This week I reviewed are truly bad set of gaming headphones for you with the review of the Shure E4g Gaming Edition Earphones. I thought to balance out the aural Carma of the gadgets weblog, I would show you a truly excellent set of headphones with a review of the SteelSound 5H USB Headphones.

If ever there were two polar opposite products, the Shure E4g and the SteelSound 5H are them. The SteelSound 5H USB Headphones are everything the Shure E4g earphones are not. The SteelSound 5H USB Headphones are the best set of headphones I have tried, and I have tried a lot of headphones over the years.

The first thing you notice when you see the SteelSound 5H USB Headphones is quality. No cheap plastic ear cushions to give you pressure sores after extended gaming missions, the SteelSound 5H headphones have soft, breathable cloth covered foam ear cushions.

The SteelSound 5H USB Headphones are also unique in how they handle the mic boom. No mic boom sticking up in the air on these bad boys. The mic boom is retractable and pulls out of the left side ear cup when you need it and retreats back there when you don't.

The SteelSound 5H headphones are available in a non-USB style. However, both pairs of headphones are identical, the only difference is the USB pair includes a removable USB sound card for PCs without a quality sound card.

To say the SteelSound 5H headphones are not designed for the gamer should be sacrilege. SteelSound even tweaked the cords running from the headphones to the headphone jack. You get two lengths, long cords if you need to plug into the PC, and short cords for those who have desktop plugs.

The dual cable lengths is great, and I really appreciated it with my Klipsch speaker setup. I could use the short three foot length cables and not have extra cord mucking up my desk.

All these features are fine and good, but how do they sound? Freaking Awesome, that's how! bass, Bass, Bass, finally a set of headphones with some low end power.

You can actually feel the bass these things put out as well as hear it. Explosions, gunshots, crashes, they all sound almost as good as my Klipsch dual 8" sub box. I was stunned to get that kind of low end power from a set of headphones.

The bass was so powerful that I actually stopped my game to see if I had accidentally left my external speakers turned on. Gladly, the SteelSound 5H USB Headphones did not sacrifice other areas for the sake of low end power. Highs and lows were crisp and clean. Glass breaking in F.E.A.R. had me checking to see what my son had broken.

If the SteelSound 5H USB Headphones had one bad point, it would be mediocre positional sound abilities. I couldn't really tell which sounds were behind and which were in front of me in game. That said, the SteelSound 5H USB Headphones are still the best set of gaming headphones I have used and a highly recommended product!