Nacon Rig 900 Max HS review

I think unboxing experiences are a little overrated. While it's nice to open your new purchase and find a level of care and attention paid to the packaging that makes every component feel like a rare gem, I don't really mind if a product comes in a default, easy-to-recycle cardboard container. It makes me feel good about myself, like the company, and I might have saved a sea turtle from an unfortunate plastic lunch.

I do expect a little bit more than the Nacon Rig 900 Max HS provides, though, which is to deliver you a headset that comes with its earcups dangling by their respective wires. Step one here, after removing it from its cardboard frame, is to rescue each cup from its perilous position and click it into one of three sizing settings on the headband. That's providing you haven't wrenched the cables horribly in your eagerness to get going with your $250/£200 new gaming headset, of course.

Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself—so let's run through the basics. The Nacon Rig 900 Max HS is indeed a gaming headset, and an expensive one at that. It's got Xbox Series S/X, PlayStation, and PC support, dual wireless connections in the form of Bluetooth 5.3 and 2.4 GHz wireless via the included dongle, and a USB Type-C charging stand, so you can rest it on its cradle when not in use for easy desk-based top-ups. In theory, anyway.

Once the earcups are clipped in, the set itself feels reasonably pleasant. It's light, at just 240 g, and has a springy metal outer headband with "RIG" emblazoned on the outside in a large white font. The microphone is a flip-to-mute omnidirectional cardioid unit, and the earcups are soft and squidgey, which, when combined with the headband adjustment and the lack of weight, makes for a comfortable set to rest atop my head.

On the rear of the left earcup are buttons for power control, mode switching, and a mic mute, along with a nicely-weighted volume dial. The right earcup is buttonless, with only four contact pins at the bottom for connection to the charging stand.

All of this is fine, but each control, each material used in its construction, all feels a little… cheap. The volume dial is nice enough, but the buttons lack positivity, and the whole chassis is covered in fiddly details that don't seem particularly well-designed. Speaking of which, the stand itself is a shiny black plastic throne upon which the headset somewhat awkwardly sits.

The alignment here feels a bit crunchy when you place the headset in the cradle, and more than once I've found myself setting the Rig 900 Max HS into its charging base without actually making contact with the corresponding pins.

This is my fault in part, as a gigantic LED on the front flashes red when the headset makes contact—before staying illuminated in the same colour as the set charges itself up. Could I perhaps get a yellow light for halfway charged, and a green to tell me it was done? No? Fair enough.

Nacon says the battery life is around 50 hours, and I'd say that was about right, so it's not a huge deal if you pull it on and off the stand regularly with the odd misalignment mess-up. Still, it strikes as a bit of a clumsy implementation—and the slippy black plastic combined with the awkward connection socket doesn't give off the feeling of a premium product when you attempt to bring the two together.

Clicking on the Windows software link on the product page takes you to the, err, Android Google Play store, where you can download an app to adjust the settings over the Bluetooth connection. Nope, no native Windows software suite here, but at least in dual connection mode, you can make adjustments on the fly with your phone while still being connected to your PC.

The app itself is actually rather good. The menus are straightforward, everything is clearly laid out, and you can tweak the settings to your heart's content—with everything from parametric EQs to auto power off adjustments handled within easy-to-find tabs. I particularly like the toggle to turn off the voice prompts, as otherwise the 900 Max HS is a bit of a chatty Cathy. More headsets should allow you to turn off the sickly-sweet voice-overs, in my opinion. Take note, everyone else.

So, to the most important thing about any gaming headset: the sound. The drivers here are 40 mm units with plenty of low end punch straight out of the box, and are clearly tuned to give you a bit of skull-bouncing bass without any software-based EQ at all. Thankfully, however, the lows are of the tight and defined variety without veering into wobbliness, which makes for a chonky, chunky listening experience without being too fatiguing on the ol' lugholes.

