I almost returned this $250 headset, but now it’s my favorite of 2025

I'm not a fan of gaming headsets, so for the Razer BlackShark V3 Pro to impress me enough to recommend it to you is no small feat.

I've tested over a dozen gaming headsets over the past few years and only found two to be reliable. The Razer BlackShark V3 Pro is the better of the two, and while it's expensive, it's a definite 2025 tech pick for me. With that said, I didn't immediately like it.

At first glance I was impressed

The Razer BlackShark V3 Pro looks as premium as you'd expect at this price point.

The first thing I noticed was the build quality. Since I usually have little faith in gaming headsets, I was pleased to find that the headphones felt durable. You can tell you are dealing with a premium product from the very beginning.

Next is comfort. I wear glasses, which often makes some headphones and headsets uncomfortable for me, but the soft memory foam pads in these headphones really work well, even after hours of use. They do get a little warm, but I think that's not surprising for a headset with a fairly tight (though not too tight) clamp.

The headset features a huge (12mm) detachable supercardioid microphone with a foam cover. I was more than willing to get rid of this right away, as with my old headset the windshield mic really muffled my voice. I eventually got rid of it, purely because the microphone itself is bulky and doesn't require a massive foam cover.

Razer has already fixed my biggest issue with the BlackShark V3 Pro.

I wish I had bought it a few weeks later.

This is a wireless headset with 50mm titanium-plated drivers, in which you can use HyperSpeed ​​2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth simultaneously while connecting it to your computer and phone. I started by connecting to the computer at 2.4 GHz and after a quick setup I tried it out.

My heart sank. It actually didn't sound as good as I had hoped given the $250 price tag. The sound was muddy and somewhat flat, and the lack of bass quickly began to bother me. But before you start wondering why I'm telling you that I like it despite this, let me tell you that this was in the early days of the Razer BlackShark V3 Pro. The headset didn't sound very good out of the box, but Razer released several firmware updates that significantly improved the EQ. For now, it's good from the start, and you can play around with the different sound profiles in Synapse to get the sound you really like.

Since I didn't have immediate access to the latest firmware, I spent a lot of time experimenting with different audio settings. This helped me get the mic and audio quality to a level that I was more than happy with.

The Razer BlackShark V3 Pro has Active Noise Cancellation (ANC). I never thought this was necessary in a gaming headset and consider it more of a benefit, but I have to admit it's pretty good. It has different levels that you can customize in Synapse, and although I rarely play shooters, I admit that it really helped me focus and focus.

Using it also enriched my experience in more immersive RPGs, as I could hear finer details that I had often missed before. THX Spatial Audio (7.1 virtual surround sound) really took this to the next level, immediately surpassing my previous favorite headset, the much cheaper SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7.

My journey with the microphone was a lot like audio – it needed some work. Buying a headset now and downloading the latest firmware should help you get rid of all the inconvenience and easily switch between different modes. The default mode is fine, but the Broadcast mode sounds very good for a gaming headset.

The battery life of this headset is excellent.

An indispensable item in a headset without batteries and hot-swappable.

The battery life amazed me. I was used to having to charge my previous headset every day to survive hours of calls, but this one lasted three to four days before needing a charge. However, this was without ANC, which I imagine would have significantly reduced battery life.

Finally, an important aspect of such a headset is the latency (or lack thereof). I didn't experience any problems in this regard, and the wireless connection was stable throughout my hours of testing.

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I was impressed with the sound quality, comfort and even the microphone, especially after some tweaking to help me tailor the sound profile to what I want. Outside of gaming, I still prefer standalone headphones, but for gaming and Discord, the Razer BlackShark V3 Pro is by far the best headset I've ever tried.