PERFORMANCE, COMFORT and FUNCTIONALITY
Starting off with Creative’s target audience for this pair of cans, gamers who are familiar with the Sound Blaster product line will expect much from these products we put the Sigma to the test. With a nice, long session of FPS gaming which should benefit most from the features of gaming-class headsets, the Sigma demonstrates its supremacy over its wireless brethren with its more powerful output which gets fed from the THX TruStudio Pro. Explosions, gunfire, basically every in-game audio comes forward and is rendered wonderfully by the Sigma.
Beast/B2st – Beautiful Night
The boys are back with their latest mini-album featuring the carrier single Beautiful Night. True to Beast’s music style, this track is lined with synths, thumping bass and varying vocal styles. Particularly worth noting about this track is the subtle detail put into the tune that gives this song a deeper feel when you really listen to it. As we’ve said earlier, the Sigma’s got punch and that’s certainly very pronounced in the bass department. Even at high volume levels, the amount of distortion is minimal and detail is still well-defined by the Sigma.
Sistar – Loving U
A soulful smooth track with a summer feel, this song features a more subtle yet lively vocal performance from the girls of Sistar. Sticking with a flat EQ setting, we wanted to get a feel of how the Sigma handled the rapidly varying range of the track’s chorus. The Sigma sounds really good going from lows to highs and the clarity is still there.
Gackt – Seventh Night Unplugged
This album features top songs from the artist Gackt as he performs acoustic renditions of such in what can only be described as perfect ear candy to any fan. The 50mm drivers really do well in these kinds of listening as the more detail is reproduced and the same is true with Creative’s proprietary FullSpectrum 50mm drivers which really made this album a great listening experience. Adding more flavor to that is the THX TruStudio USB device. Any track in this album is recorded with so much detail and the Sigma delivers wonderfully that level of detail deserved by this record.
The Tactic3D configuration panel has a nice control for improving the theater experience the headset delivers and it works to some degrees but when watching videos with surround audio, it’s a bit of a hit or miss. Barring that, most users will tend to leave that setting off or at a minimum given those situations. Going back, the Sigma delivers as expected in the video experience department providing a great experience offering more thump and punch than it’s wireless brother.
Comfort
Creative did a great job providing leather earcups which a lot of people will appreciate. The leather pads are smooth and nice to the touch and don’t crack after being exposed to sweat and heat which even some mainstream audiophile headphones tend to do. The headset is lightweight despite having a metallic band and the earcups themselves aren’t gigantic compared to other solutions. Going to the cables is a bit of a hit-and-miss. We particularly loved the flat cables but it wasn’t tangle-free as Creative advertises. It still managed to get tangled around and retain shapes we didn’t want it to. I’ll be a bit lenient with the in-line controller. I’m particularly more fond of on-cup controls especially for volume because it’s easier for gamers to intuitively reach for it rather than fumbling for the inline controller.
Functionality
As a gaming headset, the Sigma is already functional and excels on what it should do best and that’s in-game audio. Aside from that, extra features like the VoiceFX and other THX TruStudio Pro do work but is up to user taste on how much they suit those people so we won’t comment much on that. Lastly, the microphone was clear and crisp all throughout and do not show any sign of interference or distortion.