Logitech G PRO X Review – The Best Mic On A Gaming Headset?

So this is the new Logitech G PRO X headset. I’m really happy to see a new PRO line of products because the PRO series is all about design via collaboration, for example e-sports players giving feedback on like the shape of a mouse and the weight, the clickiness of the buttons, the response of the keyboard switches, and the sound quality of the headsets. This is the first product from Logitech that incorporates something from Blue, because Logitech acquired Blue Microphones and I’m really happy to see their technology being incorporated to improve headset microphones. I really feel like this might become the new benchmark to beat for a gaming headset under a hundred dollars.

Models & Price

So first let’s talk about the price, $99 for the standard headset and $129 for the PRO X, which includes the USB dongle that has the built-in Blue Voice functionality. To be honest, I was expecting hardware integration with Blue Microphones into the Logitech headset, instead of it being software only via a dongle.

In terms of design, they do remind me of the HyperX Cloud series with a similar type of head band, with stitching on the side, the stamping of the PRO into the leatherette, the size extensions are quite similar with the aluminium hinges that feel quite premium. Regrettably, there is no 90 degree cup rotation like we saw on the previous G PRO headset. I do like the coiled cable and each air cup has this retro design. The overall frame here is pretty subdued with matte black plastic, black aluminum, black leather and the silver accents with the G logo in the middle.

Build Quality

If you remove the microphone you can easily wear these outdoors. They’re not ridiculous looking like the Sennheiser GSP 670. I would use these for music, no problem. The left and right distinction is inside the ear cups, so don’t bother looking on the actual frame. We have a separate velour ear pad set, which is nice. They don’t accumulate as much heat, but bass trapping is much better with the leather ear cups. As usual, Logitech includes plenty of accessories like a splitter cable, your mobile cable, a PC cable that has a volume wheel, a nice little carrying pouch, and and we also have the USB dongle with the PRO X headset.

Overall, I feel like they’ve improved on the build quality. You can stretch this thing, you can extend the size extensions to their maximum and the headsets still feels quite solid. This is quite unlike the original G PRO headset, where the size extensions and the whole frame just feels kind of plasticky and cheap and fragile in comparison. The new pair is just a lot more comfortable, much better clamping force. It’s not too tight, but it’s there so that you can create a nice seal around the ears, given the softer ear cushions.

The drivers here are the same 50mm G PRO drivers, but they’ve been tuned differently. I can definitely hear the difference versus the original. They’re more detailed, there’s a lot more clarity, but everything is a bit closer. On the original G PRO the soundstage was a bit wider and things felt a bit more airy and a bit more soft.

Now compared comfort wise to my current favorite $99 gaming headset the Sennheiser GSP 300, the PRO and the PRO X have more clamping force, which means they create better isolation, which I would say is a good thing. However, overall the ear cup design on the GSP 300 is slightly better. The ear cups are oval and they’re taller, and the actual driver wall is slightly deeper so that when they’re on my head and I press the actual ear cup, my ear still does not make contact with that internal driver wall. This is nice for larger ears, but you don’t get the same thing with the PRO and the PRO X.

For those who wear glasses, the clamping force is pretty good. I don’t feel like there’s any additional pressure being applied on the sides . Nice photo glasses. I feel like I’m more comfortable with the GSP 300 because the ear cups are not as wide as on the PRO and the PRO X, which means that there’s less contact area between the ear cup and the glasses arms.

Sound Quality

As for sound gaming performance, whatever they are doing with the G PRO drivers, they should be doing more of it. I’m really happy with the audio performance. Apparently this is something that Logitech has been like really drilling down, saying that they don’t color the entire range. They tried to make sure that drivers do not distort on the low-end so that the bass you hear is actually the bass you should hear and not something that is being boosted. I do appreciate that they sound much better compared to the original G PRO, which have the same drivers but slightly different tuning. On the new pair there is better definition throughout the entire range, deeper bass and but a less open soundstage. I did enjoy the openness of the original G PRO, but I’m thinking that for a gaming headset a closer soundstage makes sense. Compared to my Sennheiser GSP 300, I feel like the Sennheiser headset has better audio separation throughout the entire range when a lot of things are going on, because they have a slightly wider soundstage versus the PRO X, but a both have really nice controlled treble that smooth, not harsh, and has no distortions. Bass is slightly deeper on the GSP 300, but with the PRO X you can actually add a bit of bass in the EQ settings via the dongle and that actually adds a nice little oomph in the lower end without distorting anything, which is awesome. Overall, I feel like they’d done a really good job with tuning these drivers to make them sound still really fun but not flat or harsh at the high end.

And now ladies and gentlemen, the microphone test, which seems to be a really important part for Logitech due to its integration with Blue Voice. I do want to remind you that the G-Hub app is only available on the PRO X headset because it comes with required USB dongle, while the regular PRO headset does not.

G-Hub Software

First, let me go into the equalizer. This is all the basic things you can adjust, different EQ settings, a bunch of presets are already preloaded, same thing with different games genres. One cool thing I found is that you can create your EQ profile and share it. So you can download your friends profiles or share your own, or potentially that of a streamer that you follow, which I found really cool. In the Acoustic tab there is the volume, the microphone input, and the sidetone. The sidetone on here is appropriately loud, so if I max it out I can hear exactly what I’m saying. The microphone is nice and sensitive, so you can really monitor how loud you are speaking by lowering or increasing the sidetone as you wish.

There is noise removal for the microphone and the surround sound, but as I’ve said earlier the surround sound is surprisingly poor. It is not as good as we’ve heard with the Logitech G933 or the Sennheiser GSP 600 series. The star of the show is the microphone tab and they’ve done such a good job here outlining all the different parameters, and you can hover over the little question marks to learn more about these and what they do. However, if you’re not into all the little things, you can also play around with different presets, either the Pro/Broadcaster presets from different players or different Blue VO!CE presets, which I found to be a really good starting points.

You can enable Blue VO!CE which engages the software parameters interacting with the recording, and which gives you nice bass, good broadcast quality mids, and nice compression. The really cool thing they’ve done here is let you record a little mic test and then play around with different parameters and EQ settings so you can hear how the microphone will sound and only then apply the preset or save that as a preset, which I found really cool. My favorite out of the bunch would be the Broadcast 2 preset and I’ve tweaked it a little slightly in order to get it working well for my voice.

All of the parameters that I’ve applied for the G PRO X headset work on the original G PRO, and it does sound almost identical. Even if I disable Blue VO!CE the actual quality of the microphone sounds identical, even though it is a 4mm microphone capsule instead of a 6mm capsule like on the G PRO X. If I try to plug the GSP 300 into the USB dongle it doesn’t sound as good as it does on the G PRO X, and the same can be said for the GSP 500. There is just something off about the focal clarity even with when Blue VO!CE is enabled, which could be the reason why Logitech is not selling the USB dongle separately. Clearly it can interact with different microphones but it might not quite work well with microphones from other brands. I was hoping to see more hardware implementation with Blue Microphones instead of it being really software focused. And it’s kind of weird because I always felt that PRO line was always meant to be simplified, but here they went like above and beyond in terms of customizing your voice to make you sound PRO and it’s more like audio editing software instead of being a gaming feature.

Overall, I definitely think that all the software tweaking capabilities add value, but given that a $30 dongle is really all you’re getting with the G PRO X, I don’t see the value over the regular $99 G PRO. The G PRO by itself is pretty decent, but it is competing against the excellent HyperX Cloud Alpha. It will be interesting to see which headset people will gravitate towards in the long-term, because right now I feel like the Cloud series is the dominant thing when it comes to these kinds of gaming headsets.