Nukezilla Review: CyberSnipa Sonar 5.1 Championship Headset

I have horrible luck with headphones. While most people can get months or years out of a cheap headset microphone, I can’t manage to keep one for more than a few weeks before I snap the microphone boom off, or one of the ear cups falls off, etc. So I’ve been in the market for a headset that will be sturdy, produce good sound, and be comfortable on my head. Enter the CyberSnipa Sonar 5.1 Championship.

The Sonar 5.1 Championship comes in an attractive carrying bag, sort of like a normal headphones bag on steroids.

The construction, for the most part, is rather solid with the headband feeling like it has a bit of weight to it and the ear cups made of solid, heavy plastic covered in a thick cloth padding. In fact, everything feels pretty high quality except the volume box.

Like most premium headphones these days, the Sonar 5.1 Championship comes with a volume control on the cable; but instead of just a small volume slider and a mute/unmute toggle, it comes with a gigantic, flimsy plastic box where you can adjust not just volume but the individual settings for the front, rear, center, and subwoofer. Here’s the problem: mine doesn’t work. I’m assuming that they are volume knobs for the individual surround sound speakers in the headset, but I really wouldn’t know because nothing on the volume box works except for the mute/unmute toggle.

As a result, we were unable to review the function of the volume box; however the form was just as disappointing. It’s gigantic but it lacks any weight or heft behind it, and the box feel hollow. It makes you wonder what’s on the inside to make it so large?

Fortunately, the box is a relatively minor flaw in an otherwise successful industrial design. Since there are going to be comparisons to the Astro A40 (my previous headset, which snapped off an earcup), overall I think the Sonar 5.1 Championship is a bit more sturdy, but has a lighter and less dense feel than the A40. They certainly don’t feel fragile, just plasticy.

Setup was uneventful, surprisingly. I was anticipating a difficult time configuring things, as I normally plug my headset into a Razer Mako 2.1 speaker system which does not have any USB inputs and the Sonar 5.1 Championship is a USB microphone. Every other headset mic (including the A40) I’ve used on with this speaker system was a major hassle. However after plugging the Sonar 5.1 Championship directly into my PC, it auto-detected and set itself up just fine and switching between the two systems is as simple as opening up Windows volume mixer and changing the primary output device from speakers to headphones.

Despite everything working fine with Plug-n-Play I installed the support software that came with it anyway. One caveat: the driver/support CD is one of those miniature kinds, so if you have an optical drive that doesn’t play nicely with those, like some slot-loaders, you might have a minor problem. But, as stated previously, the software was actually unnecessary to get it working in the first place so it shouldn’t be a deal-breaker for most people.

Outgoing audio quality on Ventrilo was excellent and sounded equally good in recorded tests. I had to turn incoming audio down significantly compared to my last set of headphones — the Sonar 5.1 certainly does not have trouble putting out the decibels.

The headphones support positional audio, but on a subjective note I was unable to note any major aural difference between the Sonar 5.1 Championship and the A40, though that’s not a bad thing.

My overall experience with the audio was that the Sonar 5.1 Championship is just as capable as units costing five times the price.  In fact, I’d have given it a recommendation over more expensive headsets if it weren’t for that non-working volume control box and the slightly plasticy feel. But those are minor concerns. At around $75 the Sonar 5.1 Championship is only a bit more expensive than your typical Wal-mart brand headset, and while it may be just slightly out of budget for a holiday gift, you’re not going to break the bank owning one.