At first I would like to thank Razer for offering me a sample of their Tiamat 2.2 Gaming Headset for testing and reviewing.

 

About Razer:

"Razer is more than just the world's leading brand in gaming.

We were founded in 1998 in San Diego, California by our CEO Min-Liang Tan and our President Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff in a tiny shared office with a couple other gamers. We have grown today to hundreds of employees worldwide with offices in seven cities, including San Francisco, Hamburg, Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore.

Our vision from the very beginning was to be the world's greatest gaming brand and we've set out to achieve that by designing the best gaming products that any gamer has ever seen.

We believe that truly great products are based on technology, designed with extensive human factors and user ergonomic studies and then tested by the top professional gamers. In simpler terms, our own world class scientists and engineers develop cutting edge technology in-house or with partners, design phenomenal products around core technologies – and test the hell out of them in the field with our pro-gamers before we launch them.

We are the only gaming hardware company in the world with dedicated gaming user interface research and development labs, and our technology and designs are incubated in three dedicated design centers located in facilities in California, Singapore and Shenzhen. No other company boasts of technology like we do – because we're the only guys who have what it takes under the hood.

We tell it like it is: some can pretend to co-develop products with professional gamers, but gamers don't develop technology: scientists and engineers do (and ours just happen to be gamers as well).

We develop and design our products in our own labs and then put them to the test with top professional gamers who use them in pro-level tournaments and then provide us with feedback. Then we iterate on the product, refining it with the feedback – over and over and over again. That's how it's done, that's how a Razer product is built from ground up. No marketing BS and no hype.

We pioneered the eSports movement with the world's first $100K tournament back in 2000 and we have continued to give back to the community by sponsoring top eSports athletes who give back to Razer by beta-testing our products. We remain one of the largest sponsors of eSports community sponsoring top global eSports teams worldwide.

The people that work here at Razer are gamers just like you – some amateur, some ex-professional gamers, some just play for fun, just ask our CEO who will lay the smack down on you in Quake Live or our President, who has over ten level 80's on his local server. Hell, he will even take you on a raid in the middle of the work day.

We are the same gamers who are told by the suits that we need adult supervision and we need a professional CEO or management team – and we're the same gamers who tell the suits exactly where to shove it because we like doing what we do – and we do it on our own terms.

We hope our passion for gaming speaks to you like it does to us, through our products and we hope you enjoy the competitive edge we bring to your game."

Product Features:

 

Optimized positional audio

 

The audio drivers in the Razer Tiamat 2.2 have been designed to simulate a three-dimensional audio effect for deeper immersion with your games. Get a sense of position and depth in your surroundings, so you can hear how far and where exactly an opponent is by his gunfire or footsteps, for the tactical advantage

 

Two discrete subwoofer drivers for heavier-duty bass

 

The Razer Tiamat 2.2 houses not one, but two sub-woofer drivers for stronger bass support and overall audio performance so you are closer to the action and further from thin, mediocre basslines.

 

Maximum comfort, maximum durability

 

The Razer Tiamat 2.2’s sturdy construction and snug-fit padded leatherette ear cups ensure extended headset life and ultimate comfort so you can keep terrorizing noobs during those hardcore marathon gaming sessions.

 

Product Specifications:

 

Optimized positional audio for immersive gameplay

Dual bass drivers for deep, thumping bass

Comfortable, snug fit for extended play

Precise, noise-filtering unidirectional mic

Slim, easy-to-use inline remote

Replaceable soft-touch leatherette ear cushions

Braided fibre cable

 

Headphones

 

Drivers: 4 x 40mm Neodymium Magnets with Titanium Coated Diaphragm

Frequency Response: 20 – 20,000Hz

Impedance : 32?

Sensitivity @ 1kHz : 109 ± 3dB

Input Power: 60mW

 

Microphone

 

Frequency Response: 50 – 16,000 Hz

Sensitivity @1kHz: -36 dB ± 2dB

Signal-to-Noise Ratio: 50 dB

Pick-up Pattern: Unidirectional

 

In-Line Volume Control

 

Headphone Dial

Microphone Mute Switch

 

The Tiamat 2.2 headset from Razer is another interesting product, sporting two drivers in each cup (40mm), one which has function as a subwoofer. The packaging is similar to the one we have found with the SWTOR headset, which lets us take a look at the product without unsealing the package:

 

 

 

 

On the back side of the packaging, we will learn some more details regarding the headset components, in multiple languages:

 

 

 

Here the manufacturer has also insisted on noting that we are talking about the Tiamat 2.2 stereo headset and not the 7.1 which sports no less than 10 drivers:

 

 

 

