Razer Barracuda HP-1 5.1 Headphones

They are getting bigger in India, and as more and more gamers adhere to their textbook marketing strategies and product design, we at Tech2 are only too thrilled to get our hands on more and more of their product lineup. This time we have the already popular 5.1 channel gaming headphones by Razer, called the Barracuda HP-1. It's time to click� ‘new game’ and start pwning.

Design and Features
This product is meant for gamers, so an X chromosome element is inevitable in the design, and hence an all black body. The earcups are stout and firm with a mildly lustrous finish, made of hardened plastic.� The head band is actually a thin 2 pronged structure with an elastic leatherette band attached to it, which looks a little out of place with the solid cans. The cans can rotate around fully, while the left one has an inlet for the included mic. The ubercool razer insignia is printed on the outside surface, right at the center and lights up in a deep blue hue. The pads on the earcups are not the usual vinyl leatherette (read: hot) but rather a Velor cushion, which is more comfortable, so there is a positive point as gaming headphones are easily on for twice as long as regular music headphones.

The black cord extends out of the left earcup into a rectangular control pod with controls for front, rear, center and bass volumes, and also a pendulous overall volume knob on the top edge. The cord terminates into a DVI jack, though it's not actually DVI-D or DVI-I. The pin config is unique and it actually is meant to go into a similar female socket in the Razer AC-1 soundcard. Razer themselves call it the Razer High Definition-Dedicated Audio Interface (HD-DAI� connector).

We have that product and I will be using it later on in this review. It’s not necessary to own that, as there is an extension wire that attaches to the jack and terminates into regular EP style 3.5 mm plugs: 4 in all. There is also a USB plug, for powering the active circuitry in the control pod.

This unit has eight discrete drivers, out of which 2 are subwoofers, all integrated into the earpieces. The frequency response is 50~20,000Hz, while power is 330mW RMS. The complete specs are in the pic.