The Syn Pro Air is the latest wireless gaming headset from Roccat and at an RRP of $149.99 / £129.99, it has a fair few contenders in its price bracket. Perhaps unsurprising as the PC arm of Turtle Beach, the cans manage to hold their own as an excellent all-rounder, with several standout features – mic quality, wireless range, battery life, and comfort.
The headset is sleek and stylish, with a plush headband and large ear cups covered in mesh padding. Despite their appearance, these don’t feel rough when worn, and can comfortably sit on my ears all day without overheating or uncomfortable pressure. I particularly enjoy the RGB lighting peeking through the hexagonal design on each cup – the effect is subtle, especially in daylight, so it’s elegant rather than attention-grabbing. You can modify the colours through the Roccat Neon software, too, and it synchronises with other AIMO devices, like the Kone Pro Air mouse.
The cups have a closed-back design, so audio doesn’t leak from the headset. If you’re looking to shut out the world, though, they won’t do the trick. I can still hear my surroundings easily, which is ideal for me, but wouldn’t be suitable for drowning out loud workspaces.
The ear cups can rotate freely and so can sit flat for storage, and you can adjust the fit of the headset by sliding each side up or down along vertical treads. I’ve found that the cups have a tendency to slide down from the headband by themselves when I’m not wearing the headset, and even on the shortest setting, the band is still a little big for me – if I put my chin to my chest, the headset ever-so-gradually slips off my head.
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This has been a good way to test the durability of the headset. Despite frequently clattering to the ground whenever I bend down, they remain good as new. My head may be smaller than average, so the typical user probably wouldn’t encounter this issue, but part of the trade-off for such a light headset is that it practically wants to float away. The Syn Pro Air is a particularly lightweight headset at 312g – 298g without the mic attached – making it ideal for long hours at the PC – as long as you don’t look down too often.
The Syn Pro Air is so lightweight, it ever-so-gradually slips off my head
The microphone is of surprisingly good quality for a wireless mic, and it’s on a detachable boom arm that you can flip to mute. This is a feature I adore as it’s easy to remember when you are muted, which is invaluable for obvious reasons. The hinge to flip the mic up seems particularly robust, too – this has been a weak point in other headsets I’ve used, so the build quality is reassuring.
When the headset is rebooted, the mic monitoring defaults to ‘on’, and can be turned down via the dial on the right ear cup. The dial on the left ear cup controls the volume, and on the underside of the left ear cup is the power button.
I had a particularly frustrating experience with the microphone’s directionality. The specs promise a ‘unidirectional microphone’, but in my experience, the mic easily picks up sounds coming from the other side of the arm. If you’re more softly spoken than the people you cohabit with, this could be a problem, as I found myself unable to find a setting on Discord that would transmit my voice without picking up others’ in the room. My friends even demanded I switch to push-to-talk voice activation, which has never happened to me before – how rude of them.
The Syn Pro Air connects via a 2.4GHz USB-A transmitter, and the wireless range is fantastic. I can listen to audio in every corner of my – admittedly small – flat, though the microphone output begins to drop out when I put a wall between myself and the receiver. In my experience, the range is superior even to competitors at higher price points, like the Steelseries Arctis 7 and the Audeze Penrose. It’s worth noting, however, that there is no Bluetooth or headphone jack, so the dongle is compulsory.
The sound quality is clear and crisp, allowing you to pick up every detail of your game, but it falls into a similar trap as other gaming headsets with an emphasis on the mids and treble rather than the low end, meaning there isn’t much warmth and depth to the sound. There’s certainly nothing to complain about, but it doesn’t blow me away. There’s a ten-band equaliser built into the Roccat Neon software providing ±18db boosts or cuts, and there are also plenty of tweaks available to boost the clarity of sound.
The Roccat Neon software also offers Turtle Beach’s ‘Superhuman Hearing’ setting, which boosts in-game noises like footsteps and gunshots. During a study conducted by the manufacturers, enabling this feature resulted in substantial improvement to FPS players’ stats. When I tried the mode out in Valorant, footsteps were certainly louder; but the applicable frequencies were also boosted in my teammates’ voices, which was mildly grating. In my experience, it didn’t reveal any sounds I wouldn’t otherwise hear – but it does put this vital information front and centre so you remember to pay attention to it.
The Syn Pro Air’s battery life easily allows for a whole day’s use on a full charge, and in the event I forget to leave it charging overnight, it lasts well into the next day, and is quickly topped up by the USB-C charging cable. Reconnecting to my PC is mostly seamless, but I occasionally need to remove and reinsert the dongle to persuade the headset to pair.
Overall, there are several reasons to recommend the Syn Pro Air. It easily sees me through a whole day of home working and evening of gaming, it never becomes uncomfortable, and its impressive range means I can keep chatting to friends or listening to music as I move from room to room. My main issues with it are the loose fit and the mic’s pickup pattern, so if you have a bigger head and a louder voice than me – which is pretty likely – you’ll fare better.
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