For the price of 70 euros, the VR3000s are quite a steal! If you're looking for a great pair of earphones for gaming, I would recommend these to anyone!
Below I am just going to list the parts of these that are particularly important to me!
Sound:
In General, when it comes to sound, people think music and you have to remember, these were designed to deliver the best experience for videogames and not music. That being said, there were a few songs that really kicked ass when using these, Waltz by Mother Falcon being a personal favourite. If you are a fan of orchestral/symphonic music then these would be a great choice, especially if you are a commuter and need to block out unnecessary external noise.
Tuning – Overall, the tuning of these is quite flat which is honestly great for videogames. Comparing them to my pairs of headphones they are most similar to the Sennheiser 560s (my number one choice for gaming).
Imaging – Quite amazing, what Final Audio describes on their website is honestly pretty damn accurate, the directional hearing of these is brilliant.
Soundstage – One word… BIG! The soundstage of these is ridiculously huge when you consider that they are in ears. Combining this with the top-notch imaging you can tell exactly where someone is in a competitive shooter or give you a realistic-sounding environment when using virtual reality.
Build Quality & Comfort:
This is probably the most negative part of my review, but I think everyone else's experience might be different.
Cable – The cable feels light and fragile but is in fact decently sturdy, it does connect via a 2-pin connector to the IEM so there is hopefully the chance for swapping it out.
IEM Body – The shape and structure of the IEM itself is ergonomic but I think for my ear there is a corner that could be removed and these would fit much better. They also made it as light as possible as gamers tend to wear them for long periods of time with little or no breaks, this is actually quite nice.
Comfort – These are fairly comfortable but I think being ruined by using mostly Sennheiser IEMs, nothing can beat the comfort of those and I believe that anyone who has tried them before will state the same.
And Finally….
Video Games:
Final Audio set out to do one thing, make the best possible IEM for gaming and I think they did just that. Aside from a few things like having a sturdier cable/different housing shape, these are pretty much the best in-ears you'll ever find for gaming in the current market.
I have been playing games on a competitive level for most of my life at this point, in a range of genres. I started with RTS games originally and then moved on to Mobas and now I am currently invested in Battle Royales, particularly Apex Legends. I work full time and thus cannot do as many tournaments/ranked as I normally would like but still somehow managed to have about 3,500 hours at this point.
Soundstage | Good or Bad?
For competitive shooters, obviously directional hearing (imaging) is a must-have and there is a lot of controversy over stage size when it comes to these kinds of shooters.
Small – There is the benefit of hearing everything, including something you might miss otherwise. I could see how this is good for some cases as you will know if there is a rat hiding nearby, where shots come from, etc. But honestly, this is quite awful when trying to pinpoint distance when you whip around or are trying to determine what floor they are on.
Big – When you have a bigger soundstage this adds another level of detail when in a shooter. You are fully immersed in an environment that you can hear as you normally would. There have been countless times when I have determined where an enemy team is that my teammates have not been able to, are they on the other side of the mountains, what floor they're on, are they in the building or behind it. I am sure if you gave any professional player the option of using headphones/earphones with a large soundstage and good imaging they would pick it 100% of the time.
(Imagine having a 3D map in your head)
The VR3000 does an amazing job at reproducing the sound in a videogame. Though the soundstage/quality is not as good as my reference Sennheiser 560s, they're still quite amazing and would choose to game with them over my pair of 598SEs any day. When I tested them in VR, as expected, they retain the same highly immersive audio and are quite comfortable/snuggly fit.
The End
No matter how much praise I can give these, for 70 bucks, you won't find another product remotely as good for video games. There is a huge trend going on with streamers using in-ears for gaming and I hope that they read this and try this pair of earphones, they're truly amazing. I will end the review here with a final statement and hope that I at least convinced one person to give these a try.
Imagine taking a studio-tuned pair of open-back headphones and cram that into an IEM and that is what you will get with the VR3000.
Report