The Razer Orca are extremely popular headphones from gaming peripheral manufacturer Razer. At a cost of ~$75 AUD is it worth the price?
Technical Specifications
Initial Impressions
The packaging as always from Razer, extremely eye catching, with a nice side window to let you look at the headphones.
Opening up the packaging half of the headphones are stored in a box, and it's fairly secure in there, so the packaging can withstand being dropped. Inside we find the usual Certificate of Authenticity, Stickers and a Users Guide.
The headphones themselves look absolutely amazing. The black padding provide great contrast to the green construction of the headphones. There's also a nice black braided cable, that not only looks great, but provides a good balance between flexibility and tangle prevention. The audio jacks are also gold plated to increase connectivity, for analog audio it should make a difference. It's also nice how Razer opted for the single cable leading out, instead of two, which most headphones at this price range will opt for, which is great for MP3s as well as reducing cable mess and tangles.
The earpieces of the headphones also have a great looking black grill, similar to those found on speakers, this is purely an aesthetic and there's also a nice Razer logo. Each side also has a letter stating which is the right and left side.
The top of the headphones also have Razer written, even though this won't be seen much, it's a nice touch.
Razer have opted for the use of soft cloth ear cushions as opposed to synthetic leather, I'll cover this in the performance.
Performance
Comfort
Hats off to Razer when it comes to comfort, I've worn these hours at a time, and it doesn't irritate me at add. The design for adjusting size means it's easy to get a perfect fit. There is sufficient padding everywhere so your head never contacts plastic. The ear cushions are big, so your ear shouldn't contact it at all, so no pressure is applied to your actual ears. The choice of the cloth means better comfort in my opinion, especially on warmer days.
Sound
The sound of these headphones are clear and precise, due to the low impedance, it works well with onboard sound, it also means you don't have to turn the volume up when using it on your iPod so you save battery life. When it comes to clarity, it improves the more you use it, it will actually take a good few hours until you can get the best out of the sound, play songs from different genres to give the speakers a good warm up, sound quality does improve noticeably from when you first use it after opening the package, to using it a few days later. Even when playing songs that have bass, mids, highs there is noticeable distortions.
Bass
The bass of these headphones is extremely precise and clear. It also carries reasonable "omph". The choice in ear cushions does mean some of the bass is sacrificed for comfort, however you are able to purchase replacement cushions of both the cloth and synthetic leather for a stronger bass; I can't comment what it will be like with the leather ones, but from experience it's safe to assume the bass will feel more pwoerful.
Isolation
With the cloth ear cushions, there is limited noise isolation, so you will hear ambient noise, if you want to have noise isolation, you'll probably need to buy the replacement cushions from the Razer online store, which cost around $15.
Conclusion
The Razer Orcas are excellent headphones, that offer great bass, and good sound quality at all ranges for headphones at this price bracket. You'll need to let these run for a while to get the best sound out of them, I was at first quite disappointed, but after a few hours of use, the sound improves noticeably.
The look of the headphones is just phenomenal, the green is a unique look and may take a while to get use to, but I personally find this to make them the greatest looking headphones in the world. These headphones are brilliant for use with iPods as well as computers, due to it's low impedance allowing it to work well with cheaper sound.
Pros:
Comfort
Clarity of sound and bass
They look phenomenal
Mediocre:
Takes a while to get the best sound
Bad:
None
Technical Specifications
Initial Impressions
The packaging as always from Razer, extremely eye catching, with a nice side window to let you look at the headphones.
Opening up the packaging half of the headphones are stored in a box, and it's fairly secure in there, so the packaging can withstand being dropped. Inside we find the usual Certificate of Authenticity, Stickers and a Users Guide.
The headphones themselves look absolutely amazing. The black padding provide great contrast to the green construction of the headphones. There's also a nice black braided cable, that not only looks great, but provides a good balance between flexibility and tangle prevention. The audio jacks are also gold plated to increase connectivity, for analog audio it should make a difference. It's also nice how Razer opted for the single cable leading out, instead of two, which most headphones at this price range will opt for, which is great for MP3s as well as reducing cable mess and tangles.
The earpieces of the headphones also have a great looking black grill, similar to those found on speakers, this is purely an aesthetic and there's also a nice Razer logo. Each side also has a letter stating which is the right and left side.
The top of the headphones also have Razer written, even though this won't be seen much, it's a nice touch.
Razer have opted for the use of soft cloth ear cushions as opposed to synthetic leather, I'll cover this in the performance.
Performance
Comfort
Hats off to Razer when it comes to comfort, I've worn these hours at a time, and it doesn't irritate me at add. The design for adjusting size means it's easy to get a perfect fit. There is sufficient padding everywhere so your head never contacts plastic. The ear cushions are big, so your ear shouldn't contact it at all, so no pressure is applied to your actual ears. The choice of the cloth means better comfort in my opinion, especially on warmer days.
Sound
The sound of these headphones are clear and precise, due to the low impedance, it works well with onboard sound, it also means you don't have to turn the volume up when using it on your iPod so you save battery life. When it comes to clarity, it improves the more you use it, it will actually take a good few hours until you can get the best out of the sound, play songs from different genres to give the speakers a good warm up, sound quality does improve noticeably from when you first use it after opening the package, to using it a few days later. Even when playing songs that have bass, mids, highs there is noticeable distortions.
Bass
The bass of these headphones is extremely precise and clear. It also carries reasonable "omph". The choice in ear cushions does mean some of the bass is sacrificed for comfort, however you are able to purchase replacement cushions of both the cloth and synthetic leather for a stronger bass; I can't comment what it will be like with the leather ones, but from experience it's safe to assume the bass will feel more pwoerful.
Isolation
With the cloth ear cushions, there is limited noise isolation, so you will hear ambient noise, if you want to have noise isolation, you'll probably need to buy the replacement cushions from the Razer online store, which cost around $15.
Conclusion
The Razer Orcas are excellent headphones, that offer great bass, and good sound quality at all ranges for headphones at this price bracket. You'll need to let these run for a while to get the best sound out of them, I was at first quite disappointed, but after a few hours of use, the sound improves noticeably.
The look of the headphones is just phenomenal, the green is a unique look and may take a while to get use to, but I personally find this to make them the greatest looking headphones in the world. These headphones are brilliant for use with iPods as well as computers, due to it's low impedance allowing it to work well with cheaper sound.
Pros:
Comfort
Clarity of sound and bass
They look phenomenal
Mediocre:
Takes a while to get the best sound
Bad:
None
