Alcatroz is among the new kids on the block here in South East Asia. With Alcatroz being one of Leapfrog Global’s subsidiaries, there’s quite a hue in my brian to why they decided to create another division that’s already conquered by their Armaggeddon division. But hey, is their Alcatroz XCraft HP2000 2.1 Gaming Headset worth RM79/US $19 ? Let’s find out in this review.
01 | Design & Build Quality
As we do with all of our review, we’re gonna first start off with the build quality of the Alcatroz X-Craft HP2000. The Alcatroz X-Craft HP2000 isn’t here to win any build quality awards here.
The heaset is faily solid and features a flexible headband that allows it to twist quite a bit which is a good thing. The outer section of the headset features Alcatroz’s 7-phasing lighting solution that changes it’s color continuously in a color cycle. The outer section of the earcups is covered in matte black and also has a few transparent elements to allow the light to escape.
Its worth noting that the HP2000 does not feature earcups that could rotate or swivel according to the users head shape so users would have to extend the headband a bit more to get the earcups over their ears.
To give user a comfortable experience, the headset’s headband actually features a soft cushion on the headband which is pretty soft but doesn’t really seem like would age well.
Towards the inside of the earcups, Armageddon is using some soft cushioning inside if the earcups along with a red accented net keep its accented appeal in every aspect of the headset. A nice touch indeed.
The same goes for the cable that the HP2000 comes with where the cable in braided in black and red. While this definitely this looks like an excellent package with decent build quality, it all comes down to the sound quality of the headset and that’s what’s coming ahead.
If we’d rate the build quality of the headset, we’ll rate it as a pass.
02 | Sound Quality & User Experience
Regarding the sound quality of the drivers built into this headset, they are just decent. During our testing the headphones produced decent sound with an okay push of bass. Trying to hunt for some information about the drivers on their official website didn’t reveal much. However, at last, some online listing did mention the size of the drivers present in the headset. Here’s the list of specifications that the headset comes with before we continue with the sound quality of the headset.
Headset Specifications
| FREQUENCY RESPONSE | 20Hz~20KHz |
| IMPEDANCE | 32 Ω |
| SENSETIVITY | 108dB |
| RATED POWER | 20mW |
| DRIVERS | 2 x 50mm |
Microphone Specifications
| FREQUENCY RESPONSE | 30Hz~16KHz |
| SENSITIVITY | ~38dB |
| Signal-Noise Ratio | <60dB |
The sound quality coming out of the X-Craft HP2000 is just decent, nothing more than that. Being a 2.1 surround set that costs $19, I didn’t expect much in the first place.
Playing competitively with this headset on in Counter-Strike Global Offensive was fine. However, concentrating on the enemy’s footsteps was almost impossible due to the unclear separation between the two drivers. Now this might be huge for me just for the fact that I have been spoilt using GAMDIAS’s HEBE M1 RGB that features 7.1 Surround Sound.
Another issue that I’ve had with the HP2000 is the fact that I didn’t enjoy wearing the headset simply due the fact of comfort and how light it was. It always felt as if was about to come off.The HP2000’s lack of However, I’d be clear and would recommend you not to purchase the HP2000 for competitive gaming.
For music lovers, I think that their claim of powerful bass isn’t worth it, as in our tests the headphones clearly lack in bass and don’t have much to them.
Coming over to the microphone of the headphones, we found that the microphone is actually decent, while our test did far out pretty well with me speaking into it, it did not sound like me even a bit. However, the microphone was decently loud and picked up some decent sounds.
03| Conclusion
The question remains, should I get one? Well for the price that Alcatroz is retailing that headset for, I can’t complain much, while I did find several drawbacks including mediocre sound quality, I do believe its an excellent pickup for a new PC gamer who doesn’t intend to play competitive titles and doesn’t care much about sound quality. However, if you can increase your budget a bit, we’d definitely not recommend this headset to you unless you’re really short on cash and really need one.
