Roccat Syn Max Air Review
A gaming headset bundled with a charging dock
Verdict
The Roccat Syn Max Air gaming headset offers excellent and immersive spatial audio. It’s also an especially comfortable headset with solid passive noise isolation and good connectivity. The only real weak point is its battery life, which is a lot less than the competition.
Pros
- Especially comfortable
- Good all-round audio
- Crisp microphone
Cons
- Poorer battery life compared to the competition
- Expensive
Availability
- UKRRP: £209
- USARRP: $249
Key Features
- Flip to mute microphone:The Syn Max Air features a clever flip to mute microphone that’s also detachable.
- Dual connectivity:This headset can also work over both Bluetooth and the bundled 2.4GHz wireless USB receiver.
- 16 hours battery life:Roccat also rates the Syn Max Air to last for up to 16 hours on a charge.
Introduction
Roccat’s latest crop of gaming peripherals look to be throwing everything but the kitchen sink in, and the new Roccat Syn Max Air is no different.
There’s everything from a detachable mic to a bundled charging dock, dual connectivity and earcups with cooling gel in them.
Make no bones about it, you’re getting a lot for your money, but at £209/$249, the Roccat Syn Max Air is one of the more expensive headsets I’ve looked at, trading blows with the likes of the Astro A30 Wireless and the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max.
Design and features
- Sleek, minimalistic design
- Solid build quality
- Great padding and comfort
Roccat’s products have never really been the flashiest things in the world, instead choosing to opt for more of a refined aesthetic, and that looks to be the case with the Roccat Syn Max Air I’ve got here. Every component of this headset, from the earcups to the headband, looks smooth and curved; there are no sharp edges in sight.
Build quality is generally good here, with the smooth plastics feeling solid, although perhaps lends this headset to looking a little cheaper when placed side by side with similarly priced competitors. While the Syn Max Air is by no means a small headset, it doesn’t look particularly bulky with that smoother finish – although it may become a den for fingerprints and grease, so you may want to keep a cloth nearby.
The padding is excellent, with a plush leatherette around the magnetically removable earcups and headband. You also get a good seal, deep earcups, and a decent clamping force, combining for excellent passive noise isolation and a comfortable fit. At 340g, these sit in the mid-range bracket for headsets, but don’t actually feel too heavy since the clamping force isn’t too tight on your cranium.
Adjustment here is pretty good, with a small scope for it on the headband, while the earcups swivel horizontally. There isn’t anything for them to rotate, which is a little bit fiddly. But in my experience, it was just a case of putting the Syn Max Air on, fine-tuning a little, and it felt great.
The on-board media controls are spread nicely across both earcups, with a couple of dials for volume control, as well as a dedicated Bluetooth button, a power button, USB-C port and magnetic recess for attaching the Syn Max Air to the bundled charging dock. It’s especially nice to see and feel actual physical controls with tactile feedback, as opposed to dealing with the fiddly multi-function joysticks I’ve used on headsets more recently.
Connectivity here is strictly wireless, over either Bluetooth or via the bundled 2.4GHz wireless receiver. The Syn Max Air worked a treat with my PC and my MacBook Pro, too. This isn’t a headset that’ll work with Xbox, though.
Roccat rates the Syn Max Air’s battery to last for up to 16 hours – in testing, the Syn Max Air managed to match Roccat’s claims entirely. But I still found this stamina to be disappointing.
For comparison, Logitech’s Astro A30 Wireless lasts for 27 hours, Sony’s Inzone H7 for 40 hours, and the HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless for a ridiculous 300 hours. While you will be able to grab a couple of working days’ worth of gaming out of the Syn Max Air, it’s still a fair bit less than the competition. In testing, the Syn Max Air managed to match Roccat’s claims entirely.
I like the additional Swarm software, offering options for customising the 10-band EQ for getting the best audio possible and enabling the clever Superhuman Hearing spatial audio function for even more solid immersion. You can also use the software to customise the smattering of RGB present on the earcups.
Audio and microphone
- Great, generally balanced audio
- Wide soundstage provides marvellous immersion
- Flip to mute mic is especially convenient
The Roccat Syn Max Air sounds excellent. Games and music do come with a bit of a bassy thump, but otherwise it’s balanced with a good amount of detail.
The soundstage is wide with excellent separation, even without the spatial audio. And in playing a few games of CS:GO and listening to everything from Rush to James Taylor and Earth Wind & Fire in my testing, I’m suitably impressed by the Syn Max Air.
Enabling Roccat’s Superhuman Hearing function within the additional software took that separation to another level, though, and made for one of the more immersive gaming experiences I’ve had in a while. The addition of a specific mode to listen out for footsteps and heighten their audio was also of major help when I was playing CS:GO, and for a run of Sniper Elite V, too.
The boom microphone sounds good, and there’s a decent amount of body and clarity to it. By default, some keyboard noise and the like came through, but the noise gate as found in the Swarm software soon got rid of most of that background noise. This is also a flip-to-mute mic if you don’t want to detach it, and it clicks into place nicely, while a reassuring beep lets you know that you’re silent to the outside world.
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
You want an especially comfortable headset:
As well as offering decent audio, the Roccat Syn Max Air is a rather comfortable gaming headset with excellent padding.
You want some excellent battery life:
While the Roccat Syn Max Air is a generally solid headset, its 16 hours of battery life falls behind the competition by a considerable margin.
Final Thoughts
The Roccat Syn Max Air is an excellent gaming headset that’s genuinely one of the most comfortable ones I’ve used in a while. Its deep earcups are great from a comfort perspective and aid in making for an especially immersive listening experience. The audio here is balanced for the most part but comes with a deep bassy punch. There are also solid options for spatial 3D audio, which makes playing shooters an absolute joy.
The 16 hours of battery life is a bit of an issue though, given a lot of similarly priced headsets are now offering double the duration, as well as similar functionality and features, too. It makes this a little bit of a tough sell, but the inclusion of a charging dock at least makes it easier to get back in the game.
How we test
We test every headphone we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Tested with real-world use
Tested for several days
Tested the microphone
You might like…
FAQs
The Roccat Syn Max Air uses a USB-C charging cable.
Full specs
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
