EPOS | Sennheiser GSP 600 review: "A king of comfort and adjustability comes at a price"

Sennheiser’s audio product range is borne of 70 years spent tackling the demands of finicky studio engineers and exacting musicians. The best gaming headset market is in a good place today and doesn’t feel half as gimmicky as it did five years ago, but when a primarily pro audio company shares its perspective on how things should be done, you can’t help but listen.

People still talk about the open-backed GAME ONE even though they insist on styling it in all caps and it’s been around since God was a boy. The GSP 300 and GSP 670 have great reputations too, only putting people off with their underpowered mics and high pricing, respectively. Where does the 600 fit into this, and the wider field of Sennheiser gaming headsets then?

Design & Features

Well, it’s not cheap. You can pick one up for around $250 / £200 which means anyone who had reservations about buying the GSP 670 will still swerve this. Once again it’s intended as a luxury product, and it certainly fulfills that brief with its construction materials, finish, and comfort. 

A 3.5mm split audio/mic cable is your only interface option, but if you can get past that, it gets better. Two silent metal hinges break up an otherwise black and red scheme featuring mountains of foam padding around each earcup and under the headband, and while it’s not exactly a clean look, it does mercifully refrain from going all-in on the ‘gamer’ style. No RGB, no rugby player tribal tattoos, just a couple of matte silver EPOS logos on each side of the headband - EPOS being the Copenhagen-based company that actually manufactures the headsets now, under Sennheiser co-branding. 

The softness of the memory foam and the range of adjustability set the GSP 600 up for great comfort, but what really takes it up a notch - quite literally - is the variable headband tension system. Two sliders either side of the headband’s centre point can be pulled outwards or in to change the headset’s clamping force, tightening the lower edge of the earcups when you pull them up to the top, and distributing tension more evenly as you slide them to the bottom. This means you should find a comfortable configuration however big, small, or unusually your head’s shaped. 

And that carries over into the sound, because when the GSP 600 gets the clamping force just right, it provides excellent passive noise cancellation, creating a chamber right around your ears where frequencies can really resonate.

Performance

Sennheiser’s always had a knack for stereo imaging, and while the GAME ONEs will always have the edge in this regard for being open-backed, these closed-backed GSP 600 drivers manage to create a lovely wide space too, with none of that digital ring that comes with virtual surround.

The low end is powerful enough to make itself known without overwhelming the sound, whether the sound in question is Thelonius Monk going absolutely wild on a piano or Bloodhound blasting away your shields and sliding in for the kill in Apex Legends. It’s well-rounded enough that you’ll happily watch movies with it, though that focus on all-round entertainment probably comes at the focus of appeal to a competitive gamer.

It isn’t that you can’t spot sound cues with it in PUBG, far from it - it’s just that the mic is a bit rough and ready with consonants, lacking both the clarity and noise cancellation of some of its contemporaries such as Steelseries’ Arctis range. Which is odd, because Sennheiser mics always look fantastic, and their now decade-old swingarm mute design has yet to be bettered. 

Overall - should you buy it? 

Is it worth the money? Yes. But only if your friends don’t mind discerning the odd ‘s’ from an ‘f’, and your bank balance doesn’t mind parting ways with big bucks. The comfort and well-rounded sound will suit almost everyone.