VZR Model One – Design & Features
The VZR Model One looks and feels like a serious piece of audio gear. Its thick, heavy, white plastic cans hang from rotating metal forks attached to a metal frame. Weighing in at just over one pound, you notice it sitting on your head. That said, the weight isn’t uncomfortable, per se. The studio-style “suspended” top band slides on plastic guides and adjusts based on how the weight of the headset hangs off your head. It’s wrapped in leather and features two pieces of memory foam padding (with a gap for your headphone stand). The ear cups, also clad in leatherette and furnished with memory foam padding, hold your head in place and stay comfortable even through long play sessions. The strong frame creates a significant clamp force, which holds the headphones in place without feeling tight. It also creates a seal that keeps a significant amount of ambient noise out of your ears.
Before we jump too far in, I wanted to note that the specific Model One review unit I received is an early pre-production model with a few minor details out of place. The inline mic on my review unit has a pair of non-functional media/volume controls, which won’t be present on the final review unit. In the final version, the forks will feature a large “L” and “R,” to help you put them on correctly. (Instead, I have a pair of stickers that note the side and headset’s serial number) Finally the cables that come with the headset will be updated – the main cable will be a different length, the PC splitter breakout cable will have a VZR logo, and so on. We will update the review with new photos and any change in impressions when we gain access to the final version, but these differences have very little impact on my feelings regarding the headset’s overall quality. 
Back to what’s in the headset. The Model One features custom speakers with 40mm drivers and a variety of unique characteristics designed to enhance its sound. According to VZR, the key to the Model One’s clarity and high-quality spatial audio is a component called the crosswave acoustic lens, which helps “shape” soundwaves to make them similar to the way they’d sound if you heard them in person, rather than coming out of a speaker. We’ll discuss how these features impact the sound in the “gaming and listening” section, but it’s clear that a lot of care has been put into making the headphones sound as clear and crisp as possible. Interestingly, the VZR Model One has two microphones. First, a detachable unidirectional wire boom, which gets great sound quality, but picks up a lot of ambient noise. When playing with friends on gaming PCs, for example, they told me they could hear the clack of my mechanical gaming keyboard, something that normally isn’t an issue with other heavy over-ear gaming headsets I’ve tested, such as the HyperX Cloud Revolver with 7.1 Surround Sound. 
When you remove the boom, the headset reverts to the backup – a small omni-directional inline mic built into the headset’s audio cable, which does a good job of catching your voice even when it’s not directly pointing at your face. Of course, like the boom, it also catches a lot of outside noise. (Though, that’s to be expected with this kind of mic.) On the flip side of the inline mic is a small mute switch, which applies across both microphones. Speaking of the cable, the Model One connects exclusively via 3.5mm audio jack, so it’s ubiquitous across all platforms. (Though you’ll need a dongle to pair it with an iPhone). The headset comes with a stereo splitter, which you often need with a gaming desktop, as well as a quarter-inch audio jack for receivers and high-end audio systems. 
With its emphasis on sound quality above all else, the VZR lacks a few features that are common among gaming headsets. Aside from the mute switch, it doesn’t feature any controls on the back of the cans, nor does it come with any kind of configuration software. I generally didn’t find I missed those features: having volume controls on the headset is nice in theory, but I use the audio controls on PC or console most of the time whether I need to or not. That said, at $349, most headsets at this ultra-premium price point not only have all the basic features, but also innovative ideas like head-tracking, and extra luxury accommodations, like RGB lighting. On the other hand, the VZR does come with a hard carrying case. While I’m normally a “throw ‘em in your bag” kind of guy, there’s something nice about having a place to put your headphones, especially since it comes with a multi-part cable and other parts. 
VZR Model One – Gaming & Listening
The VZR Model One produces some of the best sound I’ve heard from a gaming headset, but that superior audio is easier to hear when listening to music than while playing games. Listening to songs like Sade’s “Bullet-Proof Soul” or “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse, you get excellent separation between the different elements of the song, allowing you to hear each part more clearly. When all of the instruments and samples come through crystal clear, the whole song sounds more clear as well. With that additional space, the music creates a sense of space that allows simple listening to be a transformative experience. This level of clarity is exceedingly rare among gaming headsets, and normally reserved for much more expensive audio gear. However, I can’t say that I noticed such an obvious, revelatory distinction in its audio quality when playing games. Testing across PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC, the sound quality is clean and clear, up there with the best gaming headsets, but the jump from “good for gaming gear” and “audiophile grade gear” doesn’t stand out. That doesn’t mean the differences aren’t there – they’re just very subtle.
The Model One delivers polished sound and nuanced positional audio. Playing as the killer in Dead by Daylight, listening for audio cues like a player’s heavy breathing or muffled crying when they’re hiding in a closet is easy to pick out among other noises that might obscure it on other headsets. In Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, tracing the sound of a bullet back to the person who fired it is second nature. At this point, I think that’s the platonic ideal of positional audio. Though incredibly well-balanced, the VZR Model One lacks one important quality common among gaming headsets. Powerful bass notes like explosions or a booming voice aren’t as loud as they’d be in other headsets, though you can still feel the force of the speakers. In many cases, headsets are tuned to emphasize bass to create that feeling of force, but the calibration detracts from mid- and high-tones. Though the bass isn’t quite as all-consuming here, it achieves an extremely strong balance between the two. All in all, I find it’s a more immersive, polished experience, though some thrill-seekers may lament that you don’t get maximum “oomph.” [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=best-gaming-headsets&captions=true"]
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