BlackShark V3 Pro

Could you comment about the sidetone loudness? The V2 Pro from 2023 has sidetone, but it's really not that loud in the mix, and it results in talking much more loudly than required. This is my only issue with the headset. The V3 Pro having ANC makes me think that the ambient feature and sidetone are likely better. UPDATE: I bought a set at Best Buy to try it out. It's worse than the V2 Pro; like twice as bad. The sidetone seems to have more volume but holy shit the bass in the sidetone pretty much makes it non-existent. I don't see how Razer goes from bad to worse with this. Both of these headsets are nearly perfect headsets if the sidetone was clear and boosted a bit more. Back to the store it goes.

If you want a gaming headset, that's perfectly understandable. I wouldn't go with Maxwell. They are too delicate for hauling around to friends' houses. People have had a lot of driver failures with those without taking them anywhere. The drivers are much thinner than a human hair surrounded by magnets making them weigh a ton. I have a Razer Blackshark v3 Pro that I take on trips to use with my laptop for conference calls sometimes. They are well built with a great microphone, ANC, simultaneous bluetooth and a wireless dongle. They're very comfortable because they have big earcups and sport fabric. Gadgetry Tech on YouTube has a good review of them if you want to check them out. The default sound isn't great but he has a recommended EQ that makes them sound very good. I think they go for $250 or less. Battery life is long. I don't remember exactly but it's 60 or 80 hours.

I can vouch for the Razor Blackshark v3 Pro. Big earcups and a good mic. I think they sound quite good using Gadgetry Tech's suggested EQ. I have a pair of Maxwell 2 on the way. They have huge diameter ear openings. I can't speak to the audio quality on them yet. A company called WC FreeZe makes huge replacement earpads for a bunch of different headsets. I know the ones they make for Maxwell and Steelseries Nova headsets are quite large. Joe at Gadgetry Tech developed a set for the Nova Pro Wireless in partnership with WC FreeZe called Stealth pads. These are monstrous and made of velour type material. He provides multiple EQ presets that are designed specifically for those pads. He also provides good EQ presets for the regular WC FreeZe and stock pads for that headset. I will let others suggest good audiophile stuff. I don't know enough about wired audiophile solutions. I can suggest two YouTube reviewers that always talk extensively about cup size, depth and comfort in every review. These are Bad Seed Tech and Gadgetry Tech. I think both are excellent.

My opinion is yes, the V3 Pro is worth it for $100 and I would jump on that. I paid full price and don't regret it. If you wear glasses and/or want simultaneous audio then you will enjoy the V3 even more. I also upgraded from the V2 Pro and think the V3 Pro is a noticeable step up. There are sounds I hear easily on V3 (raider caches in Arc Raiders) that I couldn't do on V2, just as an example. Nobody I game with has any complaints on the mic. I saw the videos when the V3 was released and it sounded horrific. By the time I got my V3 Pro (right before Thanksgiving 2025), firmware updates apparently solved the issue by the time I got mine. I don't know if you can swap mics but I really don't believe the mic is an issue any longer with the V3. That's what I've experienced though so someone else could say differently. I cannot give you a battery life comparison because I frequently charge all my wireless stuff anyways. Anecdotally I want to say I can game for about 12 hours w/V3 Pro and have > 70% battery left when I remember to check in Synapse. V3 Plusses: More immersive sound, IMO. Simultaneous audio. Noise cancelling (although it's not the best). Comfort while wearing glasses. Stock earpads are great. In a Reddit thread, WickedCushions confirmed they will release pads for the V3 pro in February. Better build quality in V3. Cons vs V2: V3 is heavier. Not to the point of discomfort. It's noticeable if I'm wearing my V3 on PC and friends want to play Xbox where I'll throw on the V2 sometimes if I'm too lazy to swap dongles. Although the stock earpads on the V3 are probably one of the best stock earpads out there, I do love my WC freeze pads on the V2 so until they get released for the V3, I will say this is a slight knock.

You're welcome. I can't help you though with that question as I've only used them for gaming. There are multiple EQ's to choose from in Synapse and I want to say the same options appear in the Razer mobile app. But I think you can only have one custom EQ? If so, it would be a huge pain to have a custom EQ for gaming and then re-create one for music. Maybe check that functionality out on the V2? If you like using the V2 for other applications....I would imagine that based on what I experienced with gaming that the V3 would be similar and potentially better (but it's purely an educated guess). You know what, search up GadgetryTech on YouTube. He did a pretty comprehensive review of the V3 when it was released and I'm almost positive he compares the stock tuning in the V2 vs the V3. That might be the best way to answer your question.

Yeah. I'm liking it in Tarkov.

