Logitech G733

Design and finish

Logitech’s G733 gaming headset is pleasantly light at 277 grams, mainly thanks to its plastic construction. The speaker pods are attached to the headband by rails, but their adjustment range is very short at just over one centimetre. The headband – made of a stretchy rubber fabric – can be fastened in two different positions and can also be turned around for more (colourful) individuality. The manufacturer offers other headbands in different designs as well as pop filters for the short clip-on microphone in amusing shapes (e.g. a beard, a star, etc.). The microphone itself is connected to the left ear cup via a mini-jack and is made of flexible rubber that only roughly maintains the desired position. For fans of LEDs, there are two RGB light strips on the front of the pods, which can be controlled with the free G Hub gaming software. In general, there’s nothing negative to say about the G733: it is cleanly finished, lightweight and unobtrusive, but it is not the most valuable gaming headset on the market.

Comfort

Thanks to the classic bracket shape as well as the stretchy headband, the headphones fit like a glove from the first moment. The contact pressure is very good: not too tight and not too loose. Although the earpiece pods only offer a short adjustment range, since the headband has two different fastening slots for changing the size, the headphones always adapt perfectly to the shape of your head. Even after hours of use, nothing presses against the head (even when wearing glasses), and the two-layer memory foam pads distribute the pressure comfortably on and around the ears. These can also be removed for cleaning, but the manufacturer does not (yet) offer replacement ear pads.

When it comes to external noise attenuation, unfortunately, the G733 won’t win any prizes. The earpads are relatively thin and light, so it can be difficult to concentrate in noisy environments.

Software

With Logitech G Hub, there is management software for Mac and PC that allows you to configure connected Logitech devices such as mice, keyboards and headphones. Here we found numerous tuning options for the G733: a 5-band EQ lets you change the sound, while the volume of these headphones, microphones and microphone monitoring can be adjusted via sliders. “Blue Vo!ce” is an interesting feature that allows you to “fine-tune” your microphone signal, i.e. your voice – thanks to a test recording, you can hear your changes in real-time. A high-pass filter removes low-frequency rumble, a limiter ensures that nothing overloads if you shout, an expander/gate and the “Noise Reduction” function help you to get a clear signal. You can also change the input and output volume, process your voice with a 3-band EQ (including frequency selection and slope) and compress it with a compressor. A De-Esser is also on board and reduces unpleasant sibilance in your voice.

Of course, the sound of the headphones can also be adjusted, not only using a 10-band EQ but also by changing the basic sound via pre-sets, for example, from “bass boost” to “movie-ready” to “multiplayer online battle arena”.

Here, however, there is a major discrepancy in functionality between the Windows and Mac versions. While the “Surround Sound” tab guarantees all Windows users access to this function, it is completely missing from the Apple counterpart. This is a pity because Mac users cannot activate the “DTS Super Stereo Mode” or adjust the volume individually per surround channel.

That’s not all, as the G733 also offers the option of downloading ready-made pre-sets from the manufacturer and other G733 users. From sound profiles for specific games to microphone or RGB pre-sets, you really have a lot of things to explore here.

It remains to be said: Logitech’s G Hub software allows detailed tuning adjustments, but not for Mac users and Playstation gamers. The latter can enjoy plug-and-play but have to do without surround sound and EQ settings.

Sound

Once the USB wireless dongle is plugged in, the software is installed and the G733 is recognised, nothing stands in the way of listening. In order to better assess the sound, we deactivated all sound-altering measures and started our test playlist, because we wanted to hear the headset “naked” before we tried anything else out.

The built-in 40-millimetre “Pro-G” drivers with their hybrid mesh material ensure distortion-free reproduction even at higher volumes, but in general, the G733 sound rather unspectacular, almost characterless, because the frequency response is quite linear across the entire frequency spectrum. The bass range is only slightly boosted around 100 Hz, so powerful bass rumblings do not radiate into the midrange to mask them. The mids, on the other hand, are just as inconspicuous as the highs, which could have been more lively for our taste. Don’t misunderstand: a linear frequency response (if we can call it linear at all when talking about headphones) has the advantage that a pair of headphones works well across all genres and it doesn’t matter whether you’re listening to EDM, pop, rock, movies or games. But if that’s not enough for you, you can still use the G Hub software to bend the playback behaviour to your liking via EQ.

What you can’t adjust via software, however, is the sound stage of the G733. Bands sound as if they’re standing close together on the virtual stage and the space is not particularly deep, which leaves a flat impression. Although sound events can always be located in the room, they can be divided into “left” and “right” in a more classic way, rather than what one might call “precision in the sound field”.

This changed when we activated the virtual surround sound “DTS Headphone:X 2.0”, which can reproduce up to 7.1 channels. For technical reasons, the room changes and opens up three-dimensionally, so that in games the approach of your opponents can be located accurately. This always worked reliably in our tests with various games, but we miss the plasticity and dynamics here, too, so that games simply seem even more alive.

Microphone

Without sound-improving measures, the microphone only offers average quality. It is worth taking the time to experiment with the Blue Vo!ce function in the G Hub software. This can be a bit fiddly, depending on how detailed you want to make the “tweaks” to your voice. But the big “eureka” moment is missing because a crystal-clear voice cannot really be created with the built-in microphone technology.