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Geek Culture
30-07-2025
- Geek Culture
Razer Blackshark V3 Pro Wireless Gaming Headset
Legacies that stand the test of time are few and far between, especially in the incredibly competitive world of gaming. Razer has proven time and again that its headphones will always have a place in the hearts of gamers from every generation, with some choosing the haptic Kraken headphones for a more immersive gaming experience, the Barracuda for multi-platform use with Razer's signature aesthetic, or the Blackshark catered towards professional esports players. With four iterations over the last 13 years, the Razer Blackshark V3 Pro continues this legacy with key upgrades including Active Noise Cancellation and ultra-low latency audio, which do well with players looking for more ways to block out distractions, while listening out for accurate real-time audio cues that professional first-person shooter (FPS) players need to put numbers on the scoreboard. On the surface, it is difficult to tell the difference between the previous iterations of Blackshark headphones. Keeping in line with its predecessor's all-black aesthetic, it's devoid of RGB lighting but with a slight bit of gloss on the Razer logos on both sides of the headphones' cans, reflecting how seriously it takes itself, especially as the headset of choice for esports professionals. What needs to be mentioned is the replaceable magnetic faceplates on either side of the headphones, which opens up possibilities for official or 3D printed designs to personalise your set of cans in the near future. The placement of the buttons hasn't changed much from its predecessors, except for an additional customisable roller and the ANC, short for active noise cancellation, control button that cycles through its modes. Owners of previous headsets would feel right at home navigating around Blackshark V3 Pro, and the same thing can be said when it comes to adjusting the length of the headphones. Its dual-seal memory foam ear cushions use layers of fabric and leatherette that prove comfortable, together with 15-degree swivel joints to better conform the headphones to the angle of your ears, all working in tandem to provide a seal for the headphones' ANC. The ear cushions are also lined with moisture-wicking properties that are made to absorb sweat during long hours of usage and ensure comfort throughout your session. The cushions are breathable, and our ears aren't swimming in sweat after wearing them for four hours and longer in a room only equipped with a ceiling fan in sunny Singapore. However, what isn't comfortable is the weight of the Blackshark V3 Pro and its crushing clamping force needed to keep it in place. At 367 grams, the Blackshark V3 Pro is the heaviest in its lineage and 103 grams heavier than the Blackshark V3 and Hyperspeed counterparts, which makes sense since there are more features packed into the Pro edition. However, the lack of weight distribution means that the majority of the weight would be pulling both of your ears down. The clamping force needed to keep the cups on your ears should also feel proportional to the weight of the headphones, but here, it makes one feel like their head is being squashed, especially for folks with wider heads. The discomfort is felt immediately when putting the headset on as the clamping force pushes into the middle of the head, and when coupled with the weight of the headphones bearing down on you induces a headache, no matter how much you adjust the length of the headphones. It's bad enough that the pressure forms a pulsation in your head the longer you keep them on. These factors would be dealbreakers for many because the features and upgrades of the Blackshark V3 Pro cannot be fully enjoyed without the constant pressure on the head. One may argue that the headband would break into a more comfortable form over time, but it's unclear how long it will take to reach that point. Add in the hybrid ANC's pressure to the mix, and users are in for even more discomfort. Hybrid Active Noise Cancellation is a fresh feature for the Blackshark line, previously only seen in the Razer Barracuda Pro and Hammerhead True Wireless Pro products some years back, and there is a noticeable improvement here. The ANC is available in four levels and can be adjusted via the Razer Synapse software and the Razer Audio mobile app, though the level has to be set within the app and cannot be changed with the physical ANC button, which is the norm for most headphones. The lowest level of ANC does little to minimise ambient noise, with the highest improving slightly on voice and music reduction, such that users can hear the rumbling of its four microphones as it tries to fight against the ambient sound. The seal on the ear cushions isn't as tight as expected, however, rendering its noise cancellation efforts a bit of a farce, and making us wonder how esports players would feel in a hall of screaming fans when the headphones can barely minimise the sound of a ceiling fan. When it comes to the audio performance, the Blackshark V3 Pro performs rather decently, and any gamer should be satisfied with its bass-heavy nature that drowns out the highs and mids, aligning with most gaming headphones Listening to Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' with the default EQ, you can tell that his vocals and the guitars are thin, while the basslines and the drum's floor tom are prominent, they do not sound punchy at all. Imagery is somewhat accurate, although its soundstage is narrow even with Razer's TriForce Bio-Cellulose 50mm drivers. Granted, these headphones aren't made for music, but given how long they have been in the business of making audio peripherals, you'd think Razer would've picked