Bluetooth only gaming headsets are atrocious and should be avoided at all costs. Standard Bluetooth has terrible latency, and when used with a mic very bad audio quality. Phones have much better quality because they have access to the proprietary audio codecs from Sony and Samsung, but they don’t allow these to be used on desktop PCs so you’re limited to standard Bluetooth. BT5.2 improves things quite a bit, but they’re still no where near as good as the proprietary codecs. Gaming headsets with 2.4Ghz dongles can be amazing… because they’re not limited to standard Bluetooth bandwidth and codecs and have much better latency than anything meant for use with mobile phones. One thing I’ll say about Bluetooth latency is a lot of time the latency is hidden, as most people use them for listening to music or watching videos or maybe calls. In all of these use cases the latency can often be hidden or excused away as being something other that the Bluetooth connection. For example, all mobile devices use latency estimations to display video playback so they sync up better with the audio when using Bluetooth headphones. That 1-2 second delay between you pressing play and the video starting? That’s the actual latency. … The Fractal Scape headset has gotten some good reviews. The main complaint with them seems to be that some people find them uncomfortable, especially if they wear glasses. The Razer Blackshark V2 Pro and V3 Pro are also well regarded. The V3 Pro have some of the lowest Bluetooth latency of any headset on the market, and do some magic sound processing when using Bluetooth to make the mic audio not complete crap. It‘s “only” 130ms of latency over Bluetooth. 12ms over 2.4Ghz, roughly the same as most USB headsets.

Mic quality on wireless headsets is almost universally trash. This has a lot to do with the available low power & low latency audio codex sounding terrible rather than necessarily any issue with the mic itself. This is especially true if you're using Bluetooth, as Bluetooth itself only offers a limited select of codex options, and they're *all* bad. I'll say the Razer headsets seem to have the best mic audio quality when it comes with being used over Bluetooth, but I suspect they're doing some EQ on the audio before passing it to the codex to get these results, so the audio sounds muffled. For example, here's a recording RTINGs did of the Razer Barracuda Pro over Bluetooth. [https://www.rtings.com/assets/pages/g98IP9Sz/bt-pc-sam.wav](https://www.rtings.com/assets/pages/g98IP9Sz/bt-pc-sam.wav) And here's that same audio recorded via the included USB dongle, which is significantly better. [https://www.rtings.com/assets/pages/g98IP9Sz/anc-low-sam.wav](https://www.rtings.com/assets/pages/g98IP9Sz/anc-low-sam.wav) But for comparison, here is that audio recorded using the Drop PC38X, a wired headset. [https://i.rtings.com/assets/products/TpkyHznu/drop-sennheiser-epos-pc38x/sam.wav](https://i.rtings.com/assets/products/TpkyHznu/drop-sennheiser-epos-pc38x/sam.wav) As you can tell from the PC38X, the quality of the Razer Barracuda Pro leaves a *lot* to be desired, and while that is one of the best Bluetooth mic options, hey obviously didn't include an especially fantastic mic. The last option I'll link to is the Razer BlackShark V2 HyperSpeed Wireless. [https://i.rtings.com/assets/products/5RFY1aQB/razer-blackshark-v2-hyperspeed-wireless/sam.wav](https://i.rtings.com/assets/products/5RFY1aQB/razer-blackshark-v2-hyperspeed-wireless/sam.wav) This is nearly as good as the PC38X! And if you're looking for wireless with a good mic, this is the one I'd suggest going with. And I'd recommend it over the BlackShark V3 at least going by the results RTINGs got. [https://i.rtings.com/assets/products/EE9WRXkG/razer-blackshark-v3-pro/sam.wav](https://i.rtings.com/assets/products/EE9WRXkG/razer-blackshark-v3-pro/sam.wav) Some other reviewers have noted the the V3 Pro initially had a firmware issue that made it sound much worse, and the firmware upgrade fixes that. This page talks about that a little, and includes some recordings of both the V3 Pro and V2 Pro. [https://www.streamtechreviews.com/blog/blackshark-v3-explained](https://www.streamtechreviews.com/blog/blackshark-v3-explained) They like the V3 Pro over the V2 Pro, but personally I think the V2 Pro still sounds better, and very similar to the V2 Hyperspeed. It seems like they likely use the same mic across all of the V2 line, but only use a similar quality mic to the V2 in the V3 Pro, while the V3 X Hyperspeed and base V3 use a lower quality mic. The V2 Hyperspeed is also $70 right now, with the V2 Pro being just over $100. Less or about the same as the V3 X Hyperspeed, and less than the $250 the V3 Pro goes for. ... Fractal also put out a headset recently, the Fractal Scape, that has had a lot of people very impressed with its mic quality. Unfortunately, if you don't like the Arctis comfort, the Fractal Scape are supposed to be even worse. And while better than most headsets, or even the Razer Barracuda USB dongle quality, it is still clearly lacking compared to the BlackShark V2 or V3 headsets.

I have the razor black shark pro v3 and I think the rq settings are great I change them up for different games, it has a pretty long battery needing to be charged maybe 1x - week and the best part that I didn’t see coming was the simultaneous Bluetooth which allows to be connected to the dongle PC audio AND phone Bluetooth audio so you can listen to both things at the exact same time no switching.

I bought is yesterday, and boi audio quality is like an ass if you activate THX Spatial Audio