Razer Hammerhead Duo

The Hammerhead Duo comes in pitch black, with dynamic bass/midrange driver and balanced armature driver for high-frequency playback at either side. The manufacturer wants to achieve a more powerful sound reproduction with less distortion here. It’s not an unusual concept, not by any means, but it’s rather rare to find such an endeavour occupying this very affordable slice of the price spectrum. The drivers are housed in a robust aluminium casing, while the earpieces can be adapted to the individual thanks to three sets of silicone ear buds.

These wired headphones offer an inline remote control at the right side of the connection cable base, with an angled design and a gold-plated 3.5mm plug.

This model is available in two distinct variants. The model provided to us for review was the ‘Razer Hammerhead Duo – Compatible with Nintendo Switch’. As the name suggests, this particular variant is intended for gaming use, particularly for those looking to make use of the integrated microphone and mute function for communication with fellow gamers as they play.

Practice

The sleek design of these headphones ensures great levels of wearing comfort. In fact, these headphones are a pleasure to wear, even for long sessions, thanks to their lightweight nature. External noise insulation is adequate enough, considering the design.

The 3-button remote controls allows for quick adjustments in volume, with the relevant control buttons clearly identified. The middle button can also be used to start and stop music playback, answer and end phone calls, as well as initiate digital assistants when connected to smartphones. Multiple click can also be utilised to jump between track titles. The speech quality via the integrated microphone is good, with both the caller and recipient able to enjoy clear communication. However, communications can be disturbed slightly by cable noises, especially when the wearer is moving around.

Sound

These headphones deliver full listening pleasure to the wearer. Sound is full and perfectly harmonious, at least enough for everyday listening applications. What’s more, the powerful sound output of these headphones makes them an ideal choice for use with smartphones and gaming consoles, as well as a great bit of tech for home cinema needs. The Hammerhead Duo delivers loud sound when needed, yet thankfully won’t disturb the person sitting next to you, whether you’re on the couch or on public transport.

The bass range is particularly powerful here, although things remain reassuringly tight. This allows for rich tonality and clear dynamics. Low basses are reproduced adequately enough, but sometimes suffer from distortion. This ultimately depends on volume levels you’ve opted for. The central midrange is slightly lower than the bass, which can unfortunately lead to a loss of details, depending on the genre of the audio you’re listening to. Acoustic instruments and vocals in particular could do with sounding a little more concise here.

The same can be said of the higher ranges, with the output tending to sound too soft-edged and not nearly biting enough. The Hammerhead Duo still achieves good levels of transparency, but it’s certainly lacking something in this range. Three-dimensionality and the overall sound profile in the upper frequencies are therefore not exactly the strong points of these headphones. However, the stereo stage is well distributed.