Gaming Headset Showdown: Redragon H510 Zeus Vs EKSA E900 Pro
It’s Thursday, and it’s time for the gaming headset showdown.
Today’s contenders are consistent top-sellers online. They both have regular retail prices under $50 bucks, but they pack in features that gamers expect from $100+ products.
But which one would I pick if I could only pick one and had to throw the other in the river near my house? This is a figurative question. I don’t pollute the river.
THE CONTENDERS
Redragon H510 Zeus (Click here to read my full review)
I found this headset on accident while searching for “Memory foam gaming headset” on Amazon, but it already had a strong legacy after around a year on the market. Coming in at $49, its use of a non-proprietary 3.5mm detachable connection is just the start of its charms. It has a build that’s comparable to many popular HyperX products, and a feature set to match. Will its standard noise-canceling-bereft microphone hurt its chances in the showdown?
EKSA E900 Pro USB (Click here to read my full review)
You can’t search for gaming headsets online without tripping over one of EKSA’s models. They shot to the top of the charts with their latest E900 models, after experimenting with a number of other garish plastic affairs. The E900, like the H510, is a HyperX clone, but it doubles down on features over everything. A noise canceling microphone, built-in USB-C DAC, and plush ear pads hope to distract you from its boomy sound and proprietary analog audio cable.
Redragon H510 Zeus. Photo taken by the author.
SOUND QUALITY
There’s no doubt about this category: The H510 sounds much better. That’s not to say the E900 sounds bad, but it’s certainly an acquired taste, and that taste is “I like bass instead of detail.” The H510 has a balanced, natural tone that’s let down only a little by a slightly ragged treble response. It’s one of the most pleasant-sounding cheap headsets I’ve ever used, and does a surprising job of presenting sound more or less how it was intended.
The E900 doesn’t even try to be accurate, instead favoring an aggressive, wide sound with plenty of boomy bass. It has a sound signature that recalls gaming headsets circa 2012, when the original Razer Kraken was crushing the market and everyone was chasing the same type of sound.
That sort of sound is fun from time to time, but by both my personal subjective metrics and the objective concept of accurate sound reproduction, the H510 easily takes it.
Winner: H510
COMFORT AND ISOLATION
This is a tough one. The H510 has slightly bigger pads with a little more isolation, but the foam contained inside is a basic fast-rebounding foam that doesn’t really feel like memory foam. The E900 pads are slimmer in stature, but filled with some of the squishiest, slowest memory foam you can get on any gaming headset at any price.
Both headband pads are similar in quality and neither caused hotspots for me in multi-hour gaming or music listening sessions. But clamping force is where the E900 falls down a little bit. Out of the box, the H510 has the exact right amount of clamp to sit perfectly on the head, whereas the E900 is a little bit too tight.
I think both of these are quite comfy, and in this budget range only the HyperX Cloud Stinger attempts the same level of comfort. But the H510 has a little more isolation and a softer clamp.
Winner: H510
EKSA E900 Pro. Photo taken by the author.
DESIGN/BUILD
Both headsets have an industrial design heavily “borrowed” (stolen) from the HyperX Cloud series. The H510 comes closer to looking like the inspiration, with soft touch ear cups, and a braided wire running between the cups. The E900 is a little more edgy and “gamery,” with red lighting in the cups and coiled bright red interconnect cables.
The materials of the H510 feel a bit more premium. The E900 uses thin aluminum grills on the back of each cup, covering a basic plastic layer underneath. The H510 has a bit more density and weight to it, with adjustment sliders that firmly click into position similar to those on the $130 HyperX Cloud Alpha S. The adjustments on the E900 have no real click at all and rely on a friction mechanism that feels rough, and like it could wear out faster over time.
Winner: H510
MICROPHONE
These headsets use two very different design principles for the microphones, but both of them sound better than you might expect in this budget price range. The H510 uses a standard capsule with no acoustic noise-cancellation, whereas the E900 uses a noise-cancelling one.
As a result, the H510’s microphone is a little more sensitive and a bit more adept at capturing an accurate recording. However, if you have any kind of background noise in your environment, or you’re gaming on a mechanical keyboard, that sound is likely going to come through. The E900’s capsule does a pretty good job of suppressing background audio, and only gives up a little volume and clarity to do so. I’d rank its performance as very similar to the Cloud II’s microphone, though the HyperX model is biased more towards treble frequencies in the voice.
Although I appreciate the extra volume and clarity afforded by the H510’s microphone, I prefer the background noise cancellation of the E900 as I think that’s a feature that will be more useful in gaming scenarios.
Winner: E900
FEAUTRES/EXTRAS
Both of these heasdets include more extras than I’d expect at this price point. They both come with a carrying bag and a large compliment of detachable cables. They both feature the same USB DAC/amp combo from C-media, alongside some hilariously silly virtual surround software.
The analog connection port on the H510 is a standard non-recessed 3.5mm jack, meaning you can use any aftermarket cable you’d like. Its USB sound hardware lives inside a dongle that’s attached to a long braided cord, and then it just plugs into that 3.5mm jack.
All of the USB hardware on the E900 lives inside the headset, which is awesome. Further, it uses a standard USB-C port for the connection, something that several expensive audio products still haven’t upgraded to. The analog audio port is unfortunately highly recessed, and uses a proprietary locking connector similar to the one found on Shure’s studio headphone models. So finding a replacement cable is a lot more difficult.
In the War of the Bags, the E900 easily comes out on top. It comes with an oversized thick leatherette bag that should provide a decent amount of protection. The bag that comes with the H510 is a simple nylon thing that’s very thin and slippery.
Winner: E900
Redragon H510. Photo taken by the author.
FINAL WINNER: H510
Redragon’s H510 wins the day with much cleaner sound, less clamping force, and a more premium build quality. Sure, you miss out on the integrated USB sound hardware, nicer ear pads, noise cancelling mic, and nicer bag, but you’re getting a remarkable level of sound performance for the price and you’re not tied to finding a specific cable in case you ever lose the included one.
If the E900 had a more natural, less boomy sound signature, it’d be my personal favorite. I love the soft ear pads, the mic’s background noise cancellation, and the sturdy carrying bag. I love that it has USB-C as well.
Honestly though, both of these are cheap enough that you could get them both and experiment for less than the cost of many of the popular gaming headset models. You’ll give up very little when compared to some of those other models, and you’ll actually get premium features like detachable cables, USB dongles, and nice bags that many $100 options don’t offer.
Both of these are solid choices that rise out of the nightmare pile of garish plastic budget headsets available at this price range, and I hope the larger manufacturers pay attention to things like their detachable cables, competent microphones, and nice extras.
