Ozone Blast 4HX Headset Review

Overview

 

We’ve seen a few products here at pcG from Gaming peripheral manufacturer Ozone, we’ve seen a couple of Silver award winning mice (Ozone Neon, Ozone Argon) and a pretty impressive keyboard in the Ozone Strike Pro , but the last headset that we saw the Ozone Rage 7HX unfortunately missed out on an award. Well Ozone hopes to improve upon this with their latest headset the Ozone Blast 4HX.

The Ozone Blast 4HX headset is a stereo circumaural headset that’s compatible with XBox360, PS3, PS4 and PC. Each ear-cup features a 44mm Driver with a Frequency Response of 20 – 20,000Hz. In addition to this the Blast 4HX sports a boom style swiveling omni-directional microphone. Attached to the 3m long cable there’s a In-Line Control Box (ILCB) with controls for Volume, Mic Mute, Voice Chat Volume and a Game/PC switch. For PC the Ozone Blast 4HX simply connects by way of a single USB plug. When plugged in the Blast 4HX also features LED lighting on each of the ear-cups.

 

 

 

The Ozone Blast 4HX arrived at pcG in a very smart predominately black box featuring a large image of the Blast 4HX headset on the front. The images below actually show the outer sleeve, as there is also a inner box. Note the rather cool honeycomb effect on the box, not only does it look cool but it helps give the packaging a premium feel. The front of the outer sleeve highlights compatibility with XBox 360/ PS4 & PS3 as well as PC. The flash in the top right corner ‘USB Power Connector’, may only be relevant for Console connections as the PC setup requires the USB for both audio and power! In addition to this Ozone highlights the following (some of which seems to repeat itself!?):

Looking at the back of the box (or more accurately the back of the outer sleeve) we find another smaller image of the Blast 4HX heaset as well as its In-Line Control Box (ILCB). Ozone is keen to promote the following:

 

 

Even the sides of the box (sorry outer sleeve) get a little attention, on the left there’s imagery of the folding microphone and the foldable design along with a detailed description. Below this there’s a list of specifications for both the Speakers and the Microphone (see Specifications/Features below).

On the right hand side we find a smart looking image of the side of the Blast 4HX along with more compatibility information.

 

 

Removing the outer sleeve allows us to take a look at the smart inner black box, that’s really rather nice with its highlighted brand and product name in the centre. Again it helps to give the Blast 4HX a somewhat premium feel.

Once inside we find that the premium feel begins to get a little lost though, as the headset is simply housed in a plastic frame, meaning that the presentation suffers a little.

 

 

Within the box other than the headset itself we find a very basic User Manual (that suggest you go and read the online User Manual!) and two additional cables that are for console connectivity only.

At the time of writing the Ozone Blast 4HX headset is available from Amazon for approximately £60 and comes with a 1 year warranty.

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of OZONE

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

 

First impressions of the Ozone Blast 4HX are not as good as the packaging suggests unfortunately. I was looking forward to getting the headset out of the box, but once in the hand the headset feels a little too cheap for my liking. There’s a lot of hard plastics used in its construction and that premium feel from the un-boxing is now all but lost. Although the headset itself looks pretty good to be fair with its red accents and silver strips, very Gamer… 😉

 

 

The design of both of the ear-cups is effectively the same with the left side featuring the swiveling microphone and the captive audio cable. Both ear-cups have a hard plastic exterior, that’s not that nice to the touch, the silver flash through the middle though helps to give back some of that premium feel lost by the plastics. Both ear-cups have a very small amount of vertical and horizontal travel in an attempt to seal against the side of the head. As you can see the left side is home to the microphone, but more on that further down. Also we can see here the captive audio cable that’s approximately 3m in length.

 

 

The outer headband sports an interesting Blast logo, interesting as its designed to look worn, unfortunately on a headset that’s already feeling a little cheap, I don’t think it works! But I can at least appreciate what they were trying to do… 😉

The headband apparently (as it’s difficult to see, although you can (rather disappointingly) feel it!) is reinforced with metal, no bad thing as we’ve known some headbands to snap! The inner section sports a very thin layer of padding, that’s barely enough to keep comfort levels high.

 

 

Each ear-cup features a rather novel (maybe even ergonomic) aperture that seems small at first, yet my (medium/large ears) fitted within without too much of a problem. Each ear-cup features a good amount of foam padding that appears to be covered with leatherette (fake leather). Protecting the ear from the inner Driver there’s a thin layer of soft material in red, that helps to add a little bling to the headset.

The headset features a decent amount of (head size) adjustment with both sides offering approximately 30mm of additional travel, therefore catering easily with the larger than average head size. Also note the smart looking Ozone logos at the bottom of the headband.

 

 

The omni-directional microphone swivels around the left ear-cup, vertical when not in use, although there’s no automatic microphone mute, which is a shame. The microphone also sports some flexibility but really deep down it has a mind of its own! 😉 At the tip of the microphone there’s a small LED indicator that stays on permanently (red) when the headset is powered up.

 

 

50cm down from the headset we find the In-Line Control Box or ILCB. In this position I feel it’s too close to me and would have liked to see this distance increased, although if you wish to clip the ILCB to your clothing (see back of ILCB) I guess this makes more sense. The ILCB sports controls for both PC and Console, although for some reason the switch is named Game and PC!? The whole unit though (again) feels cheap thanks to the use of thin hard plastics. Functionality though is good with a microphone mute (with LED indicator) and a volume control wheel. The chat volume is for use with Consoles only, unfortunately…

 

At this point I’m a little uncertain as to whether the Ozone Blast 4HX is up to par as it simply doesn’t feel (or look) like a £60 headset! The quality and the plastics used make it feel far cheaper, let’s just hope that it at least performs like one!

