Amazing sound profile for the price
I received my Quantum 400's a week ago and have been putting them through the best testing you can, normal, every day use.
These are marketed as gamer headphones and the gamer features truly stand out while allowing the headset to remain somewhat clean, the black finish is a primarily matt with a slight glossy effect on the outer rims of the ear cups while the RGB JBL logo blends in to look like just a engraving while the lighting is turned off and the microphone, although a little shorter than I'm used to, sits just about right and has a LED band to show if you are muted or audible.
The headset is primarily made up of plastic, at this price point this is to be expected although this does not feel particularly weak or cheap, it does help with the weight,
The padded headband, is minimal but not too thin or too thick and does not leave you feeling as though the headphones are digging in to your skull with any excess pressure or too light to feel unsupported.
In short, I would say it's not perfect but just about right, personally I would like a slightly thicker but softer padding especially for long sessions.
The ear cups themselves appear to be made from a faux leather outer while the memory foam inners make for not only a very comfortable fit but a secure seal and amazing external noise isolation.
I was able to sit with these on for nearly 8 hours straight during a normal gaming session and they remained comfortable and secure throughout.
Now for the sound, I had high expectations, having owned JBL in-ears I knew the sound profile to typically have a bass heavy orientation out of the box while still remaining clear through the rest of the sound stage.
I expected much the same here and I was not disappointed.
First I tried via USB which I believe will be most peoples use case and how I feel you can get the most out of these headphones.
I started with the spatial sound turned off where I was met with a nice even sound profile that felt a little flat overall, left and right channels merged and didn't leave me feeling "present" in the scene be it in game, watching a movie or listening to music.
Turning the spatial sound on to their QuantumSURROUND profile though was a totally different story, the sound stage instantly expanded, audio became much clearer and the positional cues were nearly perfect, I have used virtual surround profiles on headphones before and always preferred them to be off as I found them to be fatiguing and distracting but not here!
You have various profiles as well, I would recommend the clarity for movies and music as this feels like it gives a more balanced audio profile across the full range without making any one area overpowering or too subtle.
For gaming, my go to profile is FPS, this keeps the punches from the low bass noticeable and enhances the normally lower volume noises which I feel balances out the sound stage in most games and you begin to appreciate the sounds you may have missed previously (or with the surround turned off
The microphone is a bit of a hit and miss, it is clear, very clear in fact and as someone who is more softly spoken, it picked up my voice without issues and my teammates commented that it came through without any obvious distortion via Discord although did leave me sounding a little flat, think more telephone conversation than professional quality but what matters is it was clear, it was loud and there is no need for anything more while in the middle of a firefight!
Now on to the not so good:
As mentioned earlier, the microphone is a little shorter than I'm used to, this leaves the red LED band a little useless as it is out of sight so I am unable to see at a glance if I'm audible or not, this is easily overcome by using the flip up feature to turn off the microphone so this is very minor.
The in-line controls on the headset itself featured on the left back earcup canThe title says it all really.
I received my Quantum 400's a week ago and have been putting them through the best testing you can, normal, every day use.
These are marketed as gamer headphones and the gamer features truly stand out while allowing the headset to remain somewhat clean, the black finish is a primarily matt with a slight glossy effect on the outer rims of the ear cups while the RGB JBL logo blends in to look like just a engraving while the lighting is turned off and the microphone, although a little shorter than I'm used to, sits just about right and has a LED band to show if you are muted or audible.
The headset is primarily made up of plastic, at this price point this is to be expected although this does not feel particularly weak or cheap, it does help with the weight,
The padded headband, is minimal but not too thin or too thick and does not leave you feeling as though the headphones are digging in to your skull with any excess pressure or too light to feel unsupported.
In short, I would say it's not perfect but just about right, personally I would like a slightly thicker but softer padding especially for long sessions.
The ear cups themselves appear to be made from a faux leather outer while the memory foam inners make for not only a very comfortable fit but a secure seal and amazing external noise isolation.
I was able to sit with these on for nearly 8 hours straight during a normal gaming session and they remained comfortable and secure throughout.
Now for the sound, I had high expectations, having owned JBL in-ears I knew the sound profile to typically have a bass heavy orientation out of the box while still remaining clear through the rest of the sound stage.
I expected much the same here and I was not disappointed.
First I tried via USB which I believe will be most peoples use case and how I feel you can get the most out of these headphones.
I started with the spatial sound turned off where I was met with a nice even sound profile that felt a little flat overall, left and right channels merged and didn't leave me feeling "present" in the scene be it in game, watching a movie or listening to music.
Turning the spatial sound on to their QuantumSURROUND profile though was a totally different story, the sound stage instantly expanded, audio became much clearer and the positional cues were nearly perfect, I have used virtual surround profiles on headphones before and always preferred them to be off as I found them to be fatiguing and distracting but not here!
You have various profiles as well, I would recommend the clarity for movies and music as this feels like it gives a more balanced audio profile across the full range without making any one area overpowering or too subtle.
For gaming, my go to profile is FPS, this keeps the punches from the low bass noticeable and enhances the normally lower volume noises which I feel balances out the sound stage in most games and you begin to appreciate the sounds you may have missed previously (or with the surround turned off)
The microphone is a bit of a hit and miss, it is clear, very clear in fact and as someone who is more softly spoken, it picked up my voice without issues and my teammates commented that it came through without any obvious distortion via Discord although did leave me sounding a little flat, think more telephone conversation than professional quality but what matters is it was clear, it was loud and there is no need for anything more while in the middle of a firefight!
Now on to the not so good:
As mentioned earlier, the microphone is a little shorter than I'm used to, this leaves the red LED band a little useless as it is out of sight so I am unable to see at a glance if I'm audible or not, this is easily overcome by using the flip up feature to turn off the microphone so this is very minor.
I would also like to see some noise cancelling features for the microphone as my teammates could very clearly hear my keyboard (and anything else around me).
The in-line controls on the headset itself featured on the left back earcup can be... confusing but handy.
You have the microphone mute at the bottom, volume in the middle and game/voice balance on the top.
I have had a few occasions where I have wanted to adjust the volume and instead ended up adjusting the balance instead, I would like to see these a little more separated, perhaps with the mute button in between them.
In summary:
These headphones are very good quality and do not feel particularly cheap, they are also very comfortable for long play sessions.
The sound stage via USB on the PC is good out of the box and amazing with the QuantumSURROUND feature turned on.
The microphone is loud and clear, my only issue is there is no noise cancellation from the JBL software itself but easily remedied by using software specific noise cancellation which most applications have these days, I would still like to see this supported by the JBL software suite. be... confusing but handy.
You have the microphone mute at the bottom, volume in the middle and game/voice balance on the top.
I have had a few occasions where I have wanted to adjust the volume and instead ended up adjusting the balance instead, I would like to see these a little more separated, perhaps with the mute button in between them.