Teufel CAGE – Hardware Review
December and January are often very busy months for hardware manufacturers, as there are many gamers who wish to spend their hard-earned money on something nice for their gaming rigs. This can range from getting a spiffy new controller for their console, but also getting a new keyboard, mouse and, of course, a comfortable headset to accompany them during long gaming sessions. We recently took a look at SteelSeries’ Arctis 7+ Wireless headset, which proved to be a great asset to our gaming setup. Now, we are taking a look at Teufel’s CAGE gaming headset. This is the 2020 version of the headset, and thus not the old CAGE model. We were curious to see what Teufel’s headset had in store for us.
Design
The CAGE sports a fairly old-school appearance, and it doesn’t come with too many frills. We get a somewhat traditional black headset with a few red elements thrown in the mix to spice things up. The visible plastic components have a matte black coating, with black faux leather finishing touches. The insides of the ear pads have a red fabric inside, with the R and L letters in black. Other red elements are some tiny cables that connect the ear pads to the headband, and when you plug in the headset, each ear cup will light up the very big Teufel logo that’s visible on the exterior of the cups. Other than that, there’s the detachable microphone with a classic foam finish.
Comfort
Teufel’s gaming headset proves to be extremely comfortable thanks to its adjustable headband and its soft and ample faux leather padding. This padding is present in both the over-ear ear cups, as well as the headband. The device comes with a 3 meters long cable, making sure you can easily move around when gaming. Some may find this length too long, but we did enjoy the extra wiggle room here. The detachable microphone is also a plus, as you can simply unplug the mic when you simply want to listen to music or watch your favorite shows. Once again, we did have a bit more upkeep in keeping the faux leather clean, as it shows stains and smudges more easily than normal fabrics.
Specs
- Weight: 340g
- 1.5 m mini-jack cable
- 3 m USB cable
- 40-mm-Mylar driver
- 20 – 20000 Hz
- 32 Ohm
Overview
The CAGE is a simple plug-and-play device, and you’re good to go in mere seconds, … if you install the Teufel Audio Center software. We noticed that the headset’s settings aren’t perfect when you just plug it in, and it even misses a few of its standard features. For example, the volume dial didn’t work until we installed the software, and we did have to mess around a bit with the general settings as well. Nonetheless, the Audio Center does offer a lot of options to fine-tune the headset to your liking, ranging from general sound settings, microphone settings to LED settings, and assigning functions to the multifunctional button. After tweaking a few things, we were good to go.
Overall, the sound quality is great for this headset. It doesn’t drown out all exterior sounds, but in general, you won’t have that many environmental noises seeping through. The audio feedback is crisp and clear, and with the proper adjustments, you can easily have a profile at the ready for every occasion, be it a hardcore session in Call of Duty: Vanguard, a more timed and relaxing experience in Grow: Song of the Evertree, or just watching a few action-packed series on Netflix. We do have to mention that the volume dial feels cheap, compared to the rest of the device.
Conclusion
Teufel’s CAGE headset is a great gaming companion, and while it does rely on its software a lot, this shouldn’t be a big issue for PC gamers. Many premium devices come with software, which allows you to tweak the settings to your liking. Nonetheless, we do find it odd the volume button did nothing until we actually installed the Teufel Audio Center. That small remark aside, this headset offers crisp audio feedback, has a high comfort factor, and the LED lighting just looks superb. Even though it’s clear that this is Teufel’s first outing into the gaming world, they seemingly have the foundation laid down.
No Comments