siblings, the mids are sharp and present while the highs, though a little dipped, are well accounted for. The deep bass and relatively wide soundstage make for some exciting game play, signature of the Siberia series. The wider soundstage may be aided by the redesigned semi-open earcup, though this is a subjective observation as the audio quality, is resoundingly similar to the V2. In CS:GO the audio separation is proved to be excellent, each sound is distinctive and clear, as one would come to expect from a Siberia headset.

Microphone
The microphone quality sounded quite natural though a little quiet, though this could be due to our soundcard, others in conversation said it was great, there was a little static, though the quality of the microphone can be altered by the quality of your audio processor/sound card.


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