up a thing or two along the way. There are 12 custom EQ options tuned by professional esports players from popular FPS titles that act as templates for anyone unfamiliar with tweaking EQs for your game, and it's a neat little feature that gets esports fans closer to their favourite players. You are able to save nine EQ profiles on the headset and cycle through them on the fly with the SmartSwitch button. Playing hardcore tactical shooter Ready or Not with the Razer Blackshark V3 Pro was a decent experience, with just enough accuracy to pick up the positions of suspects' footsteps and chatter behind walls and doors. You can use the 'Footsteps Scaling' function – which can be assigned to the additional roller on the right of the headset – to adjust the 125Hz and 250Hz bands specifically, to enhance audio cues that usually fall within those frequencies. This helps with intelligence gathering, especially in other games such as Valorant and Apex Legends that are heavy on audio cues. The included THX Spatial Audio 7.1.4 experience is fun to use in immersive games like Elden Ring or Ready or Not to make them more atmospheric, but this is not suitable for every game and requires some trial and error to check if spatial audio is supported with the games you play. Surround sound options are dependent on the platform you are playing on, of course, and THX Spatial audio is only available on PC, while Windows Sonic and 3D Tempest audio are available on Xbox and PlayStation, respectively. Ultra-low latency is the name of the game with this particular Blackshark, and its cousin, the Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro Wireless Gaming Mouse, are leading the charge with the HyperSpeed Wireless Gen-2 dongle. On the audio front, this promises 2.5GHz latency rates of 10ms, delivering near-instantaneous audio that translates to larger reaction windows for esports professionals, as every in-game second could be the difference between life and death. Receiving information a millisecond quicker is the kind of edge gaming veterans will appreciate as the Blackshark V3 Pro is 5ms faster than some of its higher-end contemporaries from brands like HyperX and Logitech, which is impressive. Besides enabling its super low-latency audio delivery, the dongle can indicate either connection status or battery life status, with a blinking red warning informing users when the headphones are in dire need of a charge. If you wish to extend its 70 hours of battery life on PC, or 48 hours on Xbox or PlayStation consoles, you can disable the Ultra-Low Latency feature in Razer Synapse, extending both battery life and the headphones' range without sacrificing latency. Razer's HyperClear Full Band 12mm microphone uses a larger capsule and sounds decent, with more than enough clarity to get your message across the voice chat. Working alongside Razer Synapse's customisable EQ, you can adjust the bands as you wish, or choose from four available presets – all of which work decently, especially the full and warm-sounding Broadcaster option. The microphone on the Blackshark V3 Pro has no major issues, with its bells and whistles serving its main purpose of enhanced communication. With a hefty price tag of US$249.99, the headphones might seem like a heavy investment for casual gamers, and in more ways than one. The combination of its weight and hardly bearable clamping force makes it difficult to fully recommend the Razer Black V3 Pro, because it compromises comfort for competent audio quality, customisation, and battery life. While fans may rejoice over an upgrade to a beloved headset series, the lack of an ergonomic experience right out of the box spells trouble for any gamer – you can't win games if your headphones are squeezing your brain, after all. Summary The upgrade everybody has been asking for, the Razer Blackshark V3 Pro is a decent hybrid ANC gaming headset that goes big on features and customisation, but ultimately falls flat due to its hefty weight and strong clamping force. Aesthetics - 9/10 Build Quality - 9/10 Performance - 5/10 Value - 5/10 Geek Satisfaction - 7/10 Abandon Reason Know Only War! Zinho is a shooter fanatic still waiting for direct sequels to Black (2006) and Star Wars: Republic Commandos. He also truly believes that the Warhammer 40K universe can take on any franchise and destroy them. To think any different is heresy and punishable by Exterminatus. Razer Razer Blackshark V3 Pro Review wireless gaming headset
Stuff.tv
29-07-2025
- Stuff.tv
These must-have features just made the Razer Blackshark V3 Pro my new go-to gaming headset
Stuff Verdict This ever-popular gaming headset is even more capable in its third generation. The Blackshark V3 Pro sounds stellar, has great connectivity, and adds effective ANC to the mix. Pros Familiar design is as comfortable as ever, while still evolving functionality Punchy and precise audio meets crystal clear mic quality Wired connections make a welcome return for those who need them Cons No high quality Bluetooth codecs You pay a premium for the uprated speaker drivers and mic Introduction Razer's esports-grade gaming headset has been around for over a decade now, through multiple iterations. In that time the Blackshark has become a pro player staple, and slowly evolved from a purely PC focus in order to bring console owners into the fold. This latest edition includes console support from the off, along with active noise cancellation for the first time. Plus it rights a few of the last-gen model's perceived wrongs. The Blackshark V3 Pro is the headline-grabbing hero model, with copious connectivity, lag-free wireless and a broadcast-grade boom mic – but then at $250/£250/€270, you'd rightly expect it to have the best tech going. It's joined by the cheaper