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Roccat Kulo (Stereo) review: Roccat Kulo (Stereo)

We can't recommend the Roccat Kulo. Even at AU$69.99, the sound quality just isn't good enough to justify the purchase.

Craig Simms Special to CNET News
Craig was sucked into the endless vortex of tech at an early age, only to be spat back out babbling things like "phase-locked-loop crystal oscillators!". Mostly this receives a pat on the head from the listener, followed closely by a question about what laptop they should buy.
Craig Simms

Roccat's Kulo is a set of headphones that falls into that slightly bizarre "on ear" genre. This means it can let plenty of noise in and a certain amount out if it's not sitting on your head properly.

6.5

Roccat Kulo (Stereo)

The Good

Reasonably comfortable.

The Bad

Incredibly muffled sound quality, missing a large slab of the upper range. Need to be very careful about how the set sits on your head to prevent it coming off.

The Bottom Line

We can't recommend the Kulo. Even at AU$69.99, the sound quality just isn't good enough to justify the purchase.

Without actual cups around the earpieces the Kulo is a little too easy to wear incorrectly, with positioning highly important — get it wrong, and when you adjust the swing-down microphone the headphones will likely come rocketing off your head.

It's certainly comfortable enough, and Roccat gives you an impressively long 2.5m cable to play with. Dangling from the headphones is a volume control, although it's quite stiff, making it difficult to make fine adjustments. This will no doubt become easier to manipulate over time as it wears in, but from the outset it's a little vexing.

We absolutely wouldn't recommend the Kulo for music. Although there's a decent amount of oomph behind the bass and midrange, the overall tone is quite muffled and the headphones have a very narrow sound stage. The entire upper range seems gated off, too, with cymbal crashes in particular sounding distant and lacking in impact. This carries on in gaming, with the restricted sound stage and muffled audio reducing immersion greatly.

We can't recommend the Kulo. Even at AU$69.99, the sound quality just isn't good enough to justify the purchase.