The mids and high end frequencies, however, sound a little ill-defined. They're perfectly serviceable, but there's a tendency for the top end to ring a touch hollow when dealing with the details, and the drivers overall are missing the sweetness I'd associate with headsets of this price.

Messing around with custom settings in the EQ helps, but there's a distant quality combined with an ever-so-slight edge of harshness that certainly helps gunshots ring, but isn't the sort of sound profile that says "$250 worth of audio gear" to me.

Still, the Rig 900 Max HS is a reasonable-sounding, comfortable headset, mostly let down on initial impressions by the fact that it comes without its earcups properly attached, the dubious plastics, and that subpar charging base. Where I really fall out with the Nacon, though, is the microphone.

Flipping it down with a slightly graunchy mechanism (you can hear plastic sliding on plastic through the left ear cup as you deploy it) leaves the mic in a downward position that ends up being a country mile away from your lips. Even with the gain set to maximum in the app, I've found the signal to be very quiet—but it's the audio quality itself that's lacking.

Don't get me wrong, it's not flat-out bad. But the audio pickup sounds ultra-compressed, in a way that reminds me of military communications. Military comms equipment squashes the audio in order to reduce latency and cut through the sounds of battle, and I'd imagine the same thought process has gone on here. Squish the signal, and the clarity means it should stand out over COD gunfire just like it would over real-life rounds.

But what you're left with when you go to, say, use the Pro 900 Max in your next meeting, is a tinny, thin-sounding vocal tone. Sure, it's easy to hear what you're saying, but it's not a soothing sound to listen to for long periods of time. It's very sibilant-prone, too, so prepare for esses to become "ethessss".

For multiplayer comms, it's fairly serviceable, but a good headset mic (particularly attached to a $250 unit) should sound rich, wide, and smooth. The Nacon mic is none of those things, and reminds me somewhat of the $19 Bengoo G9000 I tested recently. In fact, scrap that. I think the Bengoo's mic actually sounds a little rounder, which is more pleasant to listen to overall.

What I've ended up with here is a headset that's genuinely difficult to recommend, despite the odd high point. I don't mind the look (although given that the mic is non-detachable, I certainly won't be taking it on my next train journey), it's pleasant to wear, the feature set is acceptable, the battery life is good, and the drivers are fairly capable.

But the devil is in the details, and it's the details where the 900 Max falls apart. Both the controls and the base are clunkily designed, the microphone isn't up to scratch, and there's a prototype-like feeling to the whole affair that I just can't seem to shake. And with a $250 price tag, it's difficult to see where the 900 Max HS fits in.

This sort of price bracket practically demands refinement, and it's refinement where the Nacon Rig 900 Max HS fails. For $50-$80 more, you could be the proud owner of a Beyerdynamic MMX 330 Pro, a gaming headset with excellent audio quality, a truly brilliant mic, and velour earcups that are even more comfortable than the ones you'll find here. It screams quality from every angle, and really feels like you're getting your money's worth in everything it provides.

It's wired, unfortunately, so you're tied to your devices. However, should you require a cable-free existence, how about the fabulous Audeze Maxwell?

I mean, it's got a pair of planar magnetic drivers, for goodness sake—again for around $50 more than the Nacon. We regularly see it dip to around $270 in the sales, and it's one of the best gaming headsets we've ever tested. Put it next to the Rig 900 Max HS, and there's simply no contest which I'd rather have, charging stand be damned.

Should you go cheaper, you'll find a wealth of brilliant gaming headsets for much, much less, like the HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless with its 300-hour battery life. Again, you don't get a charging stand, and the mic is more serviceable than fabulous, but otherwise it's a complete superstar. We regularly see it drop below $130 during the sale periods, but even at full whack, it's good value. And really, that's the Nacon's issue all over.

To put it bluntly, it simply doesn't deliver what you'd expect for the price. Comfortable it may be, and the sound is mostly fine (with the exception of that mic). But unless you can find one with a considerable discount, I simply don't think it justifies the cash.