The Saitek GH50 Headset: Please, Don’t Do It. It Will Ruin Your Reputation

From the pretty lengthy amount of time I had spent with Saitek’s audio products, I had grown to respect everything they were coming out with. I was thrilled with the iFreedom and the iVenture and I figured anything they had for gaming, like headsets, would be beautiful. Saitek’s GH50 LOOKS pretty, but when I took them from the package, they were a bit light - which I wasn’t expecting. Usually headsets with earcups are pretty hefty, making your head feel like you have one of those World War II helmets on. I wasn’t pleased by that. Then, when I had placed the batteries into the small volume and surround sound control that was clinging to the dual microphone and earphone cords, I noticed that the switch was superflous. It did nothing. When you turned it on, the light didn’t turn on at all. When you turned it off, still no light. What did this light DO!?

I booted up my favorite online game with voice and noticed that the Mic Boost in the Windows settings was constantly turning itself on whenever I plugged in the microphone. Why was it doing that? I plugged it into a different computer and it did it there too, was this something that it did because it was compensating for low volumes? The sound coming through the mic was like talking into a tin-can, which became more and more irritating as I continued playing. I then got so frustrated with people asking, “Why is your mic doing that!?”, that I just stopped and plugged in my normal desktop microphone. The mic was horrific and many times, I wanted to call up Saitek and ask why they even bothered with the damn thing in the first place. Old school monitors came with better embedded microphones than this piece of crap, let me assure you.

Now, the headset’s audio was beautiful but not enough to have to deal with how large the headset was. True, it sounded fantastic and I loved listening to the harmonies and bass that came through the headset, but why does it make mention of vibration? Nothing vibrated, hell - the light didn’t even work, so where was the vibration feature? Not that I need it, I have other toys for that - but it would’ve been nice if it did just a little of what it said it would do.

Honestly, the Saitek GH50 Gaming Headset would be a poor investment for the gamers out there that require something solid to listen and speak with. For the amount you pay, you barely get a third of that back in performance and what’s the point? Move on. I hear Logitech is going to dazzle us soon and maybe before that, Saitek’s Cyborg headset will make better on the promises this model was supposed to give us.