 

Hardware Installation

 

In the connection department the Ozone Blast 4HX clearly shows its console support as only one of these plugs dangling from the end of the 3m cable needs to be plugged in for PC use, and that’s the USB plug. Never really liked cables dangling around at the back of my PC though… The cable itself is covered with a plastic sheathing that’s actually quite flexible and not too prone to tangling, although it is rather long.

 

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

 

The following games were also used during testing:

• Fallout 4
• Assassins Creed Syndicate

• Metro Last Light (benchmark)
• Unigine Heaven (benchmark)

 

Hardware Performance

 

• Headset

 

 

The performance of a headset is predominately based upon what it sounds like, therefore what we have here is my opinion on what I think about the audio performance of the Ozone Blast 4HX headset; of course this is somewhat subjective…

Well we hoped that after a somewhat poor first impressions that the performance of the Ozone Blast 4HX would come to the rescue, and thankfully to some degree it does, but only just! The sound produced by the two 44mm Drivers is OK but the overall sound signature is somewhat bass heavy. Now while that may be fine for some of us and while that may be good for Gaming (generalization!), it’s not so good for the other sounds being produced. It is this fact that makes the sound in general feel a bit constrained, even muffled to some degree. Voices in game aren’t as clear as they should be, even the bass while good struggles with the very low tones! In Game music is also a little dull, that’s in fact that’s a good word to use, the whole signature is just a little dull in my opinion! The clarity and crispness of other headset (in the same price range) just isn’t there, and that’s a shame…

There’s plenty of volume on offer though, so if you like it loud then give the Blast 4HX a bonus point for that alone. But looking at this from a PC perspective (this is pcGameware after all) the Ozone Blast 4HX’s sound is simply not good enough to compete with some other headsets in this market. The £60 HyperX Cloud (not the Cloud II) for example offers far better audio on every level. But of course that doesn’t offer multi-format support like the Ozone Blast 4HX, so…

 

• Comfort

 

Comfort wise the Ozone Blast 4HX again is OK, that is to say that its simply neither great nor bad, which I guess is ok!? Even during the longer Gaming sessions (mainly in Fallout 4) the headset never proved that uncomfortable, despite its rather odd shaped (ergonomic) ear-cups. Thankfully as there’s also not too much weight (300g) there’s very little pressure on the top of your head further helping overall comfort. But again we can easily say that other headsets in the same price range offer better audio and comfort!

 

• Microphone

 

In testing with our VOIP of choice (Razer Comms) the omni-directional microphone worked well, and I had no complaints (other than the usual) from my online buddies. I found that the best results were obtained when the Windows Sound Recording Level was set to 100%.

 

Final Thoughts

 

There’s one major issue with the Ozone Blast 4HX headset and that’s simply the price! At £60 so many other headsets offer better quality, better sound and better comfort. If this headset was half the price then it would undeniably be worth it, but for now it’s simply not…

The Ozone Blast came to pcG in a smart black box with an even smarter exterior sleeve, it’s nice to see that someone’s obviously put a bit of time into the packaging. Once that inner box is open though the premium feel of that packaging starts to get a little lost. The inner packaging is a simple piece of moulded plastic that lets the overall presentation down a bit, the bundled cables in the back of the box also seem to be just thrown into a plastic bag and left dangling around inside.

Unfortunately once the headset is out of the box and in the hands that premium quality feel takes a further nosedive, the Blast 4HX feels nothing like sixty pounds worth of headset I’m afraid. The plastics used are all hard to the touch and feel cheap, even sharp in some places, the overall construction also is a little poor, you can actually feel the construction within the headband itself! It’s shame as the headset itself is quite a good looking (Gaming) headset and I quite like the overall aesthetic. Even the In-Line Control Box (ILCB) doesn’t escape the cheap plastics unfortunately though. The control box is also too close to the headset meaning that unless you use the shirt clip on the back (never used one myself), it’s likely to get dragged around the desk and start getting in the way. The illumination though does give it a lift with a nice splash of red around the silver strips on the ear-cups. Simply put the Ozone Blast 4HX headset feels like a thirty pound headset and that’s a big problem when it costs sixty…

I was hoping that the audio produced by its twin 44mm Drivers would come to the rescue, and they came close but not close enough IMHO! While the bass heavy signature is good for Gaming (generalization) it’s not so good for the other sounds being produced. They just seem to get drowned out by the bass (if present), when not present the headset just sounds dull! There’s very little sparkle and clarity on offer and the very high-end (Treble) seems to almost be missing from the sound signature. But to be fair, audio is my favourite topic as a Reviewer and in general, and I would be best described as an aspiring Audiophile, so my criticism may be harsh. But the problem is that other headsets (in this price range) still offer better audio quality.

Comfort was Ok though, with no real issues to speak of, even when wearing the headset for long periods of time. The only oddity being those odd shaped (ergonomic!?) ear-cups that just seem a little to small for my large/average sized ears. The omni-directional microphone worked well in testing and I had no complaints from my online friends.

The saving grace for the Ozone Blast 4HX headset may be the fact that it can be plugged into a Console (XBox One, PS4 & PS3) or a PC, and the necessary cables to do this are included in the box. Therefore if you want one headset to rule them all then maybe this is it…

But this is pcGameware and we’re primarily interested in what it’s like for us PC Gamers. And although I don’t like saying it, the Ozone Blast 4HX is simply not worth the current £60 price tag. The quality, the sound and the comfort are simply not at that level. And for that reason the Ozone Blast 4HX just misses out on an award (again) this time…

 

Verdict

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Many thanks to Ozone for providing this sample for review