I was blown away by the BEACN Headset when I first got my hands on a prototype at PAX West, and that was before the software, the ear pad options, or any of the fine-tuning were totally final.
Want more like this? Get the latest drops, ratings, reviews, and more with the ComicBook Gear Review newsletter — straight to your inbox.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Getting a review unit for a longer stretch of real-world testing only confirmed what that first impression gave me. This is one of the most impressive all-in-one headsets I’ve ever used, and the extra time let me dig into the BEACN App and dial in a sound profile built around my own setup instead of just running it straight out of the box (even though it’s plenty capable of giving you a great experience like that as well).
Gaming Audio That Earns It’s Hype
My testing grounds when it came to gaming were Forza Horizon 6 and Call of Duty, two games that ask very different things from a headset. Forza wants a wide, layered soundstage where engine notes, tire grip, and ambient crowd noise all have their own space alongside a bangin’ soundtrack. Call of Duty wants precision, footsteps, and directional gunfire that don’t get muddy and static-y the second things get chaotic. The BEACN Headset handled both without missing a beat.
I’ve leaned on my VZR Model Ones for years as my go-to for competitive FPS titles, and I didn’t think anything wireless was going to touch that level of directional clarity.
The BEACN Headset did.
Positional audio in Call of Duty was sharp enough that I could consistently call out footsteps before I saw a player on screen—whether or not I used that to my advantage… well, let’s just say I’m not the BEST CoD player. With Forza, engine notes had a fullness to them that made the driving feel even more physical and immersive than the game already does exceptionally well.
The Comfort Is the Real Standout
Audio quality aside, comfort is where this headset separated itself from nearly everything else I’ve used. Besides gaming, I spend hours at a stretch doing music production work, and headsets that sound great for an hour or two tend to turn into a slow headache generator by hour four. That never happened here. Across 8-plus hour late-night sessions of working on a new song, my ears, temples, and head never felt fatigued or sore the next day, and that held true regardless of which of the two included ear pad sets I had on.
BEACN ships the headset with two pad options, a leatherette set for isolation-heavy gaming sessions and a fabric set for longer work calls or late-night streams, and both use gel-cooled foam that helps keep things comfortable… and not just “marketing-copy” comfortable. The metal-reinforced headband distributes weight well, and at 350 grams it never felt like it was announcing itself on my head.
The one wrinkle worth flagging comfort-wise is that I don’t consider my head especially large or tall, but I had the headband extended to its maximum length for a proper fit. It’s a Cinderlla’s glass-slipper level of precision for me personally, which makes me wonder how the fit would hold up for anyone with a noticeably larger head. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s worth trying on or checking return policies if you’re unsure how you’ll fit.
Customization That Doesn’t Require the App (But Rewards You If You Use It!)
One of the smartest design decisions BEACN made is that none of its customization is mandatory. Onboard controls handle volume, chat mix, mic monitoring, and subwoofer level without ever touching software, and the detachable boom mic keeps the plug-and-play promise honest. You can literally take this out of the box and sound good immediately. You really don’t even need to touch anything other than maybe the volume control for the headset to sound great.
But if you do open the BEACN App, there’s a lot more available to you. Binaural Personalization lets you run independent EQ per ear, instead of treating your hearing as symmetrical. That might not be a good feature to use for music production, but in gaming, it can matter more than you’d expect once you’ve heard the difference. The Broadcast Voice DSP running on the mic side, limiter, compressor, real-time noise suppression, and an expander/gate, does a large amount of work in real time to keep your voice sounding controlled whether you’re mid-stream or on a work call.
My favorite feature, though, has nothing to do with EQ curves. I used the app to lock in my preferred devices as my Mac’s default audio input and output, and it keeps that setting from drifting. Anyone who works from a laptop knows the pain of your system randomly switching audio devices pre- or mid-call. That headache has basically disappeared for me since setting this up, and it’s saved me a surprising amount of time fumbling and finagling with settings during video calls.
BEACN also recently rolled out App version 1.4, which built more on that same personalization layer with a guided hearing check for per-ear listening profiles, a reworked 10-band parametric headphone EQ, and Live Profiles that track your settings automatically so you’re never manually saving a configuration mid-stream. If you run a “Starting Soon” or “Be Right Back” screen during your streams, the new Snapshots feature is built specifically for that kind of consistent, repeatable setup.
The Verdict
At $349, the BEACN Headset is a hefty investment. But it’s also a complete world away from the $150 gaming headsets, while competing with the upper echelon of audiophile headphones. BEACN is going after the crowd that would otherwise be buying a solid headset and a separate audio interface just to get broadcast-quality mic performance, and when you frame it that way, the price makes a lot more sense.
If you already run other pieces of the BEACN ecosystem, like the Mix Create audio mixer, the Dynamic USB mic, or the Studio XLR interface, the headset slots in as a natural companion piece for whenever you step away from your desk mic. Everything ties together through the BEACN App, and the settings you tune on one device carry over.
Between the audio performance, the all-day comfort, and how much of the customization actually improves daily use, the BEACN Headset has officially become the stud that puts my VZR Model One out to pasture. If your current headset is the reason your voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater on calls, this is worth watching closely as it heads toward a wider release.
A product sample was provided to ComicBook for this review.
