A lot of people take gaming headsets for granted nowadays. Those of us who use them are so accustomed to headsets that we don’t really consider them a special piece of hardware, and those who don’t have a pair usually haven’t realised the benefits of using one just yet. The Siberia Neckband has been out for over a year now, and I’ve owned them for that long too. Still, having your own blog means making up your own rules, and reviewing old products is one of those made-up rules at the moment. As the name implies, the Neckband goes around the back of your head rather than on top of it which provides no real advantages. SteelSeries products are used by various pro gaming teams and apparently the Siberia Neckband was designed with feedback from said players, let’s see how well that feedback helped the final product.

WIN

• Due to the Neckband’s simple design, it’s considerably durable. I use it when travelling quite often. You won’t be accidentally breaking this thing unless you’re very clumsy. Since the microphone can be tucked in and is bendable, there’s no fragile external bits that risk snapping, meaning no need to treat it like it’s made from glass just because you paid good money for the damn thing.
• Most gaming headsets don’t look very stylish since quality and comfort is what gamers want the most. The Siberia Neckband provides both of these, and does so whilst looking pretty damn slick. The microphone retracts into the left ear cup so you can use it on the go with your personal media player whilst leaving behind the extra wires for gaming, which leads me to my next point.
• One thing I really appreciate with the Neckband is the ability to unplug bits of the headset that I don’t need for certain tasks. Let’s assume you want to listen to your personal media player on the bus, you don’t need the microphone which is why it’s retractable. You can unplug the extension cable and the 360 voice chat adapter so there’s nothing left but the headphones, this allows you to use it for more than just gaming.
  

FAIL

• The Neckband doesn’t allow you to individually adjust the game volume and voice chat volume. I’ve had to ask my team members to repeat what they say on many occasions because the sound of gunfire or explosions roar over their voices. I’d personally be pretty annoyed if I was shot on Call of Duty 4 because I couldn’t hear my team mate tell me they’re rushing bomb site A over all the set grenades that were blowing up around me.
• This issue will vary depending on the size of your head and so on, but as this review is about my experience with the product I can’t help but mention this. I wear glasses so the ear cups of the Neckband begin to push my frames against my head, and this tends to get increasingly painful the longer you play. The Neckband also tends to hurt the ears after a couple of hours as it mostly tends to rest on your ears. These comfort issues will vary from person to person and unfortunately it’s just a risk most people have to take when buying headphones online.

The microphone gets the job done, I didn’t have any trouble communicating with people and nobody pointed any issues out to me in-game. One interesting thing to note is that you need to set your microphone voice to ‘through speakers’ in your Xbox Live preferences in order to hear other players. I’m not sure why they had to do this but if you’re like me and rarely read the FAQs or little booklets you get with new electronics, then you may be wondering why nobody ever talks in-game any more.

A lot of people invest in headsets to do things like hearing footsteps in games such as Call of Duty 4 or Counter-Strike. You can hear the footsteps of Dead Silence users in COD4 but you’ll need to turn up the volume which creates the issue I mentioned earlier about players’ voices being drowned out by in-game sounds. Overall my experience with the Neckband has been a positive one and even with my new Turtle Beach X1 I’ve not sold it since it still holds some advantages compared to the X1. If you’re a style-conscious gamer who’s looking for a headset that can be used for more than just gaming, the SteelSeries Siberia Neckbands are worth taking into consideration at the very least.

The SteelSeries Siberia Neckband was tested on the Xbox 360 (for gaming) and iPod Touch 2G (for music). I’m not very knowledgeable on the technical side of headsets so please view this review as an impression from an average consumer, not an experienced critic.