Icemat Siberia Headphones Review

I play a lot of PC games and a good set of headphones is essential to the experience. I recently picked up a pair of the white Icemat Siberia headphones from buy.com for 60 dollars or so. I tested these headphones in many games including Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike Source, Day of Defeat Source, FEAR, and Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars. I also want to point out that I tested these headphones with an c sound card.

First off, I want to say that the look of these headphones is eye catching. The dominant white color stands out and looks really cool. Also, the headphones kind of have an iPod look to them, and we know that people like the way iPods look.

The sound quality of these headphones was great. In the FPS (First Person Shooters) I tested, I could hear enemies clearly and when they were still at long distances. The depth and distance of enemies was very accurate, and I could hear any noise an enemy would make if they tried to sneak up behind me. I also saw some small improvements with the sound effects such as grenade blasts or gunfire. I know that quality of sound effects can be a judgement call, but I felt that the overall experience of gaming was better with these headphones as compared to any other set of headphones I have tried or owned before.

I mentioned before that I have an X-FI XtremeGamer sound card installed in my computer as well. To make sure that the headphones were responsible for most of the sound improvements, I also tested a cheap $20 headset from Walmart and the Sennheiser PC151 headset. The Sennheiser headset was very close when it came to quality of sound, but I would still give the edge to the Icemat headphones. The cheap headphones I got from Walmart didn't even come close to the other two as I expected.

One key component to building a successful set of headphones is comfort. Sometimes us gamers can get lost in the game and play for hours on end. Due to this, it is important that the headphones we use don't get uncomfortable and start to hurt. From experience I will say that these headphones are very comfortable after long periods of playing. I noticed with my Sennheiser headphones I would start to get hot the more I played due to the heat from my head and maybe some from the headphones, but the Icemats seemed to let heat escape much better and I wasn't getting as hot. The Icemats also felt much lighter on my head and a bit more comfortable around my ears.

One of the things I like most about these headphones is the way the microphone is designed. Many headsets have the microphone attached to the headset itself, but the Icemat's have the microphone as a seperate piece that can clip on to your shirt or to the headphone wire. I like this design because you can detach the microphone if you just want to use the headphones. The small microphone is also less obtrusive and less noticable that a microphone that is attached to the headset.

I also want to point out that these headphones made for a great music listening, youtube video watching, or DVD watching experience as well. The quality of sound in movies with a lot of special sound effects was phenomenal.

Overall, I give these headphones a 9/10 and would say that for the price, these headphones will be tough to beat.

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