The helmet gives an impression of satisfactory solidity, thanks in particular to the flexibility of its arch. A potential point of weakness exists, however: the volume control dial, housed on the back of the right ear cup. Even though its positioning directly on the helmet has the advantage of making its use particularly pleasant and intuitive, the backlash is that the slightest failure of the potentiometer could render the helmet entirely unusable. One can only hope that the manufacturer has taken care to use a component that is robust and reliable enough to avoid this problem.

As supplied accessories, you have to make do with two detachable cables. These are smart health connected to the headset by a connector having the bad taste of being an owner. Fortunately, the manufacturer offers replacement cables for sale – and so do the ear cushions, for that matter.

The H3 is not only light enough for a model with microphone (275 g), but in addition the weight is distributed very evenly over the entire width of the helmet; the weight thus passes almost unnoticed on the skull. Large and deep circumaural earpads should have no trouble accommodating the vast majority of ear shapes, without creating any disturbing contact on the cartilage

In fact, you can easily wear the helmet for hours on end without almost any discomfort. “Almost” only, as the imitation leather on the ear cushions can tend to heat the ears a bit. Fortunately, however, this imitation leather only covers the side of the pads; the part in contact with the skin is made of velvet, which still ensures a minimum of ventilation.

When worn, the H3 provides fairly high sound insulation. This point does not enter into consideration in our notation, insofar as we can consider it as well as an advantage as a defect, depending on whether we prefer to be cut off as much as possible from sound disturbances or to stay in contact as much as possible with the outside.

The Epos brand may have completely emancipated itself from Sennheiser, its products still clearly keep in their veins a little of the blood of the German manufacturer. The sound performance of the H3 is fully demonstrated: without being a model of neutrality, it shows a wise and balanced character, surprisingly versatile.

So of course, there is something to be surprised, after such a comment, to see the above frequency response measurement – which, a priori, hardly testifies to any “balance”. Let us explain the situation: the two curves correspond to two measurements taken with the helmet in two different positions on our Review dummy, varying by only a few millimeters. We must admit that we ourselves fail to understand this variance. Still, if we are to believe our ears, as we might expect, the truth is somewhere between the two extremes: we do feel a sensitive emphasis on low frequencies, but without any excess, far from the frankly bassy expression that the continuous black curve might lead one to believe.

So what remains to be noted overall? A sound with a limited definition, but without any glaring flaw. The bass control can be improved, but the impacts and the weight of the effects of the low frequencies remain present and quite satisfactory. The highs are far from being the most chiseled and the most natural that we have ever heard – at times, we could even find them a little hissing tune -, but they are enough to restore the space and the articulations of the sound message without any real failure. Speaking of space, the stereo, very ample, is for its part among the most beautiful qualities of the helme.

Ultimately, the H3 is the epitome of a headset that manages to make itself look good despite not performing noticeably, simply because it doesn’t suffer from any really noticeable flaws – that is. say that unless you compare it directly to a higher level headset (such as the HyperX Cloud Alpha, for example), you might even be hard pressed to address any complaints whatsoever. It is therefore a helmet which, even though it does not fully highlight all the substance and all the detail of the sound signals that are entrusted to it, at least has the merit of knowing how to be perfectly forgotten, and to let ourselves be immersed in our games, our films or our music without any ulterior motives. This in itself is a great success.

The H3’s micro-boom is undoubtedly one of its most remarkable strengths. Mounted on a boom of generous length allowing it to position itself in the ideal proximity of the mouth, it offers voice capture of amazing intelligibility and naturalness.

Obviously, all is not perfect for all that: its marked inclination towards the highs, as well as a slight deficit of precision on the whistling and hissing consonants, mean that we stay at a good distance from the famous “broadcast quality” that these manufacturers Gascons love to promise us so much. But that doesn’t stop the H3 from rising far above the all-rounder of headsets of this type – to the point that its performance is even starting to be quite acceptable for some. streaming amateur, for example.

However, all this is subject to one condition: not to play in a too noisy environment. The transducer used by the microphone of the H3 indeed has the particularity of offering a bidirectional directivity (also called “figure in 8”), instead of the traditional cardioid. The advantage is that the sounds coming from the microphone side (i.e. in the axis of the boom) are almost perfectly erased – and this especially includes the noises coming from the controller or the keyboard of the. user. On the other hand, the sounds coming from the back of the microphone are picked up with an intensity almost identical to that of the sounds coming from the front. Assuming therefore that other activities are underway in his playroom, we risk making all his teammates “benefit”.