PDP has added a new family of gaming headsets called LVL50 to its lineup (See it on Amazon). It comes in four designs, with both wired and wireless versions for PS4 and Xbox One. All versions work with PC, but are made for a specific platform. At $80 for the wireless versions, it is one of the least expensive wireless gaming headsets on the market. The $79 Stealth 450 from Turtle Beach is a close competitor. The best wireless gaming headsets and those from well-known brands, on the other hand, usually cost a lot more.
1. Design and Features
When you take the PDP LVL50 Wireless headset out of the box, you can see right away that plastic is one way PDP kept the price low. Almost everything you can touch on the headset is made of plastic, except for the padding and the microphone pop filter. Plastic doesn’t make me feel confident either, because when I stretch and twist it, the places where the pieces join together creak.
Putting aside how well it works as a structure, the design has a simple elegance to it. The earcups and yolks of the headset are made of gray plastic, and they can also be used as sliders to change the size. The headband is black and has a groove in the middle that is shiny. The top of your head and the thick earpads are padded, and the whole thing is covered in a breathable nylon mesh. Even after hours of gaming, my ears never got hot, and noise isolation isn’t great.
The sliders have a good range, and the headband is bendy, so it can fit even on bigger heads. A nice touch is that the audio cable is wound up inside the sliders and can be seen through a hole in the slider. The earcups also move on the yolks so that they fit well around your ears. The headband is made of soft plastic that is comfortable, but I didn’t think it was tight enough.
Even though the earcups are big and can fit 50mm drivers where most cheap headsets would use 40mm, the plastic design keeps the headset’s weight down to just 0.7lbs, so it never felt heavy on my head or irritated the crown of my head, which is usually where cheap headsets hurt the most. The volume dial on the right ear cup is big and easy to use. The left earcup has a micro-USB port for charging, a power button, an audio mode switch, and a boom mic that you can flip up.
2. Gaming
A small USB dongle lets the PDP LVL50 Wireless headset connect to the Xbox One, PS4, and PC. If you don’t get the wired version, there are no other ways to connect. But that 2.4GHz signal works very well. Almost nothing went wrong when I was in the same room as my PC. I used the headset with the dongle behind my PC, my phone connected to Wi-Fi close to the dongle, and other things that could have caused interference. Audio always came through, even though there was the occasional crackle and pop, which were not loud.
The LVL50 Wireless has a wireless range of 40ft, but it didn’t seem to be able to talk through walls as well as the SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless, which also has a wireless range of 40ft but a much bigger base station instead of a USB dongle. My apartment is long, so I walked from my room to the back of the unit. I was in the doorway to the kitchen, which was about 35 feet away, when the sound stopped. The Arctis Pro has worked well for me everywhere in the kitchen (except behind the fridge). If you’re the type to keep your headset on while you run across the hall to the bathroom so your teammates have to hear your toilet flush, the LVL50 Wireless headset probably lets you do that, even if your teammates would rather not.
What’s even better is how clean the sound is. Through the speaker drivers, busy firefights sound clear, and loud explosions roar just as they should. For cheap headphones, all of the sounds that came through were very well-balanced. For example, the low booming of Bangalore’s Rolling Thunder landing all around me didn’t stop enemies from shooting at me. Compared to my experience with the Arctis Pro Wireless, the LVL50’s audio felt just as reliable and clear in combat, even though it didn’t have surround sound and wasn’t quite as warm.
Verdict
The PDP LVL50 Wireless headset is a great one because it works well and doesn’t cost much. Even though it’s cheap and made of plastic and the mic is too quiet, the sound is clear and punchy, even though it’s only stereo. It won’t blow you away like a $200 headset might, but it’s a great deal for the price.
