The Helm of Darkness is surprisingly comfortable
Before we begin, Kuven, in case you're wondering, was the name for the helmet of Hades, also known as the Helm of Darkness. It apparently renders the wearer invisible to all, even the eyes of the gods, and it was forged for Hades by the cyclopes during the war against the Titans, alongside the trident of Poseidon and Zeus's thunderbolts.
The Tesoro Kuven Pro 5.1 headset unfortunately doesn't render you invisible, and we can confidently state that it wasn't forged by a cyclops -although we have been known to be wrong in the past. It is, however, a very well designed, comfortable and exceedingly good headset.
These are in fact quite a technical achievement. Each ear cup houses a set of four drivers that output one of the channels for a true 5.1 surround setup: voice, front, rear, centre and sub. As a result, each of the frequencies are outputted to a very fine degree, hitting all the right frequencies to near perfection.
The design of the headset too is good. The leather-covered ear cups are filled with memory foam and hug around the ear as comfortably as you could possibly wish for; they're also pivoted and can rotate in different directions to accommodate any ear and head size and shape. This also improves the overall environmental noise suppression, and the adjustable and further cushioned headband allows you to enhance that comfort further.
As with previous Tesoro products we've reviewed, the presentation is spectacular. The look of the headset, the decorative Tesoro-emblazoned metals plates on the outsides of the ear cups and the purple LED illumination throughout the device and its connected peripheral make for a visually impressive item to behold.
The peripheral is the desktop controller, which plugs into the headset via a custom Tesoro connector and to the PC through a micro-USB cable. The desktop controller allows you to adjust the volume levels of each of the sound channels individually by pressing the Tesoro logo button, which will then cycle through the channels as detailed by an LED. There's also a button to enable and disable the microphone and a final one to mute the audio altogether. It's a simple setup but effective enough, and the degree of control through the rotary knob is generally more than enough for most users. The more advanced audiophile will no doubt use a combination of the desktop controller and their soundcard software to achieve the best output for their tastes.
Of course, the benchmark of any headset is how well it sounds and how comfortable it is for longer periods of use. The Tesoro Kuven, thankfully, has a very good audio setup and despite the drivers being mounted so close to each other in the ear cups, the audio is surprisingly clear and manages to produce a higher-quality level of audio output. Furthermore, the microphone delivers a clear voice output and is also fully adjustable through the desktop controller. As we mentioned a moment ago, the comfort is perfectly fine and more than capable of several hours' of use.
Overall, we liked the Tesoro Kuven Pro 5.1 Headset. It has a greater range of audio control than most other headsets we've come across, and the level of engineering and design that's gone into making them as comfortable and as high quality as possible is commendable. David Hayward
An excellent headset that's ideal for users and gamers alike.