About a month ago, I was one of the lucky winners of the Razer Headphones Contest here on TeamLiquid. As a result, today I received a free pair of the Razer Mako In-Ear Headphones.
Since TeamLiquid was so nice to me, I figured I'd give something back and write a review of the headphones to give other gamers an idea about the Morays.
Let's start with some pictures.
Here's the box:
Here's the back of one of the earbuds. The grey thing on the back is a shiny plastic gem, but the shine didn't come up on my camera.
Here's the front of an earbud:
And here you can see the earbuds and the jack, which is gold plated for good conduction.
And now the review
To test out new headphones, my favorite thing to do is to listen to the live version of Hotel California, by The Eagles on their Hell Freezes Over tour. This is a great quality recording of a great song that has a lot of subtlety to it, which in my opinion really tests headphones' clarity at all ranges.
The headphones I will be comparing these to are the headphones I usually use to listen to music. They are the Ultimate Ears SuperFi Pro 5. These are no joke headphones. They are very expensive ($250), and they are quite simply the best quality headphones I have ever heard in my life, and I've listened to quite a few Sennheisers, Sonys, and Boses. In other words, the Moray's got some tough competition.
Style
Personally I much prefer the black Morays to the white ones, but I got these headphones for free and I'm sure not going to complain. The black ones are stylish and subtle, and the little gem on the back looks cool below the Razer logo. In comparison, the SuperFis stick out quite a bit from the ear and look a little awkward.
Sound Quality
Treble: Many headphones in a similar price range to the Morays have a lot of trouble with treble clarity. Most of them cater to people that don't know what they want (as pretentious as that sounds) and go overboard with bass and don't have nearly enough treble or any clarity in it. I was listening for this specifically with these headphones, and they really came through. The treble clarity was comparable to the SuperFis, something I really wasn't expecting. Bass: That being said, these definitely have more bass than the SuperFis, and in my opinion a little more than is probably accurate. Still, these headphones are intended for gaming, not music, and while gaming I actually much prefer the higher bass to the low bass on the SuperFis. When you're playing Counter-Strike: Source and you shoot an awp, it's much more satisfying on the Morays. The bass clarity's not bad, but while listening to Hotel California once the song really got going I could definitely hear that it wasn't as good as the SuperFis. This was to be expected of course, since the SuperFis are dual driver while the Morays are single driver headphones. Still, the bass is able to cut through and sounds pretty darn good while gaming. Mids: The mids are the Moray's weak point for sure. The bass can cut through and the treble is way better than I expected, but the mids seem a little bit cut, and just no where near as clear as the SuperFis. The vocals in Hotel California were quieter and not as clear as they were when listening to the SuperFis.
Value
Hands down the Morays are better value than the SuperFis. The SuperFis are very high end monitors that you would only purchase if you are an audiophile. They are very expensive as a result. The Morays, on the other hand, are only a mere $40.00 from the Razer Store. For their price they blew me away. They are definitely better than many higher end headphones I have listened to that are in the $100-150 range.
I would definitely recommend any gamer looking for a good pair of gaming earbuds to get the Razer Moray. This is not a paid review, and I am only posting my opinion. I really do think these are some fantastic headphones for the price, and if you listen to them you'll see it would be silly to pay twice or three times as much for other headphones with less quality.
I apologize for my camera's terrible quality. Also, I wasn't sure if this should be in general or a blog, but I figured I wanted as many people as possible to see this so they could benefit from it so I put it in general.
Edit: One thing I felt I should add is that the morays actually have very good noise isolation. Better than the SuperFis. My computer is like a jet engine, so this is really nice as it helps mute out the fan sound.
That was a nice review. In the box in the picture what is the big white thing in the middle with 2 big prongs sticking out. It looks like it would be a charger or something but that must not be right.
On April 11 2009 09:39 Jonoman92 wrote: That was a nice review. In the box in the picture what is the big white thing in the middle with 2 big prongs sticking out. It looks like it would be a charger or something but that must not be right.
It is a converter to a dual-pronged jack. These are most common on airplanes, where they have two mono jacks instead of one stereo jack (I think the original reason was to force people to buy their on-board headphones for 5 bucks or whatever), so with that converter you can listen on airplanes without only having one ear playing.
Hrm, I've been needing some new headphones for a while now. I'll consider investing on a pair of them. $40 is pretty cheap considering the quality that you described.
I bought this waaaaaaaaaay before the contest was announced, because I'm a HUGE Razer fanboy (Armadillo, Lycosa, Krait, Deathadder, Mantis Control, Moray (2, in fact, because the rubber part holding the two wires got turn, and it got all dirty [it was white])). And this is one kick-ass pair of earbuds, its noise isolatio so good I keep missing calls when I'm using them, despite my phone being just a few feet away.
On April 11 2009 09:39 Jonoman92 wrote: That was a nice review. In the box in the picture what is the big white thing in the middle with 2 big prongs sticking out. It looks like it would be a charger or something but that must not be right.
It is a converter to a dual-pronged jack. These are most common on airplanes, where they have two mono jacks instead of one stereo jack (I think the original reason was to force people to buy their on-board headphones for 5 bucks or whatever), so with that converter you can listen on airplanes without only having one ear playing.
Oh, you can actually use the earbuds without the converter, but it's quite a pain stuffing it in and back, might spoil the jack o_O
Comes in handy, these earbuds are much better than the headphones the flight attendants give you.
Thanks for sharing! I'm currently using a JVC in-ear headphone but it doesn't really isolate the noise that well (I'm a bus commuter and those things make NOISE) so I might go for one of these in the future.
The worst part about these kinds of headphones is that sometimes I just zone out on the bus, staring at the scenery, and I totally ignore when a friend says 'hi' to me!
Could you list some of the ones in the 100~150s range that you compared the Moray to (the ones that you found inferior to the Moray). While the review gave a pretty good idea of the headphone being good quality for the price, it doesn't quite give an absolute and definitive quality.
Holy god this is a nice and thorough review. Extremely professional sounding IMO, almost sounding like a paid review *check's orb's posting history*
Honestly, I don't need anything new soon, but if my current headphones break/have issues I would buy these without a doubt (cheap price, plus it's fucking Razor, they sponsored the TSL!).
On April 11 2009 12:50 PobTheCad wrote: surely if you are heading into the 150 range for ear 'buds' you might as well buy proper headphones instead?
your ears don't hurt as much after using them
Yes but "proper" headphones aren't as handy as buds. I bought my Sennheiser CX400s because I wanted something I could wear while jogging/snowboarding/going to school and what not. They're very practical and never come out. There's a reason they made expensive buds too, you know.
How's the construction quality and what's their warranty?
The wiring seems pretty thin so it might wear away after a while. I've gone through 2 pairs of V-Moda Vibes and the casing wore away on both before a year, largely because the connection to the bud was so stupidly designed.
On April 11 2009 13:41 Jibba wrote: How's the construction quality and what's their warranty?
The wiring seems pretty thin so it might wear away after a while. I've gone through 2 pairs of V-Moda Vibes and the casing wore away on both before a year, largely because the connection to the bud was so stupidly designed.
The surrounding skin of the bud seems to start wearing after half a year of use... makes it look unsightly.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1351/orbmoray1ueo.jpg)
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