HARDWARE REVIEW

LucidSound LS25 Esport Gaming Headset Review

by Luke Walsh, December 9th, 2018

They might be fairly new in terms of the hardware space but LucidSound has already carved out a decent chunk of the market with their non-gaming gaming headsets that choose to remove all the bells and whistles to concentrate on delivering decent sound. The latest headset from them, however, seems to go back a step by making it look more “gamer like”.

The LS25 is bright red, big and stands out compared to their previous headsets but still sounds good, looks premium even with the more obvious design choice of being bright red and sticks with their intuitive design for volume controls.

In terms of the design, LucidSound has not strayed far from their usual design patterns. The LS25 looks the same as the LS30/40 but is wired instead of wireless coming with two different sets of cables; one for console and the other for PC.

You’ll still find the large over the ear cups made with foam and a padded headband with a detachable boom microphone. The controls like the previous models are integrated into the earcups which are quite different from the usual in-line controls a lot of other headsets have. The left ear cup has a slider around it which controls the volume and pressing in right earcup will mute the microphone. This is still the best design in terms of controls I’ve seen in any headset on the market.

Like the other headsets, the LS25 has two microphones one built into the headset which can be used with your mobile device and the other boom microphone which has been attached more for gaming. Neither microphone is the best but if you need to take a quick call or want to jump in the game quickly then the built-in mic will do.

Overall the design looks good enough but does take a little bit of a detour from their previous colour schemes which are a more subtle black and grey combination. With the headband being a notch type, it is not as comfortable as the suspension type headbands that the likes of SteelSeries implement in their Arctis but still quite nice compared to others. Although on the bulky-side to not want to take it out travelling, I prefer the slightly bigger headsets as they are usually better to wear.

For a headset being marketed as a competitive headset, it would have made sense to make it a little more portable. Having earcups that are able to fold down and including a travel bag would have made it more in line with what some tournament goers are looking for.

Comfort-wise thanks for masses of padding on the headband and ear cups the LS25 is nice to wear for an extended period of time. Playing Destiny on PS4 using the LS25 was decent thanks to the swivel on the ears cups and enough notches to get a fit for the size of your head. There was little to no pressure on my ears which can be quite common for the cheaper headsets.

For gaming as mentioned, I played with a couple games including Destiny, Overwatch, Fallout 76 and Divinity II. Thanks to the two different jacks it makes the LS25 usable which pretty much any system so you can use it on your PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and smartphone. There’s a jack on each earcup for the different cables and one additional for the boom microphone.

The sound on the LS25 is just as good as the previous headsets and stand up as some of the best. Hearing footsteps in Overwatch were precise and guns felt like they had weight to them while fighting enemies or listening to characters talk in Divinity and Destiny had great directional sound. There’s a great balance between music, foley sounds and voice regardless of the game type making it a fairly versatile headset outside of eSports.

For music thanks to the great sound it works well if you want to listen to your Spotify playlists or just take in some in-game music. Listening to some Christmas tunes, 60’s rock and some J-pop everything sounded great from the basses heavier tones to the lighter treble sounds.

The one downside to the sound part of the LS25 is the max volume, although clearly, it is not the loudest headset out there. Using it for the PlayStation 4 or my mobile phone it was fine but even on the max setting, it can still sometimes be drowned out by something like a vacuum cleaner.

Another slight downside is the quality of the boom microphone as the quality of it does not seem as good as the previous headsets. During an online session, my friends told me that it sounded tinny and this was confirmed when hearing it back. There was some distortion from the microphone as well as an overall poor quality. The built-in mic is not much better as it has a lot more noise pollution from any background sounds if you are in somewhere that is not a quiet room to yourself.

Overall the LucidSound LS25 is a good headset but in comparison to the other models, it falls a little short because of the poor microphone performance and not being a huge fan or the slightly more flamboyant red design. I understand the “eSports” look is meant to stand out but the previous LucidSound headsets did that without having to add loads of colour. Esports is also about portability and it’s a shame these don’t fold down in anyway as that would make sense for tournament gamers or those who wish to use them on the go.

A couple shortcomings aside though. The LS25’s offer amazing sound quality which is balanced for the PC gaming it was designed for. It’s lighter than the other models making it a tad more portable and does have a good amount of padding for those extended gaming sessions.

For the same price, you can pick up an SteelSeries Arctis 3 which comes with the suspension headband and a better microphone. You can stick with LucidSound and spend a little bit more for the LS30’s which are a great wireless companion to your gaming, eSports included.