Performance

The performance of a headset is always hard to judge objectively because there are so many unknowns. What I try to do when listening to a pair of headphones is to go through the same piece of music a lot of times at different intensities and with different settings. In order to test the headphone's capabilities to reproduce a lot of different types of sound I test it in both music, movies, and last but not least in games. In these very different scenarios I listen for a large varieties of things, i.e. in games you would probably want really precise treble and mids with a mildly understate bass, in music it's probably the reverse for many people since most want a balanced and soft/warm sound.

To begin with I started by listening to a few of my favorite tunes. I found that the Siberia's have an overexaggerated bass that makes the listening experience a bit of a pain especially when you listen to rock and pop to some extent. The deep end on this headset is really deep and booming. The fact that the bass is so funky makes it really good for house and other bass intensive music types.

I have to say the listening experience with the Siberia isn't that good compared to headphones in the same price tier. The mids are too soft and tend to be overpowered by the huge bass, the same goes for the highs. To further add to the problem the treble isn't precise enough and makes the music sound somewhat muffled which is a shame.

In the movies tests the bass gave the explosions the right powerful expression, however, the bass is a bit too warm and mushy in my opinion.

In my games tests the Siberia was sort of precise when it came to directional sound. This surprised me a bit because of its otherwise sloppy highs and mids, but it's definitely positive that the acoustics of the headset help to exaggerate directional sound input, making it easier to track enemies in games. The Siberia’s aren't the best, but definitely not the worst headset for gaming.

A little bonus when it comes to performance is the fact that the directional microphone has a really good sound quality compared to most headsets on the market today.

Comfort

Comfort wise the SteelSeries Siberia works very well with only a couple of small problems that become noticeable after a couple hours of use. The first thing that annoyed me a bit was that the pressure that the cups produce on your skull isn't enough to keep it from slowly sliding down on your ears which means that after using them a little while the ear pads will rest on your ear flips. This isn't comfortable at all, however, I did find that altering the size of the neckband seemed to stop them from falling down a bit.

Another issue with the neckband is that because you don't have a strap going over your head the only thing that is holding it in place is the pressure generated from the neckband. Even if you retract the band a lot the headset will still bounce around.

Durability

Unlike the old Icemat Siberia headset the new one feels extremely well built. All of the hinges and molded plastic parts are put together with durability in mind. The cord assembly is also way better constructed than most headsets on the market today. Even though the design of the Siberia Neckband headset is radically different than the old one it's way better when it comes to withstanding abuse. The only thing that I can image breaking over time is the ear pads which are extremely soft, but by the time those break, the headset will probably be considered old and out of fashion.