Blackshark V3 and V3 X Hyperspeed, which forego some of the fancier features to hit a far more appealing price point. Does the Pro do enough to earn its place at the top of the tree? How we test headphones Every pair of earphones and headphones reviewed on Stuff is used for a minimum of a week's worth of daily listening. We use a playlist of test tracks made up of multiple genres to assess sound, and use our years of experience to compare to other models. Manufacturers have no visibility on reviews before they appear online, and we never accept payment to feature products. Find out more about how we test and rate products. Design & build: cleared for takeoff The V3 Pro doesn't look all that different from the last-gen Blackshark, but that's a good thing in my book: the old headset evolved Razer's aviator-style design into something more sleek and modern, and this model continues that trend. It's still an all-black affair – unless you go for the white version, which is more of a half-way house with its black ear cups and headband, or buy one of the console-specific models. The PlayStation and Xbox flavours get blue and green headband stitching respectively. Small refinements can be found when you go looking for them: the chunky volume dial on the left ear cup has a textured finish now, which makes it easier to grip. There are more buttons around the edges, but they're evenly distributed – and the ones you'll be pressing more are moved far away from the power button to avoid accidental switch offs. An embossed logo on each earcup is pretty subtle, but given the faceplates are just held on with magnets, it's a breeze to swap them out for something more colourful. Razer showed me a bunch branded with different esports team logos and mascots, but doesn't currently have any plans to sell them separately; I'm betting etsy and Aliexpress will quickly fill that void. This design makes it easier to replace the battery, though Razer will still take care of that for you should the need arise. As with most of its esports-grade peripherals, Razer has eschewed RGB lighting; there's just a single activity LED, which changes colour when swapping wireless modes. The reinforced metal headband sliders provide plenty of adjustment for different head sizes, and the 15 degrees of swivel helped me find a comfortable fit that didn't apply an excessive amount of pressure around my ears. The ear cushions are wrapped in hexagonal weave cloth, but have a leatherette layer underneath that both helps wick away sweat and increases background noise isolation. I've happily worn this headset through entire 9-5 working days, then popped it back on after dinner for an evening of gaming without any discomfort. I also like that the boom microphone still detaches easily when you don't need it. Razer had long sorted any issues with microphone drift with the outgoing Blackshark V2, and I didn't experience any during testing this new model. Features & battery: wireless wonder After the last-gen headset going exclusively wireless rankled some corners of the internet, Razer has course-corrected for 2025. The Blackshark V3 Pro still has built-in Bluetooth and includes one of the firm's Hyperspeed 2.4GHz dongles, but now you can also listen via a cable. You get USB-C and USB to 3.5mm cables in the box, so it should play nicely with just about any gadget. I can't say I felt the need to go back to wired play, though. The new Hyperspeed V2 connection is about as close to a cable as it gets, measuring just 10ms of latency – or 5ms faster than the V2 Pro (and virtually any rival) can manage. It's so low I couldn't detect any delay between the onscreen action and what I was hearing through the headset. Range was pretty good in my two-storey home, and I didn't experience any interference from my other wireless gear. That could partly be to the redesigned dongle now sitting on your desk at the end of a cable rather than plugging directly into your PC or console like a flash drive. It's still nice and compact, though, not taking up anywhere near as much desk space as the Razer Kraken V4 Pro's base station. You're not forced to pick between Hyperspeed and Bluetooth anymore, either. A new simultaneous mode lets you hear both sources at once, so you can be connected to voice comms through another device while hearing game audio from your PC. Just keep in mind you're limited to SBC or AAC Bluetooth – there's no higher quality codec support. The smart switch button on the right ear cup makes it easy to toggle between the three different modes. This is also where you'll find the new configurable roller, which can be set through Razer's Synapse software to adjust the game/voice chat balance, mic monitoring level, or footstep booster setting. The latter is based on your EQ profile, so you can have different settings for different games. You can save up to nine. The profile switcher button above the roller toggles through each one. I wish the roller could also be pressed in to make selections; that would open it up for full multimedia controls when not in-game, though the power button can do this already with double- and triple-taps. Battery life can max out at 70 hours with a Hyperspeed connection – but only when you've got ANC disabled. It'll drain faster with noise cancelling switched on. I could get through most of a working week without having to plug in, as my home office doesn't really call for noise cancelling. A full charge isn't the fastest, but 15 minutes is usually enough for a full evening of play. It could still do a better job of warning you when you're getting low on juice; I often forgot to check the activity LED before putting the headset on, and would miss its 30% warning. You can at least swap the dongle's LED from connection status to battery