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Although Cooler Master doesn’t have a long history of making audio hardware, its CM Storm range of gaming headsets have quickly proved to be strong contenders in a crowded marketplace. The CM Storm Sonuz has the same chunky looks as the rest of the range – making yourself look like a cyborg is de rigeur when wearing a gaming headset.
The masses of matt grey plastic won’t win any prizes for looks, but there’s plenty of padding for the heavy 380g headset. Including the cable and remote control, the entire unit weighs 420g. The padded ear cups don’t swivel or rotate fully, but move enough so you can find a comfortable position whatever your head shape. The headband is massively adjustable thanks to a couple of metal sliders, so it’ll fit even those with particularly small or large heads. The headset’s microphone can be attached to either ear cup or removed entirely.
We were worried about the headset’s weight, but we happily wore it for around three hours without any discomfort. The ear cups are only a little on the warm side, even after you’ve had them on for over an hour and – correctly adjusted – the headband only presses lightly on the sides of your head.
Unlike many of the gaming headsets we review, the Sonuz doesn’t have an integrated sound card – just 3.5mm headphone and mic jack plugs. This means the quality of the sound is partly determined by your PC’s sound card – a laptop’s integrated Realtek codec isn’t going to stand up to the quality of sound cards such as the Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D USB sound card we use for our reference gaming audio tests.
Although this is only a stereo headset with neither real nor virtual surround sound, we were impressed with the clarity of stereo sound in games. However, we were surprised to find that, despite their bulk, the earpieces do very little to block out background noise – we could hear conversations as well as the background hum of our computers and air conditioning. This is largely down to their open driver design. The advantage of open drivers is that the greater air movement provides a better sense of space and more natural reproduction of low notes, at the cost of minimal blocking of outside sound. For similar reasons, anyone sitting next to you can hear whatever you’re listening to, as well.
Like most gaming audio equipment, the Sonuz headset has significant bass, giving plenty of oomph to explosions, drumbeats and NPCs with baritone voices. Unfortunately, complex music with an emphatic bassline often loses detail in the mid-range as it’s overwhelmed by lower notes. High notes are more clearly defined but can sound somewhat brittle and forced. This isn’t really a major issue if your main use for the headset is for film and gaming audio. It’s not an ideal all-round headset, but nor is it sold as such, and most music still sounds dynamic and fun, even if the details aren’t quite right.
This is a good gaming headset – it’s loud in all the right ways, has impressive stereo separation and is comfortable enough to keep on for a few hours on the trot. However, at £55, it’s expensive for a headset that doesn’t come with useful extras such as a USB sound card or virtual surround sound.
