The VZR Model One MKII shines in moments but lacks conveniences you can get from other more affordable gaming headsets.
Boy, gaming headsets sure are getting expensive these days. There’s Sony’s Inzone H9 II, which costs $350, a sum that’s more than half the cost of a 1TB PlayStation with a disc drive. Then there are even more expensive options, like SteelSeries’ Arctis Nova Elite, which costs more than the aforementioned console at $600, though it does come with a separate hub. I’m not saying those gaming headsets don’t sound good—I tried the Inzone H9 II for myself and was impressed—but if you’re spending a several-hundred-dollar sum on a gaming headset (just a headset for Pete’s sake), it better be game-changing.
That’s a high bar for a peripheral, to be sure, but one that I think resonates with most gamers willing to tread into the ultra-premium category. That being said, it’s a bar that can be met, as evidenced by Sony’s Inzone H9 II. Still, rising to the level of game-changing is no easy task, which is why I went into testing VZR’s Model One MKII Audiophile gaming headset with a raised eyebrow. With a $360 price tag, can the Model One MKII really deliver the goods at a level that makes the premium feel justified? The answer… is complicated.An “audiophile game headset”
Right out of the gate, VZR positions its Model One MKII as a gaming headset geared toward audiophiles. To back that claim up, it’s using something called CrossWave, the same technology in its previous headset, the MK One. CrossWave is a proprietary tech that is meant to more closely mimic the way sound naturally enters your ears. The idea here is that with precise acoustic tuning, it delivers more “natural” spatial audio that makes the headset ideal for first-person shooters, where hearing footfalls and other environmental noise can be make or break.
To augment that acoustic experience even further, VZR has included a “Talisman” in the Model One MKII, which is a patent-pending bass diffuser that, in VZR’s words, “brings tighter, harder-hitting lows that make every scenario feel massive.” That bass diffuser should also give you an indication as to where VZR intended to improve the sound in this iteration, which is to say, in the midrange frequencies. With less overpowering bass, you should be able to hear midranges and treble more easily.
So, that’s what VZR meant to do with the Model One MKII. The question is, does it actually achieve those goals? The answer? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. In my experience, the level of satisfaction with the Model One MKII depended largely on how I was using the headset. Using it the lazy way, which in my case is plugging directly into an Xbox controller (sometimes wired and sometimes not) and calling it a day, the gaming headset feels… lackluster. While I get a touch more spatiality while playing games like Fortnite, I wouldn’t describe the sound experience as groundbreaking.
