Razer Kaira X

Package

The package is just as spartan as the Razer Kaira X: the headphones themselves, a pop filter for the microphone and a Quick Start Guide including a Razer sticker can be found in the blue cardboard box.

Wearer comfort

The Razer-branded “FlowKnit” memory foam ear cushions completely enclose the wearer’s ears thanks to their 65× 45 mm inner diameter. The swivelling speaker pods adapt to your head shape accordingly. Together with the low weight of approx. 270 grams, this ensures low-pressure gaming fun even after hours of wear. The pads offer sufficient ventilation and are breathable, so that heat build-up is limited. However, the padded headband could have been a little thicker for our taste.

The headband, which is also made of plastic, offers nine raster points, works smoothly and retains the setting once selected even after the Kaira X has been taken off. The contact pressure is not particularly high, so the headset tends to slip if you shake your head vigorously.

In typical Razer fashion, the Kaira X appears cleanly finished and relatively stable; they survived our twisting and turning tests without a murmur.

Connect and go

Thanks to the approx. 130 cm long textile cable with angled and gold-plated mini-jack plug, the Razer Kaira X is ready to use right away. The manufacturer markets this model specifically as a companion for the Sony Playstation 5, which is evident from the headset’s colour scheme. But anything with a mini-jack socket can, of course, take on the Kaira X: PCs, Macs, mobile devices, Nintendo Switch, Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox. For the latter, the manufacturer also offers the Kaira X in matching “for Xbox” colour variations.

In terms of control options, the minimalist Kaira X remains true to itself: a single switch deactivates/activates the permanently installed gooseneck microphone, while the rotary control below it takes care of the headset’s volume. As with almost all controls of this kind, Kaira X’s control shows a left-right shift if turned up slowly, when extremely quiet listening is required.

Sound

The Razer Kaira X’s 50mm-diameter TriForce drivers reproduce frequencies from 20Hz to 20,000Hz, which the manufacturer says naturally covers human hearing. With a sensitivity of 96 dB/SPL per milliwatt and an impedance of 32 ohms, this gaming headset has enough puff to provide ample output on all consoles and computers.

And what the Kaira X delivered to our ears was certainly worth listening to; the overall sound picture was composed of an unexaggerated bass, a slightly boosted mid-range and a quite present treble.

The Kaira X may not be the ideal choice for modern music that focuses on deep, rolling basslines. They simply lack the punch to provide the appropriate listening pleasure. The TriForce drivers reproduce bass-heavy material relatively calmly, and the tonality is maintained. The transition to the mids is clean, and the tuning of the mids brings voices and other in-game sounds slightly to the fore. This feature is especially welcome when playing, as sound events can be perceived more easily or distinguished better. The treble range seems present but sometimes works off some test tracks with a particular density in the upper-frequency range in a sibilant manner. In general, however, this treble range particularly benefits sound effects: reverberation spaces spread out nicely in the room, material rich in overtones is reproduced precisely.

Since the Razer Kaira X work as a purely analogue headset, they naturally lack a connection to the manufacturer’s configuration software Synapse, as offered by the Razer BlackShark V2 or the Razer Kaira Pro for Xbox. Sound changes via an equaliser are therefore not directly possible. Incidentally, this also applies to the…

Microphone

The HyperClear microphone comes with a small pop shield and left us with a mixed impression in practice. In our tests, the user’s voice came through without noise and remained intelligible but always seemed a little muffled. Thanks to its cardioid characteristic, it is well protected against interference from the rear and sides – background noise is barely perceptible. Thanks to the flexible neck, the mic can be positioned precisely, in such a way that it almost disappears from your field of vision when not in use.