Closer Examination

The headset itself is made of plastic, although the internals of the headband are made of some sort of metal, probably to increase durability.

As you can see from the picture above this headset is fairly compact, which makes it a bit easier to transport.


The ear cups of the 4H are quite ordinary in design. It's clear that SteelSound has made a few tweaks to their original ear cup design which dates back to the SteelSound 5H. The vents are now a bit bigger and cloth covering them seems lighter allowing for better airflow. This is nice because then your ears won't reach boiling point after a couple hours of use.

The overall build quality of the SteelSound 4H is really good without being bulky.


The pictures above show that SteelSound has addressed some of the real problem areas, durability wise, on the 4H. The point where the cord attaches to the ear cup is reinforced with a rubber tube. Another little durability tweak is the adding of a little plastic cord stress relief, this should prevent the two cords from splitting up and possibly reduce the stresses on the cord itself.


The headband adjustment mechanism is retained within the two ear cup holders. The rails that the adjustment mechanism uses are made of metal, which of course is both light and durable.

As with any SteelSound headset this one has a retractable microphone that can be tucked in the left ear cup. This is nice and makes the headset both easy to transport and easy to manage.



The microphone is quite easy to adjust because of the way the microphone boom is constructed. Instead of being made of a plastic tube SteelSound has gone for a more elaborate construction. As you can see from the picture above the microphone blends in very nicely with the ear cup design so it's kind of hard to notice when you don't use it.



The microphone boom is a mixture of metal disks and rubber disks making it extremely flexible and durable. The metal and rubber disks are retained within a flexible plastic tube. I have always been a big fan of this particular microphone construction due to the simple fact that it's really easy to adjust it so that the microphone gets the optimal pickup.



The cord controller has both volume control and microphone sensitivity control. The volume control is located on the side of the cord controller making it easy to adjust the volume. On top of the cord controller there is a little switch where you can control the sensitivity of the microphone. This can come in handy when you are playing in a noisy environment, such as a LAN. On the back of the cord controller there is a little clip which can come in handy if you plan on using this headset with a portable device.



The mini-jack connectors of the 4H are nothing special. The connectors are probably the only thing that's a bit lower quality compared to the rest of the headset. They could have been made more durable quite easily.