We get this question about once a week. Sometimes more. "When are you making gaming headphones?" Short answer: not in the plans. Longer answer below.
The gaming headphone market is a circus
Gaming headphones sell two things: RGB lights and aggressive design. The headphones look like they were ripped off a Transformers movie, they flash seven different colours, and the sound quality is roughly on par with the tenner earbuds you grab at a petrol station.
That's not our thing. We make headphones that sound good. Jasse has tuned our drivers to reproduce music so you can hear the details – not so that explosions sound as "epic" as possible at the expense of a bassy mush.
"But isn't a good headphone good for gaming?"
You bet. And that's the whole point.
The VMK25.2 works brilliantly for gaming. Plug in with an AUX cable and you'll get better sound than 90 percent of "gaming headphones". Wirelessly, Bluetooth works on PC and console. Active noise cancellation kills background noise, so you hear footsteps in the game instead of the neighbour's dog barking.
What we don't have is a microphone attached to the headphone. And that's a deliberate choice.
The microphone thing
A fixed boom mic on a headphone means compromises. It makes the build more complex, adds one more part that can break, and drives up the price – and the end result is still worse than a separate desk microphone.
If you game and need a mic, buy a separate one. You'll get better audio quality for your voice and better audio quality for listening. Both. At the same time. Magic.
Henri's Alfa Romeo philosophy applies here too: don't try to make one device that does everything poorly. Do one thing properly.
What about latency?
Bluetooth latency is real, but with modern codecs it's so small you won't notice it unless you're playing at tournament level. If you play CS2 for a living, use a cable. If you're playing Baldur's Gate on the sofa with a beer in hand – like a normal human being – Bluetooth is perfectly fine.
The VMK25.2 also has an AUX connection, by the way, so zero latency is just a cable away. No RGB lights needed for that.
To sum it up
We don't make gaming headphones because our headphones already work for gaming. No flashy lights, no Transformers design, no pointless boom mic. Just sound quality.
If you want headphones with seven colours and a dragon-shaped logo, the market has options. If you want headphones that actually sound good – in-game and everywhere else – you know where to get them. Every order takes us one step closer to the Death Star.