Some of the main product highlights are described in more detail on the side of the packaging:

 

 

 

If we get the headset out of the main packaging, we will observe that half of it is still held inside a cardboard box along with the rest of the bundle/documentation:

 

 

 

The heatset might look big at first but is quite light and features an automatically adjustable head rest, as we have also seen on the Siberia V2:

 

 

 

For keeping the headset confortable even after longer periods of time, we can see foam padding areas placed at equal distance. The green stitches of the headrest remind us of the official Razer color:

 

 

 

The earcups also come with foam padding and are covered by leatherette; these do not apply a lot of pressure on the head but become a little warm when using the headset for a long time:

 

 

 

The Tiamat 2.2 is wired but the braided cable is of good quality and durable; by looking at the exterior side of the cups, we will remember the design we have also found on the Chimaera:

 

 

 

 

 

On the left cup we have an integrated microphone, which can be ejected:

 

 

 

The microphone body has two parts, with the ending portion flexible in order to adjust it on our liking:

 

 

 

 

On the interior of the headset we can also see the markings of the left/right channels:

 

 

 

On the top side of the headrest we can also see the Razer logo:

 

 

 

The slim and light remote is located a little down the wire and is easy accessible:

 

 

 

On one of the sides we will see the Microphone mute switch:

 

 

 

The other side comes with the volume controller:

 

 

 

As expected, the long cable ends up with the microphone and headphone jack plugs:

 

 

 

As documentation, we will receive a nice Razer sticker, the Razer leaflet with registration instructions and also the user manual:

 

 

 

Even before receiving the Tiamat 2.2 test sample, we have done some small research on the web about the product and a lot of people said that the sound is a bit dirty, muffled and needs some tuning. Indeed, after plugging the headset in our laptop, there were a lot of mids and lows but not a lot of highs. It seems that we did not have to do a lot of work in order to make the Tiamat sound good, but we only worked with the Bass/Treble software settings. To enhance the positioning and to deliver virtual 7.1 sound, Razer have developed the Surround software, which works with all sound card/codecs and most of all, it is free. The only drawback, if we could call it that, would be the necessity of Razer Synapse 2.0, which needs to be installed. During software installation, we will get to see a lot of funny messages under the progress bar:

 

 

 

As usual, after the application has finished installing, we will be prompted for our username/password:

 

 

 

The Razer Surround GUI is similar to the ones we have seen at the other peripherals tested so far and the options are split on multiple menus. We will begin with the calibration procedure, in order to adjust the software to our audio equipment:

 

 

 

We will be prompted to select the audio source we will use the Surround with:

 

 

 

If we are using regular headphones (non-Razer), we should select “Stereo Headphones” at the next step:

 

 

 

Razer has pre-programmed profiles for each type of stereo headphones manufactured by them:

 

 

 

Having this said, we will select “Razer Tiamat 2.2” from the list:

 

 

 

The next step of the calibration procedure implies positioning tuning; for the Tiamat 2.2 profile we did not feel the need of altering the default configuration:

 

 

 

 

After the software has been initialized, a new controller will appear, “Razer Surround Audio Controller”. We need to have this one selected and set as default in order to enjoy the benefits this application brings. This virtual controller can be disabled anytime from the Settings tab:

 

 

 

The Audio menu comes with options for enabling Stereo Enhancement effect, Bass Boost, Sound Normalization, Presence or Volume level:

 

 

 

On the last page we can also select one of the predefined EQ settings or set up a custom one ourselves:

 

 

 

 

The Tiamat 2.2 gaming headset from Razer has impressed us positively during the test period because of the way it sounds after we have ran the Surround software, or after some small tuning but also because of the fact that it is quite light. The outer side of the ear cups share design elements from the wireless Chimaera, but the inner padding is now covered by leatherette instead of cloth. Because of this, the ears may get warm during use since the possibility of skin breathing is limited. Thanks to the two extra 40mm drivers, the bass is much better represented compared to other headsets from the same league.

 

The cable is quite long and permits us to move freely around the desktop. The small plastic remote allows us to modify the volume on-the-fly but also to mute the microphone at will. Speaking of the microphone, this is partially hidden inside the left cup and can be extended easily; its body is flexible to allow additional adjustments.

 

While the Tiamat 2.2 does not feature as many drivers as the 7.1 version which is more expensive, the situation is quite in our favor thanks to the Surround software, which enhances positioning and is well tuned by default for the Razer brand headsets.

 

The Tiamat 2.2 can be found online for about 81 Euros.

 

Razer Tiamat 2.2 Gaming Headset is Recommended For:

 

We would like to thank again to Razer for making this review possible!