Asus’s ROG Delta headsets have always been designed around amazing audio quality: if you’re an audiophile, every version has consistently been one of the top models to consider. With the Delta S Animate, that same thing holds true – but with an emphasis this time on personalization. Equipped with new 245 mini-LED AniMe Dot Matrix displays, both earcups can now broadcast custom animations, allowing personalization like never before. That updated feature also brings a new price of $249.99 compared to the original Delta S’s $205.99. Let’s take a closer look and see if it’s a gaming headset worth upgrading to.
Asus ROG Delta S Animate – Design and Features
The Asus ROG Delta S Animate is a bold gaming headset. There’s nothing svelte about this set of cans: it’s large and designed to make an impression. Whether that’s a good thing is going to be a matter of personal taste, but it’s not all about looks. The design pays dividends in both sound and comfort.
Like most gaming headsets, the Animate is composed of two well-padded cups, a plush headband, and a boom microphone. Look a little closer and it begins to differentiate itself. The cups are D-shaped to better wrap around the ear without pinching any part beneath the cushion. They’re thick and angled out in the rear, opening the chamber behind the driver for a bigger, more spacious sound. The pads are also thick, measuring three-quarters of an inch in depth. Unless you have huge ears, there’s not much chance of your ears pressing against the driver.
The headset is wired only (USB-C with a Type A extension cable), so there’s no need for fancy touch controls. Volume and mic mute share a rocker on the back of the left earcup. When clicked inward and the mic mutes, a red LED lights up on the boom mic so you can easily tell when you’re live. Just above is a switch to change the mini-LED matrix on both earcups from a preset animation to a mic visualizer. Since the mic supports different audio effects and EQ presets inside the Armory Crate software, it would have been nice to see an EQ toggle to quickly jump from gaming to music presets, but it’s kept simple.
The flagship feature of the headset is the AniMe Matrix displays which reside on the outside of each earcup. Each outer face is dotted with tiny cutouts for the 245 mini-LEDs placed underneath. There’s also a very subtle bit of branding etched on top of this surface but you could easily miss it without a close inspection. It makes sense: the simple white LEDs are meant to steal the show by displaying animations set within the software.
It’s a genuinely cool feature. By default, the headphones display a ROG logo shooting like a meteor. I swapped mine to a Space scene with a beastly tentacle monster. There are a bunch of neat presets to choose from that are genuinely pretty cool and don’t just flag ROG logos left and right: skateboarders, dogs, cats, hearts, even a samurai slicing the air with a bushido sword. Each of these can be customized inside the software or thrown out in lieu of your own custom design. You won’t be seeing any of these while you’re gaming, but if you stream or crave that added touch of personalization, it’s a neat bit of flair.
The displays are the exciting new feature, but it’s worth remembering that the heart of this headset is its audiophile-grade sound quality. Asus isn’t shy about telling you all the ways it’s put sound quality first. It’s rocking an ESS 9281 audio chip with Quad DAC technology. In basic terms, a DAC’s (digital-to-analog converter) job is to take the 1s and 0s sent from your computer and turn that into an analog signal that can be heard through headphones. Usually, one DAC covers the entire frequency band, but with this headset, the lows, mids, highs, and ultra-highs each have their own DAC for lossless audio and less noise. This not only improves sound but also helps you pick out small details, like footsteps, more easily for a competitive edge.
In practice, the whole “quad DAC” thing feels more like a marketing bullet than something you’ll actively notice, at least when compared to other single-DAC headsets like the Corsair Virtuoso XT. The important thing to know is that the ESS 9281 is excellent and can produce audio at full fidelity, whether that’s streaming over Tidal (the Delta S Animate supports full MQA decoding for Tidal’s highest-quality tracks), rocking your latest FLAC download, or taking in the soundtrack of your favorite game. Asus has taken pains to preserve that audio quality. The typical PC pitfall of white noise and interference from the other components won’t be an issue: the headset features not one, but two grounding layers to isolate its audio equipment.
Inside the housings, the Delta S Animate uses the same 50mm dynamic Essence drivers as the original Delta S. These drivers are mounted in airtight chambers to reduce interference and improve clarity. They’re also rated to reproduce sound from 20Hz to 40kHz, the latter of which is well outside what any human can actually hear. Since headphones typically distort at the edges of their frequency response range, this helps ensure that every sound making its way into your ears is pure and pristine.
The headset clearly has audio chops, but how is it as an actual gaming headset? It’s a bit more mixed but wins out in comfort. Asus includes two pairs of ear cushions in the box: a set of protein leather pads installed by default and a pair of fabric hybrid pads that are more breathable. The stock leather pads are soft and comfortable but tend to build up heat, particularly on the side with the controls (which also becomes warmer to the touch). The hybrid pads solve this but at the expense of some bass. The 310 gram weight is well distributed and balanced by the headband, so I was able to wear them in several hour stretches without developing a sore spot on the top of my head.
