PowerA LucidSound LS500/P assessment | PC Gamer

When most individuals are in search of a gaming headset they need it to have a couple of issues: work with their platform of selection, sound good, respectable mic, and an affordable battery life. Other options like noise cancelling are good however pointless, in addition to including to the worth of the unit. The LucidSound LS500 does away with such frivolities and focuses in on what you actually need in a headset, delivering a surprisingly good pair of cans for underneath $70 USD.

Taking the headset out of the field the very first thing I seen is how gentle it’s. The LucidSound LS500 boasts lengthy haul battery lifetime of as much as 70 hours, so I used to be anticipating a heavier match. Instead it’s a light-weight and comfy headset. This is because of the plastic building, which feels slightly low-cost however makes up for it in featherweight consolation. It even consists of glasses slots to make lengthy put on for four-eyed people like me.

It’s not as snug as Turtle Beach’s solution but does a far better job than the likes of top dog Razer BlackShark’s for glasses comfort. Despite this, they are living up to their battery life quotas as I have yet to charge this headset after many tens-of-hours of testing.

This lightweight plastic construction delivers a headset that weighs only around 260 grams. The mesh construction headband also does well for long hours of gaming. If it’s not my glasses tiring me it’s pressure on the head, and I can say this headset stays comfortable for many hours-long gaming sessions.

Connectivity will depend on the unit you have, either Xbox or PlayStation, but both come with a handy dongle that can also be used on your PC. The dongle is quite large, but has USB Type-C and Type A connectors which is a nice touch for versatility. The 2.4 GHz Connection can be activated by holding down the ear cuff button for a few seconds, or you can swap to Bluetooth mode using the power button. Unfortunately, you can’t do both at once, but at this price I wasn’t expecting anything that fancy.

It is worth noting that the chat boom style mic doesn’t appear to work in Bluetooth mode, and only responded when I was gaming with the dongle connection. In game it works just fine, with mic monitoring available by the other ear cuff button—though it’s never worked for me. Still, for a headset this cheap, the mic has fine quality pickup with pretty good voice isolation, and I was having no problem clearly shouting out enemies and mining goods in our Deep Rock Galactic adventures.

But how do they sound? Really quite great, especially for the price. I spent hours just riding my horse around in Ghost of Yotei on PlayStation 5 just enjoying the sounds of nature and the breeze through fields. When coming to campsites, I’d be able to ride around them and the directional sound always pointed me in the right direction. In Hades 2 on PC I was able to turn on the vow or rivals and locate Hecate’s true form by the direction of her voice.

When listening to music, sure other headphones would do a better job, but these really aren’t bad. There’s a surprisingly good breadth of sound, with treble and bass both coming through clear and well tuned. Though the latter is a little lacking especially if you’re used to bass boosted cans. Still, I doubt you’d get much better for a regular, non-gaming headset that cost around the same amount of money. They even look reasonably stealthy with the boom style mic in the upright position. It’s certainly a gamer headset but doesn’t go too hard on the gamer aesthetics so you’re not embarrassed to wear it out in public.

For under $70 USD, the LucidSound LS500 provide a really well rounded headset that has focussed on the most important qualities to gamers. Having such great audio quality for this price really is a huge win. All the sacrifices that have been made to get this headset to the price point are really worthwhile ones, leaving just what you need in a quality gaming headset. Great audio, a decent mic, and the ability to connect to whatever you need.