OXS Storm G2 review

Being the guy that all my friends (and relatives) come to for tech advice, I've had my eye out for a truly great budget wireless gaming headset for some time. Coming in well under $100, the OXS Storm G2 nails it in both look and price but I was cautious if those full-range 50 mm drivers could match the rest of this headset. Unfortunately, they can't.

Don't get me wrong, they're not awful. Everything you are looking for in a soundscape is there. You can hear the mids and highs, and feel the bass. That's only really in one EQ mode but we'll get to that later.

I initially tested this headset out with The Last of Us Part I and Gustavo Santaolalla's guitar-driven soundtrack hits as hard as ever, providing clear mids and distinct highs.

The opening scene, with distant sirens, dogs barking, and the chaos floating just above your head works well in the headset's 7.1 surround sound. However, that sound isn't quite as all-encompassing as I was hoping. Nothing huge is missing from the mix but there's a slight hollow feel to it. This is partially helped by The Last of Us' soundtrack mix being relatively sparse.

There are three EQ modes in this setup and that's pretty much all the customization you will get as OXS Audio, the company's music app, doesn't support the Storm G2. If you don't like the EQ, tough luck.

Starting with Game mode, the bass is largely cut out of the mix, with it all relying on the mids and highs. This is intentional, of course. If you want to hear footsteps or the ping of a grenade before it's flung in your direction, this effectively amplifies those little almost unnoticeable movements. It works as intended, yet the sound suffers as a result.

Music mode is a little better, focusing on a more balanced sound. The bass, mids, and highs are given near-equal attention. In Mick Gordon's 'At Doom's Gate' from the Doom 2016 soundtrack, the splashy synth accompanying the drums doesn't quite sound right, and I found this same problem in the drums midway through Delta Sleep's Toe Stepper.

There's a blurriness to the sound that I didn't find in other headsets I had to hand. This happened mostly in music that is heavier and focused on mids, but not exclusively, as the rhythmic beats of Bastion's soundtrack had the same fuzziness. These muddled mids are fairly common in budget gaming headsets, of course, but this is perhaps the most telling sign of the Storm G2's price.

This headset is at its best when swapped to the Surround Sound EQ mode, and almost the only way I'd ever advise using it.

The previous two modes are not only more hollow feeling but also seem a bit quieter, which makes the handiness of having a built-in EQ button feel a bit counterintuitive, given you will immediately have to mess with the volume settings too.

The lush gothic orchestra that shines as you take your first bite in Vampyr performs well in Surround Sound mode, mostly because it does a good job at offering a proper soundscape. Surround Sound isn't just louder and more bassy, all the sound feels a bit more full. Even at its best, the sound has a distinct yet hollow feel to it.

The Surround Sound mode can be a bit of a double-edged sword in the Storm G2. In my first game of Counter-Strike 2, being one of those annoying guys who almost exclusively like sniper rifles in games, the thunder of the AWP made me jump and drop it on the ground. This EQ mode really cranks up the bass, which works in most instances but immersive first-person shooters can almost be a little too much.

Soundscapes, like those in Sea Power's Whirling-In-Rags, 8 AM, from the Disco Elysium soundtrack, is perhaps where the headset is at its best. When there's not too much focus on any one part of the mix, and instead everything is dynamic and varied, the decent noise isolation that comes from its comfortable set of earpads can make it all feel truly immersive.

This immersive sound is helped by a genuinely comfortable fit. It's quite light, at just over 250 g, though the clamping power on the pads is a little weak. It won't come off your head with light head banging (believe me, I've tried) but it feels like it will, which made me a little less likely to.

Listen to the microphone test below:

The build quality and design are also pretty solid for the price point. The headband at the top reminds me of the HyperX Cloud Alpha, made from protein leather with red threading and this is connected to the earcups through a strong aluminium frame. The earcups themselves feel a little cheap, with a plastic frame and smattering of RGB.

That RGB also brings the 40 hours of battery life down to just over 20 so, in most cases, I'd recommend turning it off and just playing without that pretty lighting on the side. It's unlikely many will notice anyway, unless you regularly turn your head to people with a headset on.

If you do plan on being sociable with this headset, the included boom mic sounds surprisingly good for the price, and the headset even has a backup mic built into the earcups for when you can't be bothered to plug the boom mic in. There's a mute button just below the EQ button and the headset informs you with a sound when you click it, but only when you're in a call or game. You can't mute ahead of time, as you won't know when you are muted.

Interestingly, the black and white variants have a few unique differences. My white one came with two USB-C cables, whereas the black one came with a USB-C and aux cable. As well as this, the receiver for the white model has a USB-C receiver built in, which you then take and pop in. The black one has the USB-A port and USB-C port on two separate sides of the same receiver. For the most part, I would say the black one has better accessories.

This dual-mic system is great for when this headset is connected to your phone too, which it can do pretty easily via Bluetooth or a good 'ol aux chord (assuming your phone hasn't done away with the 3.5 mm jack). For low latency play, the included 2.4 GHz dongle can connect via a handy USB-C and USB-A connector, tucked into a smart but ugly stowaway section in the dongle itself. It can't support dual connectivity, as you have to choose Bluetooth or 2.4 GHz on the headset cup but it's a reasonably robust connectivity variety.

The OXS Storm G2 isn't an affordable all-rounder that I would recommend to everyone on a budget but it does do enough right to be pretty solid. The sound gets muddled, especially in the mids, and the lack of much EQ control means you have to just be okay with what's on offer. However, a 40-hour wireless gaming headset with a solid mic might just be enough for many, especially if you just need something cheap to whittle away the early morning hours with a couple of friends on Discord.