AceZone A-Spire Wireless review

Slowly making its way into the minds of esports fanatics, AceZone is back just a year after launching its range of headsets. The updated A-Spire Wireless headset brings home the tournament quality, but now it has the much-requested 2.4 GHz connectivity option.

This turns the once wire-bound headset into the definitive version of AceZone's gateway into the home. However, the price—£263/$369—is still a costly barrier to entry for a headset that most users might never be able to take full advantage of.

AceZone hasn't done much to the innards or design of the A-Spire Wireless, compared to the original A-Spire we tested earlier in the year. It still sports the same 40 mm drivers, custom-tuned to enable a larger soundscape in esport games, such as Counter-Strike.

Once again, the AceZone A-Spire Wireless sounds excellent. It's got this delightful clean sound out of the box, and the equaliser (EQ) presets all provide excellent alterations. It's still fascinating to hear more than I initially could on other headsets. Listening to players stalking around the corner in Counter-Strike 2 will never not be terrifying. Sure, I can hear more than they can, but I'm still not good at the game.

As the name suggests, this is the next step in the chosen hardware for those a-spiring to be competitive in their chosen game. You've got the peripherals, now it's time to up the audio game, and the A-Spire Wireless does that in spades.

Thankfully it's also still incredibly comfortable over long periods. The cups are designed to clamp around your head, aiding in noise cancellation, but unlike the A-Rise, it doesn't ever start to grip into the scalp. I lost a full day to World of Warcraft, chatting with friends and never felt the need to take the A-Spire off my head.

That noise cancellation is still top-tier, especially in the gaming headset space. It's not just the headphone portion, either, the built-in microphone is leagues ahead of even some high-end audio hardware. Even with a dog running rampant in the background, neither myself or my crew were aware of the chaos happening behind me.

I do wish the microphone was a little more forgiving when the mute activates though. In our review of the previous, non-wireless model, this was also an issue and nothing has really changed here. It's a stiff microphone and doesn't easily begin to slide back into unmuted. If you want to mute it, AceZone requires it to be pointed all the way up. It made me wish there was also a physical button so that I didn't have to otherwise rely on a software option.

Despite being welcome, the introduction of 2.4 GHz has caused me some issues, though. Setting up the headset and pairing it with the dongle needs zero thinking. As soon as I booted up the A-Spire Wireless it immediately found and connected to the dongle.

Then it disconnected. Over and over again. The issue stems from my reliance on USB hubs. Plugging the dongle into the back of my monitor's additional ports caused constant disconnects. This is quickly resolved by plugging it into my laptop, but this Gigabyte machine only provides a singular USB-C port—which is taken up by the monitor to use the built-in hub. 

After a bit of digging for a USB-C to A adapter, it began to work just fine. This is a common issue with audio devices in my experience, with some explicitly requesting that you don't plug it into a hub.

The next issue came with the abundance of 2.4 GHz dongles I have jutting out of the laptop and monitor. My keyboard, mouse and controller all run on 2.4 GHz, and I'm a curmudgeon when it comes to audio. If I'm at home, I want it wired, and the blaring interfering static from three other dongles forced my hand.

Removing all of these and swapping them over to Bluetooth or USB remedied the interference, and I doubt that most people considering the headset will even run into this problem. This isn't to say the 2.4 GHz is bad. It's comparable to my preferred USB wired connection—when it works—and having all three methods on hand solidifies the A-Spire as one of the best around.

I've used the original A-Spire and A-Rise since I met with the company last year. They're excellent headsets, but the app was in its infancy. While it worked fine for firmware updates and EQ changes, there weren't as many presets. Now, there are three game-specific ones—Counter-Strike, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty—as well as ones aimed at generalist gaming. 

As AceZone opens up flexibility in its hardware offering, the company is clearly trying not to place all the eggs in one basket.

In most games outside the esports scene, I found the extra fidelity is lost in a mass of sound design. Counter-Strike 2 is a fairly quiet video game, making it the best demonstration for the tech. Call of Duty might be constantly blaring level-up noises, but the minutiae of the game's audio design can still be heard after a few tweaks.

I leapt into action with Space Marine 2, just to see if there was any benefit to its dynamic range options. Much like any other single-player focused game, the swelling music and constant sound of violence drowned out any fidelity. 

In quieter areas, like the Battle Barge, you can definitely hear more than the standard set of headphones. I compared this with the Audeze LCD-GX and Final UX-2000, neither of which provide that additional depth. 

The same can be said for smaller games. The A-Spire Wireless provides crystal-clear sound, but again in titles like I Am Your Beast, the overall audio style causes whatever AceZone has engineered to be lost.

AceZone's A-Spire Wireless is the version of this headset to get. The massive barrier to entry is its price, but those serious about their games should consider this as their next step up. For those like me, who die immediately in CS2 anyway, stick with the lower end.