Logitech G - G430 Surround-Sound Gaming Headset product reviews

In striking electric blue, these headphones are an eye catcher. They have nice shiny "G" logos, stainless headset extension sliders and a great price tag, but do they measure up?

Designed to be lightweight and well balanced these headphones are not a burden to wear. I often have 3-5 hour sessions in the gaming chair and some headphones I have used in the past will start to feel uncomfortable. These headphones are a great fit with good tension on the head. Not too much so that you are shifting them and not too little that they slip when looking around.

Un-boxing is straightforward, no fiddly bits to contend with. The software needs to be downloaded from Logitech's website and it is just under 85mb. More on this software later.

The electric blue cord from the headset to the PC is just over 3 meters long with a mic mute switch and volume control at the 1 meter from the headphone mark. The mic boom swivels down and is flexible. The designers have spent a lot of time making sure this headset will fit you as a custom fit headset would. The 90 degree swiveling cups allow for perfect seating around your ears on any head size and shape and the mic boom is flexible to allow for more directional placement close to your mouth. The USB adapter connects the headset to the PC.

These headphones are true 7.1 Dolby Digital and lag free. Well nothing is lag free, but it is minimised into insignificance. The baddies won't be able to creep past without you hearing them. The mic is noise cancelling which is very handy for crisp clear communication. I tested the mic out and compared it to my broadcast studio quality mic, and concluded that you can't use this mic for recording vocals, but you can use it for what it is intended for. Clear communication.

So enough about the specs, what do they sound like? I used them in an old classic favourite of mine CS:Source. They sounded great and allowed me to get a good feel for what was going on around me. They were fully immersive and I felt like I was inside the action not standing behind it. There are currently no games published on any platform that support 7.1 - the best you will find is 5.1 and because of this stereo or just Dolby simulated into 7.1 is the best you will get.

I tested them on music playback also. Stereo signal input simulating 7.1 at full volume. After ten seconds I closed my eyes and had that epiphany moment. When you realise that you can hear so many more intricacies and nuances and rediscover your old music. It was like I was in the room with the band during recording. I played a varied range of music and was enjoying picking up on subtleties I had never heard before. I usually hear more in a song than the average person being a musician myself, but in one song I tested, Prince - When Doves Cry, I had never heard an intro effect where one song effect in the sound stage started at my front left temple about 10cm away and panned across to the right. It was amazing.

Earlier I mentioned that I would get back to the software. Firstly the software is for PC only, sorry Mac users. You are not completely at a loss though. This is where I found a problem. Installation is straightforward, device detection is easy. Throughout my testing I had my PC master volume on 100%, the inline volume control on 100% the volume in the software on 100%. The problem was the max volume was about 70% of other headphones. That's fine I figured, there is a pre amp slider in the EQ in the software. I tried to use it but it is greyed out.

After doing a little digging I discovered that to comply with the EU volume exposure safety levels, the EQ slider is greyed out as it will be automatically adjusted depending on what EQ settings you select. This means that the headset cannot be made to go as loud as its full potential. The USB adapter is actually a digital soundcard. There is currently no way around this. If you just use the mic and headphone jack you will have amazingly loud levels but you will lose the functionality of the EQ and 7.1 virtualisation. Mac users can utilise the headset in this way without the software. The earlier version 8.4 does not recognise the headphones so there is no workaround that allows the use of the software EQ and 7.1 unfortunately.

The headphones are still an excellent buy and all being said about the software issues the levels will please most users, but for me I felt that I needed that 2-3 dB boost.