Up Close & Personal (Cont.)

The built-in uni-directional microphone utilizes noise cancelling technology which is great for cancelling out background noises. What's unique about this microphone is its short size and it's position. Upon wearing the headphones, the first thing I noticed was the fact that the microphone does not point towards the mouth, in fact it points in front of you.

You can position the microphone so that it just rests next to your cheek for best results. I like the fact it's easily removable and simply plugged in via mini jack and it swivels in most all directions. You do not have to use the microphone to use the headphones and you can hot-swap the microphone at anytime whether the headphones are powered on or not.

Surprisingly the head rest is very sturdy for such a small design, as we see below the hinge area is connected to the headphone frame. The frame is made of an alloy metal making them very strong. This ads to the rugged design while keeping the headphones light enough for long term use.

While the frames are metal the ear phone casing is made of polycarbonate and the size of the ear phone is is about four inches in diameter and can accomodate average size youth and or adults brain boxes. Wearing the headphones seem to be comfortable for the most part and we will get into this aspect here in just a bit.

Now that we have shown the product, lets take these headphones for a test drive and see what gives with the Razer Barracuda HP-1 Gaming Headphones. I am hoping for good surround seperation and three dimensional audio positiong which is essential for a full 360 degree environment sound reproduction, will they live up to the name? Let's take a look at installation and usage.