Victrix Pro AF Headset Review

Victrix are a brand-new, San Diego-based gaming peripheral manufacturer, and with the £230 Victrix Pro AF they’re making an immediate play for the gaming elite. With headline features including active noise cancellation and military-grade microphone tech there’s some serious technology at play, and despite this being their first release they’ve created something that offers a real alternative to the top tier offerings from Steelseries, Astro, or Turtle Beach.

If you’re trying to break into the gaming headset market right now, it’s likely that you need a unique selling point. The last couple of years has seen consistently great-sounding headsets appear from any number of manufacturers, so it’s more often than not coming down to pure comfort or something that your competitors are missing out on. The Victrix Pro AF is being marketed as the premier choice for esports, and while it’s astoundingly light, it’s the active noise cancellation that is the headline feature here. The best bit? It actually works.

The outer casing of each earpiece sports two microphones which listen to the environment and work to cancel out the ambient sound. There’s a big ANC-toting button on the in-line controller, and when you activate it you’ll initially hear a low level hiss, though that disappears into the background one any audio passes through the set. You also won’t hear much of the sound of a crowd, road or train carriage, with the Pro AF offering some incredible noise isolation. It won’t stop you hearing a shout nearby, or any sudden loud noise, but for its key purpose of excluding crowd noise at esports events and ensuring you can focus on the task at hand, it’s more than up to the task.

Victrix have put a lot of thought into the design and build quality of the Pro AF, and it’s a smart, stylish headset that doesn’t stray too far into the futuristic tank commander stylings that so many others do. The headband is machined from carbon steel, with the adjustable yokes on each earpiece made of aircraft grade aluminium, prompting my imaginary tagline: “If it’s good enough for an aircraft, it’s good enough for your ears”. While all that metal sounds like the thing is going to cause you future spinal damage, it weighs in at a pleasingly light 318g. It’s not quite the lightest set out there, but the bomb-proof build is vastly superior to the ones that are.

The majority of the headset is black matte or gloss, while the Astro-aping cabling and exposed wiring which run from the earpieces and through the headband are bright purple. It’s almost a set you could wear out of the house, but the incredibly sturdy microphone boom arm is attached to the cable housing and can’t be removed. Thankfully you can swing it up and out of the way when it’s not in use.

These are dedicated esport gaming headphones though, and given that standing out from the crowd is a key part of the experience they feature a very cool lighting system, with each earpiece lighting up with a purple Victrix X. For the more enigmatic player this can be turned off, but it’s amongst the most attractive systems out there. It’s just a shame that you can’t change the colour, but then they’d lose their cohesive style.

Everything is powered by two AA batteries which you’ll find housed in the in-line controller, which is your key interface with the Pro AF. From here you can change the volume, the sensitivity of your mic, the level of mic monitoring, change the lighting, toggle the noise cancellation and select your sound profile. Thanks to its lit screen all of that is a doddle whether at home or in a darkened esports arena, and there’s a clip just a little further up the cabling to help keep it out of the way. It’s a bit weighty because of the batteries, so it’s not something you can just leave hanging loose, but I generally popped it on the desk beside me and forgot it was there.

I haven’t even mentioned that they sound good yet. They connect via a standard 3.5mm jack and use 50mm drivers that are fairly standard these days, but the set has been tuned exceptionally well with two sound profiles to choose from. They both edge towards the warmer end of the spectrum, but there’s a more balanced ‘Euro’ style, while the ‘US’ one emphasises the low and mid-range. They don’t hit the levels of bass that an Astro A50 does, nor the crisp trebles of Turtle Beach’s Elite Pro, but they offer an excellent and enjoyable listening experience.

Much like Turtle Beach’s top tier offering, the Pro AF is a standalone stereo headset that will operate at an enhanced level when you pair it with an additional amp controller. Victrix’ own Team Amp opens up access to niceties like DTS 5.1 surround sound, Dolby decoding, and being able to tinker with game/voice balance as well as some further streaming-centric options. It’s a disappointment in some ways that these features require an extra purchase, and one that isn’t available until September at that,  and it’s one that pushes the pairing well into ultra-premium territory. You’re not going to get the overall feature set anywhere else though, and with gaming headsets you very much get what you pay for.

The noise cancellation has meant that Victrix have gone for as closed an ear cup as possible, and while the leatherette cushions are very comfortable you’ll likely notice your ears getting warmer the longer you wear them, especially in a hot room. In a well observed piece of innovation Victrix have given players the ability to vent the earpieces, with a lever on each which lifts the magnetic cushions away from the earpiece housing. It’s the perfect solution to the overheating problem, and ideal for breaks between rounds to talk to your teammates, whether they’re sat next to you or at the other end of a LAN connection.

If you’re talking to them over the mic they’re in for a treat – unless you’re assaulting them with a tirade of abuse for their poor performance last round. The metal boom arm is rock solid, while the microphone itself features a filter design that’s been cribbed from those in an attack helicopter. It’s easily amongst the best gaming headset microphones we’ve experienced.

Everything about the Victrix Pro AF, from its sculpted metal frame to its bespoke packaging, emphasises the premium nature of the headset with a couple of small exceptions. The rubberised in-line controller is both a fingerprint magnet and feels cheap despite its clear and useful access to the headset’s features, while the decision to go with replaceable AA batteries feels like a step backwards in convenience, even if there’s actually an upside of being able to instantly swap them back out. It’s good to know at least that the headset’s mic and audio continue to function if your batteries do run out at a crucial moment.

The Victrix Pro AF makes some awesome, forward-thinking advances to the esports gaming headset, and we’ll undoubtedly see some of these features appearing in other manufacturer’s gear. Their headset is, for the moment at least, only for those with the deepest pockets or those who are going to consistently cram themselves into the world’s esports arenas. It’s here that they’re going to give you a serious edge, and with a big prize pot on the line you may well feel that they’re worth every penny.