RIG 500 Pro Gen 2 review: "Good audio at a great price with fantastic looks"

The RIG 500 Pro HX Gen 2 will catch your eye right away, with a matte black steel headband and intricately designed ear cups that look like something out of Call of Duty: Warzone. Pick them up and you'll be shocked at how light they are, and slip them on and you'll be shocked again - they're seriously comfy, too. 

If you're in the market for one of the best Xbox Series X headsets - or one of the best Xbox One headsets, for that matter - you can't go wrong with the RIG 500 Pro Gen 2. A successor to the Gen 1, these headphones offer quality wired audio at a surprisingly realistic price - just $69.99. Couple this with a two-year activation code for Dolby Atmos and you've got some seriously great sound at a surprisingly low cost.

We got our hands on the RIG 500 Pro Gen 2 for Xbox and tested them out. Here's how the headset stacked up. (The Xbox variant is defined by the 'HX'.)

Design & Features

The RIG 500 Pro HX features a sturdy matte black steel headband with a padding band that has rubber attachments so it can flex and move to easily slide onto your head. Metal exoskeleton-style earcups offer a sleek, stylish cup design that also helps the RIG 500 Pros remain incredibly light. The cups themselves are an isolated closed-cup design featuring dual-material ear cushions that help block exterior sounds. 

The noise-canceling mic can be flipped up to mute yourself or removed entirely if you're using the headset for single-player gaming or for listening to music. The headphones have 50mm drivers, 20hz-20khz frequency response, and Dolby Atmos 3D audio. You'll get a two-year activation code when you purchase the headphones - just input that code into the Dolby Atmos app on Xbox and you'll have audio fine-tuning at your fingertips. 

While the RIG 500 Pro's aren't wireless, there's a kink-resistant cable that will plug right into your Xbox Series X controller, your PC audio input, or a personal electronic device. You can adjust the volume on the inline volume control slider that has a max lock position that will require you to push a bit harder to get it past what is presumably a safer max volume.

Performance

Once you get the Dolby Atmos app downloaded on your Xbox One, Xbox Series S, or Xbox Series X, you're all sorted to start adjusting your headset for some competition-grade 3D audio. While the app lets you adjust the audio for playing games, watching movies, or listening to music, and offers sliders to further customize audio levels, I was a bit baffled that there was no volume adjustment option in the app, since it felt a bit quiet for me on full volume on my Series S.

Perhaps I'm just used to putting my headset a bit louder than I actually should because I found myself struggling to hear some of the more subtle audio clues in Call of Duty: Warzone like further-away footsteps or the whizzing sounds of missed shots. However, the 3D audio is crystal clear and accurate, offering me a clear picture of where the sounds I could hear were coming from.

The RIG Pro 500's sat comfortably on my head for lengthy, multiple-hour game sessions. The lightness of the headset makes it impressively comfortable even for glasses wearers like myself - and it's surprising how light they are considering the exoskeleton is made entirely of metal. The ear cups are breathable and didn't make my earshot, which is also incredibly nice for longer play sessions in warmer weather. 

The flip-to-mute mic easily hinges up and down and clearly clicks into place when unmuting, which makes for seamless transitions between muted and unmuted - something RIG headsets share with EPOS and Sennheiser gaming headset models. 

Overall - should you buy it?

For some people, wired headsets for consoles are a bit of a deterrent. During the Xbox 360 days, I found my audio jack would eventually wear out from the headset shifting and rotating in the port - I eventually had to make the shift to wireless because none of my controller ports were working. However, the nice thing about the wired connection is you can easily use this for console gaming as well as a PC headset for gaming.

However, the RIG 500 Pro HX offers good audio at a great price with fantastic looks - this headset is super sleek and incredibly lightweight. It looks incredibly cool sitting next to my Xbox Series S, and I had no problem wearing it for extended periods of time. If you're looking for a wired headset that offers 3D Dolby Atmos sound at a sub-$100 price point, this is the headset for you. 

The headset is available in bricks-and-mortar retailers like Best Buy and Walmart but is available online only at GameStop for now.