At $249, I would have liked to have seen less plastic in the build. The faceplates on both displays are metal, as is the headband, but the rest is lightweight plastic. It doesn’t feel cheap but also doesn’t feel as premium as such an expensive headset should.
I also found it difficult to use with the PlayStation 5 due to the length of the cable. Connecting and using it with the console is as simple as plugging it in, but if your console is on the opposite wall from the couch like mine is, its cable might be too short to actually use. With the adapter attached, you have eight feet of length, which is going to be too short for many rooms. In mine, I had to pull my couch out to comfortably use it. This won’t be an issue for smaller spaces, but for lots of gamers, that’s not going to cut it.
Asus ROG Delta S Animate – Performance
Thankfully, the headphones sound great for gaming. My last experience with a Delta headset was way back with the original in 2018, and I’m happy to say they’ve lost nothing in sound quality since then. Compared to the vast majority of gaming headsets (at least those not targeted at audiophiles), it offers superior sound quality that elevates your gaming experience and offers a competitive advantage.
The biggest edge the Delta S Animate offers is its clarity. No matter what game you’re playing, sound sources seem to have more space between them and each one rings out clear and true. The individual layers of sound, and where they’re coming from, are easier to hear and pick out, even during periods of intense action. Playing Call of Duty: Vanguard on the Das Haus map, I was able to pick out enemies flanking me and coming around corners even before I could see them, even during the constant intense firefights that give the map its identity.
The same thing is true when listening to music. Listening to Coheed and Cambria’s Pearl of the Stars, it was as if the instruments existed on separate planes. The directionality of sound is also excellent and really highlights when sounds pan from one ear to the other. If you pick up this headset, take half an hour to enjoy some binaural recordings. It’s well worth the time to hear music in a new way.
For better or worse, the Delta S Animate is reliant on software to sound its best. The soundstage is run of the mill for a closed-back headset but opens up with Armory Crate’s 7.1 surround sound option or the PS5’s 3D Audio. Music lovers will also want to spend some time with the different EQ options the software offers.
That’s because the headset is tuned for gaming first. While audiophile-aimed headsets like the Corsair Virtuoso XT or Steelseries Arctis Pro temper the bass in favor of extra detail in the mids and highs, the Delta S Animate maintains its low-end punch and tunes down those mids and highs. It’s great in action games and movies with big, booming cinematic moments, but felt a little too rounded off in music, hiding some of the detail the drivers are capable of. Thankfully, there are multiple presets and a full 10-band EQ to dial in the sound for yourself. You can also turn on extra bass, if you want it, as well as a compressor to tame Hulu's ridiculously loud ad breaks, and a voice clarity slider to bring out vocals or add crispness to podcasts.
I had high hopes for the microphone. Unfortunately, it’s pretty standard fare for a headset mic. It’s clear enough to chat with friends over Discord but has a compressed, nasally sound that can’t be solved with the Perfect Voice slider. The AI Noise Cancelation is pretty great, however, cutting out all of the background noise and keyboard sounds with just its lowest setting.
Then, of course, we have the AniMe displays. Even though you’ll never see them in actual use, they still managed to woo me. Even though they aren’t quite as high-res as they appear in the software (dimly lit LEDs can be hard to see unless it’s dark), they’re still good enough to clearly make out what’s being animated. Choosing and applying a preset is as easy as clicking what you would like to appear there.
Creating your own is slightly more complicated, but not bad. Clicking the edit button takes you a timeline where you can import your own still graphics and GIFs. You can adjust scale and rotation, crop, and choose whether it should appear on one or both earcups. Multiple graphics can be laced together and looped to create custom animations. With only 245 LEDs to work with, graphics need to be kept pretty simple. My rainbow nyan cat looked like a blob. Others, like the 1UP mushroom pictured above, look great.
Taken as a whole, there’s a lot to like here, but it doesn’t quite hit the same immediately high notes as other audiophile-grade gaming headsets like the Virtuoso or Arctis Pro. Those headsets admittedly take a different, more balanced approach to tuning where the Delta S Animate puts cinematic gaming front and center. There’s no question that the headset sounds good and that its layered sound is an absolute boon to all kinds of listening, but when stacked side by side with the competition, issues like the plasticky build, need to EQ, and run-of-the-mill microphone make its higher price a more bitter pill to swallow.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/vdi17z2
This could be a real lead forward for personal gaming... Revolutionise gaming
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