Review on Razer Kraken Tournament Edition: THX 7.1 Surround Sound Gaming Headset - USB DAC, Noise Cancelling Mic - PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X & S, Mobile - Green by George Hersey

I've been using old Razer headphones for a few years and I think they're quite good. When it came time to replace it I searched for the same brand and decided to buy this headset for a promotion. I was very disappointed in the sound quality. The headphones use the Synapse 3 program for their drivers and right now I'm not sure if it's just the headphones that are bad or if the program is just too bad. In terms of comfort, the headphones are good. Close your ears (big ears) and some decent noise cancellation. They are comfortable, no complaints about them. Now it is very difficult to set up the microphone. My friends on Discord kept telling me that my mic sound was either too low, too high, or that the sound was weird and my voice was very weird. There are some voice and microphone enhancements that just don't work and cause the driver to not work properly. Sometimes I sounded nice and clean just to say in a second I sound like a robot. I found the lack of some improvements made the microphone better to use. Then came the THX component. This is your USB port on your computer, and it's also where you plug in your headphones. It mimics surround sound, or at least what it's supposed to do. I have found that enabling THX muffles all noise and lowers it greatly. I tried it with a few games and the results varied, but overall the sound was quieter and very muffled. This brings me to the sound quality in general. Discord sounds good, I can hear my friends very clearly. In games it happens that the bass sounds suddenly disappear. I've tried a few equalizer settings and managed to get the sound a little clearer, but the bass remains very poor. I uninstalled and reinstalled the Synapse program and the sound improved, but the THX and bass issues remained. I've tried using it without installing the Razer drivers and letting Windows manage the drivers and the sounds are slightly better. In fact, the Windows Surround option is much better than Razer's THX. In general, the headphones sound better when the THX option is disabled and only regular stereo is used. I don't live in the States and sending the headset back isn't really an option. I searched the internet for solutions to these situations, but none seemed to exist. I will probably go back to my old headphones and try to sell these. It's a shame, but I won't be buying Razer headphones again after this experience.