Asus ROG Delta S Wireless review: Fantastic comfort

(Pocket-lint) – Asus has added another headset to its Delta line-up – a wireless headset that’s built for comfort and convenience. We’ve tested and reviewed the wired, high-resolution sound ROG Delta S previously, but now there’s a wireless version that offers more freedom and the option to use it on PC, Mac, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch, thanks to an included USB-C wireless dongle and Bluetooth.  What’s the ROG Delta S Wireless like in the real world, though?

And is that wireless connectivity worth the extra outlay? We’ve been gaming and soaking in the sound to find out. 

Our quick take

The ROG Delta S Wireless is an interesting proposition. The headset offers a number of enjoyable features, including loud sound, superb comfort and the convenience of both wireless and Bluetooth.

With some tweaking, the headset does also sound very good. By offering an excellent range of settings for gaming and other listening experiences, as well, it means there are plenty of sound options here.  Unfortunately, the beamforming microphones don’t really stand up against the competition of boom mics and dedicated USB or XLR microphones, but they do still make for a convenient option should you need them. 

All told, this headset has a nice balance of features, specs and comfort, and it’s certainly worth considering alongside the market’s other top wireless options.

Asus ROG Delta S Wireless

For

  • Excellent comfort and great choice of earcups
  • Interesting beamforming mic design
  • Loud drivers
  • Fast-charging battery
  • Easily customisable controls

Against

  • Sound a bit hollow at times
  • Battery life isn’t as good as others

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Comfort first

  • 318g
  • Choice of protein leather earcups or mix hybrid protein leather and fabric
  • 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth connectivity 
  • 25-hour battery life with fast charging (15 mins gives three hours)
  • 1800mAh battery 

We thoroughly appreciated the ROG Delta S for its comfort, and the Delta S Wireless pleases in many of the same ways. As a wireless headset, the Delta S Wireless naturally weighs a smidge more than its wired counterpart (18g more, if you’re interested), but it’s cleverly designed to keep your ears and head happy.  Firstly, the headset has D-shaped ergonomic ear cushions.

These cushions are more naturally shaped to fit your ears and are also large and deep enough to cover them nicely, too. There are two lots included in the box. A pair of 100 per cent protein leather ear cushions hat block out a wonderful amount of surrounding noise, and the slightly more open-feeling mixed earcups.

The latter are fabric on the outside and protein leather on the inside, which means you can keep cool during use but still block a small amount of environmental noise. They’re easy to swap, too, with a small lip around the driver holding onto the inside of the cushion. This means you have a choice to play around with them and adjust to your personal preference. 

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Asus ROG Delta S Wireless review photo 2

The top of the headband is really nicely padded, as well, so it sits comfortably on the head, and the lightweight design means it’s easy to wear for hours and hours.

We found the headband extends nicely and has a loose clamping force that’s well balanced, so it doesn’t fly off the head but isn’t overly tight, either.  The overall result is a comfortable fit and a satisfying immersion into the sound. So, you can focus on your game, rather than your surroundings. 

The Delta S wireless offers a choice of 2.4Ghz wireless and Bluetooth connectivity, which we should also mention. There’s a small USB-C dongle included with the headset, and this is nicely stored in one of the earcups. That dongle can be plugged into your PC’s USB-C port, or you can use the included adapter to connect it to a USB-A port, instead.

It’s worth noting that we couldn’t get the headset to play music from an Android phone with that dongle, but other devices will work with Bluetooth if needed. 

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Asus ROG Delta S Wireless review photo 17

There’s a switch on the left earcup that lets you switch modes between Bluetooth, 2.4GHz and, well, off. Unfortunately, Asus hasn’t seen fit to offer dual-connectivity here. You have to choose between wireless or Bluetooth.

You can’t run both at the same time.  Naturally, the 2.4GHz wireless is the best option for low latency sound and customisable audio. We did find the range isn’t as good as some other wireless headsets we’ve tried, though.

Wandering away from our PC for a drink caused a “disconnected” audible message in the headset, but it quickly reconnected when we returned, and the signal was perfect when sitting near our machine.  Asus claims 25 hours of battery life, which is fairly good, but, of course, it’s still not in the same ballpark as the 300-hour life of the industry-leading HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless. You can plug in for a fast charge, however, with just 15 minutes of juice providing three hours of extra battery.

That’s more than enough for most gaming sessions.  Another thing we like is the controls. As well as the volume wheel and connection switch, there’s also a multi-function media button.

Press it once to play or pause a song, twice quickly to skip and three times to rewind. It doesn’t seem to give an instant response every time, but it’s pleasing to have such convenient controls within easy reach. 

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Asus ROG Delta S Wireless review photo 14

Customisable sound

  • Neodymium magnet 50mm drivers
  • 32 Ohm impedance
  • 20 – 20000 Hz frequency response
  • 7.1 virtual surround sound

The Delta S wireless has some surprisingly loud 50mm drivers. We found these to be stupidly loud, in fact.

So, if you like to don a headset and both block and blast out the world, then these tick that box.  This wireless headset doesn’t offer high-resolution sound, like the wired Delta S, but you can get 16bit/48kHz audio wirelessly. It’s not as rich as the Corsair Virtuoso XT, which offers a higher sample rate and 40KHz frequency response wirelessly and 96KHz sample rate when plugged in, but it’s still a good-sounding headset with plenty of customisation options via Armoury Crate. 

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Our initial thoughts were that the Delta S Wireless seemed to lack bass on the default settings.

The basic sound feels a bit hollow and muddy, but you can tweak plenty of different settings in the software to get the sound up to your personal preference.  There are all sorts of settings here, including optimisation pre-sets for music, movies, gaming and specific types of games. You can turn virtual surround sound on or off from here, too, as well as throw in some reverb, change equaliser settings and more. 

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Asus ROG Delta S Wireless review photo 8

We found we had to play around with the settings a fair bit in order to get it sounding the way we wanted it, but it does significantly change with these tweaks, so that’s certainly a satisfying highlight. 

Beam-forming AI microphones

  • Beamforming AI microphones
  • Bi-directional pickup pattern
  • 37 dB microphone sensitivity
  • 100 to 10000 Hz frequency response 

Instead of a classic boom mic, the ROG Delta S wireless uses beamforming microphones backed up by AI noise cancellation technology.

The idea here is to eliminate background noise in a way that means you can still be heard.  The result, though, is a bit hit and miss. Without the settings turned on, the mics pick up a lot of background noise, and, with it, you’ll hear a lot of compression.

You can still be heard on the higher settings, but it doesn’t sound great. It’s also not comparable to the boom mics or dedicated standalone microphones we’ve tested.

Pocket-lint
Asus ROG Delta S Wireless review photo 19

Obviously, results will vary depending on your environment. You can turn the noise cancellation down and improve your voice capture quality if it’s quiet, but you still have the option to be heard in louder environments – like if you’re frustrated with friends hearing keystrokes or other noises. 

The added bonus with the beamforming microphones is that they’re subtle and go along nicely with the overall understated design of the headset. Switch it into Bluetooth mode and you can also use the Delta S wireless as headphones and take calls on the go.  squirrel_widget_12853141

To recap

The ROG Delta S Wireless is an interesting proposition.

It requires a bit of tweaking to get sounding right, but, generally, it’s been fun to play with and makes for a nice package.

Writing by Adrian Willings.

Editing by Conor Allison.

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