status, so it's always visible even when you're wearing the headset. It's also a good reason to download the Razer Audio app; the smartphone companion shows your exact percentage remaining on its homescreen. Interface: firing all Synapses The smartphone app lets you tweak pretty much every setting you'll find in the Synapse PC software, including the strength of the active noise cancellation, what the roller switch does, and the ultra-low latency 2.4GHz mode (which is on by default). You can also adjust each of the default equaliser presets using a 10-band EQ, push game-specific ones to the headset for titles like Valorant, Call of Duty and Counter Strike, and create your own from scratch. The Razer Headset Setup for Xbox app is a similar deal if you're gaming on that console. You'll still want to install Synapse to enable THX spatial audio on the Blackshark V3 Pro. This does a very convincing impression of 7.1.4 surround sound. I found it just as boomy in EQ profiles other than Game as before, but there's great separation between objects in front, behind, below and above you in games. It really expands the soundstage, too. The PS5 version plays nicely with 3D Tempest Audio, and the Xbox edition supports Windows Sonic on Xbox. There's almost as much adjustment for the microphone, which has a new larger 12mm capsule for clearer audio recording. The four EQ presets include specific modes for esports and broadcasting, the former upping the mid-highs for speech that better cuts through gaming audio, and the latter with warmer, deeper tones for a more studio-like sound. The 48Hz sampling rate is higher than you'll find from most headset rivals (though not every game or comms client broadcasts that high), and the internal/external pop filters help prevent plosives. Clarity is a huge improvement over the 16kHz competition. I was seriously impressed with how clear my voice sounded when recording locally, and co-op friends said I was coming through very clearly when playing online. Sound quality and noise cancelling: detail oriented The V3 Pro isn't Razer's first gaming headset with active noise cancellation onboard, but the tech has never appeared on a Blackshark before. It uses two mics on each ear – one internal and one external – to strip out a generous amount of background noise, even with the in-game volume set at a moderate level. These aren't really the kin of cans you wear outside the house, so heavily trafficked roads and public transport aren't the best test case for them – though I still gave it a go. They don't have the nuance of the best mainstream ANC headphones when it comes to sudden loud sounds, and the noise floor in general was higher than the likes of Bose or Sony, but for gaming headphones they put in a fantastic showing. Back at home, I could still make out the clack of my mechanical keyboard – but the ANC was far more effective than any pair of passively isolating headphones, including the Logitech G Pro X 2 I normally use. They have the edge over the few gaming headsets I've tried with ANC, too. On the audio side, the Blackshark V3 Pro gets the latest version of Razer's 50mm dynamic drivers. They're larger than the 40mm ones found in the Kraken V4 Pro, and get new driver plugs that halve harmonic distortion compared to the outgoing Blackshark V2. They still use bio-cellulose diaphragms, which are super thin to help separate frequencies, but the magnets are stronger now. The result is a crisp and clean-sounding headset that really lets fine details shine through while gaming – but one that doesn't sound overly sharp or shrill, regardless of EQ mode. I found this high-end brilliance helped me pick out subtle positional clues like breaking glass or quiet footsteps that bit easier than with the old headset. These are still gaming headphones at heart, so even the default preset has a good amount of bass punch, but it doesn't interfere with the mid-range very much in movies or music. They can rumble when they need to, for explosions and gunshots in games, and for energetic sub-bass in electronic tunes. They're balanced enough to be your everyday headset, no just when you're gaming. Razer Blackshark V3 Pro verdict Tech made with professional gamers in mind can sometimes be a little too focused, deleting features that appealed to the wider fanbase in order to earn a spot on an esports stage. The Blackshark V3 Pro treads the line perfectly, still prioritising the comfort and sound quality that made the last one so popular but adding some welcome extra functionality. Noise cancelling and simultaneous audio make it a much more versatile headset, and a more multi-platform one to boot. While the speaker drivers and microphone are a definite step up, though, they come at quite the premium. Going even further upmarket than the last-gen V2 Pro was a bold move by Razer; not everyone will be able to justify the Pro's asking price when the regular V3 is $100/£100 cheaper and has an otherwise very similar feature set. But if you want Razer's best sound, this is undoubtedly it. Stuff Says… Score: 5/5 This ever-popular gaming headset is even more capable in its third generation. The Blackshark V3 Pro sounds stellar, has great connectivity, and adds effective ANC to the mix. Pros Familiar design is as comfortable as ever, while still evolving functionality Punchy and precise audio meets crystal clear mic quality Wired connections make a welcome return for those who need them Cons No high quality Bluetooth codecs You pay a premium for the uprated speaker drivers and mic Razer Blackshark V3 Pro technical specifications Drivers 50mm dynamic ANC Yes Connectivity USB-C, 2.4GHz wireless, Bluetooth, 3.5mm Codecs supported AAC, SBC Battery life Up to 70 hours (PC) Up to 48 hours (Xbox/Playstation) Weight 367g
