Plantronics RIG 500 Gaming Headset Review – Good Looks Aren’t Everything

Sound

Plantronics is an audio company first – not a keyboard and mouse company or a computer memory company. That’s not to cast shade on Plantronics competitors at all, though. Rather, it’s to put extra pressure on Plantronics. Plantronics headsets have to sound better than the competition.

Before I drop a verdict on that, let’s talk a little bit about the sound in detail.

Compared to a set of music headphones, the sound is good, but not great. It’s not quite as loud as I’d like, possibly because it’s meant to be plugged into game controllers with relatively small batteries rather than phones designed to last all day. That’s purely conjecture, though. With that said, they do get plenty loud – I never felt like I couldn’t hear whatever I was listening to.

As far as sound, the RIG 500 seems to have a pretty even sound profile in my testing. It doesn’t overly sweeten bass as you’d often expect gaming headsets to do. Some stuff didn’t sound as vivid as I would’ve liked, like the drums on Metallica’s black album. I expect those particular drums to have a certain punch to them that was missing from the RIG 500. The instrument separation isn’t quite as strong, either, but music still plays through them without trouble.

In games like Doom it performs well-enough for my tastes. Again, it doesn’t go as heavy on the bass as I often expect from gaming headsets. It’s present and accounted for without being overwhelming. Digging into games like Spider-Man, Forza Horizon 3 and others presented me with clean, clear dialogue and roaring engine sounds.

One of my few complaints about the headset is that they bleed noise in both directions pretty well. They’re closed-back headphones and they wear like closed-back headphones, but they let noise through almost as much as open-back headphones. Oof.

But like I said, these are headphones from an audio company. They should sound great, especially at the steeper asking price of the Esports Edition.

If you go for the RIG 500 HX, you’ll get a pretty solid headset that works and feels sturdy. It might be a little overpriced compared to some of the competition, but it’s not out of the park and should get the job done. The Esports Edition is hard to recommend at the higher price. The metal body feels great, but not $60-$70 great. The on-controller audio dial is a great idea that I’d love to see other companies find ways to implement, and I’m hoping Plantronics’ next generation of headsets fulfills the promise of their brand name a little better.

Disclaimer: Plantronics sent us both the RIG 500 HX and the RIG 500 Esports Edition. We gamed and listened to music on both of them for a month before starting this review.

RIG 500 HX

RIG 500 Esports Edition

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