ROCCAT Syn Air Pro review: "Good but a case of style driving up cost"

The ROCCAT Syn Pro Air is a wireless PC headset for gaming that offers 3D audio with waffle-patterned colored lighting on the earcups. It looks cool, there's no denying that, but we're here to break down the Syn Pro Air to better help you determine if it's worth it. 

The device boasts 3D audio and the Superhuman Hearing tech we see in Turtle Beach headsets (the latter owns ROCCAT) along with a rapid charge USB-C that offers 24 hours of use on a single charge. It's incredibly lightweight and fairly comfortable and looks a lot cooler than most of the other headsets I've owned. At $149.99 / £129.99, the ROCCAT Syn Pro Air headset is the same price as some of our picks for best gaming headset and best wireless gaming headset - but can it be considered either? 

Design & Features

The ROCCAT Syn Pro Air gaming headset features a matte black plastic build which allows it to be incredibly lightweight. The ear cups are not detachable but feature a breathable memory foam that is pretty comfortable. The ear cups can rotate 180 degrees which allow for a more flexible fit, and the headband adjusts on both sides. Despite this, I find the Syn Pro Airs still feel a bit large on my head - and I don't have a small head.

The headset features a detachable flip-to-mute microphone, with a little plastic cover you can pop back into place whenever the mic isn't plugged in (which I immediately lost). Each earcup has an adjustable volume dial, with the power button and USB-C charger input located on the left earcup. The Syn Pro Air headset boasts a 24-hour battery life on a full charge.

The outside of both earcups features AIMO color lighting in a waffle pattern along the bottom third, which breath and shift colors as you wear them. You can download ROCCAT's NEON software to further adjust the colors, but for now, there's only one color-shifting option available. 

The ROCCAT Syn Pro Air headset features 50mm Turtle Beach drivers which offer 3D audio and the Superhuman Hearing boost option, which helps you hear those important in-game sounds like footsteps and reloads. The speaker frequency response is 20hz - 20khz and the transmitter frequency response is 2.4Ghz. 

The Syn Pro Air is, I believe, the only ROCCAT headset currently supported by the new ROCCAT Neon driver software, which will let you adjust the audio and RGB to your liking. With Neon, you can turn on and off Superhuman Hearing, 3D Audio, and Game Spatializer, as well as adjust the audio so it's more tuned for in-game sounds or voice chat. ROCCAT Neon will continue to update its features based on community feedback.

Performance

Don't get me wrong: the ROCCAT Syn Pro Air headset sounds good when plugged into the best gaming PC or the best gaming laptop. Turning on Superhuman Hearing during a round of Call of Duty: Warzone helps me easily pinpoint from which direction footsteps or stray bullets are coming. The NEON software is definitely a gamechanger, as I found I got the best sound after tweaking some settings. Popping over to Red Dead Redemption 2, the sound continues to impress, as the rustlings and chirps of nature sound layered, crisp, and beautiful. 

Listening to music is great, too, but I did find that I had to adjust the settings a bit for streaming a movie, as there were some issues with dialogue when I kept on the gaming settings. That's expected, but something to keep in mind. Also, the range on these isn't great, and when I wandered away from my PC to shoo my cats away from the rubber band they'd found under the bed, the signal dropped off just a short distance away.

It's easy to wear the ROCCAT Syn Pro Air for a lengthy period of time, and as a glasses wearer this is always appreciated, although they always feel like they're gonna fall off my head. The exterior RGB lighting system looks cool but is far less bright than advertised in marketing materials, and I couldn't really figure out how to customize the lighting - but that may be because NEON is still due for some updates. The earcups are fingerprint magnets, however, which can get old fast. And considering this is a $150 headset, it's pretty wild you can't remove the earpads to clean or replace.

Overall - should you buy it?

Honestly, unless you're looking to match your headset to all of your other RGB ROCCAT accessories - this isn't worth it. For the same price, you can get the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 which offers even better sound quality and more compatibility with Bluetooth connectivity. I'm all for gaming accessories that look like someone in Cyberpunk 2077 should be wearing them, but the ROCCAT Syn Air Pro is a good headset that's fallen foul of superficial style driving up the cost.