Review: 1MORE Spearhead VR Over-Ear 7.1 Gaming Headphones

With Spearhead, they are going after companies like Turtle Beach, Astro, or HyperX–which can be very dangerous (for for the other companies at least) due to 1MORE’s history of successful products. Also, now we are relying on driver and software to fully deliver the full potential of these headphones, which means although they can work as a wired 3.5mm pair of headphones, you won’t get the most out of them without using the USB connected to a computer.

For now, we will start off with the physical design of the headphones. These really look like a pair of headphones a dedicated gamer would have on their head. They have somewhat of an intimidating look to them, although this is quite common when it comes to gaming models.

The headband features two sections. The top band being a thin aluminum that doesn’t adjust, and the bottom band, a soft layer that adjusts (in a spring-like motion) upward toward the top band depending on the size of the wearers head. This style typically feels like the headphones have a reverse pair of shocks to keep them securely on your head with. The band offers a soft and comfortable experience, even with long listening times, and is wrapped with a carbon fiber design.

Each muff has what feels like a felt-like material surround the foam inside. The foam, is a type of memory foam, which feels great against the ears. In addition, the pads feature a soft rubber collar between the pad and the muff, allowing the pads to move around to better shape to your ears/head with. Also, the inside of each muff is clearly marked with L or R, so you don’t get confused when putting them on (although, the placement of the microphone should make it more than obvious.

Speaking of the mic, the mic slides in and out of the left muff, so that you can make it quickly disappear when not in use. The mic, the logos on the band and outside ring of each muff light up when plugged in via USB, and the colors can be adjusted later in the software, once you have installed it.

The left muff also holds all of the controls and inputs. You have a USB and a 3.5mm input, so that you can make use of the headphones, regardless of the task that you need them for. From console gaming to PC gaming to jumping on a bike to run down to the nearest library, these can stay with you the entire way. You also have a scroll control for volume that also functions for bass level (this comes later with the software as well, else it is simply for volume). Then you have a switch to turn the mic on and off with (in case you need to go radio silent while gaming).

They do not fold inwards or anything, so compact wouldn’t be a word used for these. They will either be stored in the bag they come with (just as they are), or hanging somewhere while not in use. Chances are, if you are a hardcore gamer, you more than likely already have a headphone stand on your desk (or plan to get one). If you don’t, then you should, as it really gives your neat rig additional personality.

Finally, they are not the lightest gaming headphones out there, but they are by far nowhere near the heaviest. There seems to be a reasonable compromise, allowing for solid drivers while still coming in at a lighter weight. Really, I’d say these are one of the “lighter” gaming models we have ever tested out.

Installation

To get everything you need out of these headphones (as mentioned), you do have to install some drivers/software. They can be found here on their downloads page. Once everything is installed, the control panel will become available in your system tray once the headphones have been plugged in via USB. The control panel gives way to all of the customization the headphones have to offer. This includes, EQ settings, virtual 7.1 surround sound, bass controls, mic levels and features, as well as the ability to control the color of the LEDs and the pattern you want them to use (ie, breathing, heart beat, always on, off etc).

To get to the various features, you simply right click on the options to the left to see their full menu of choices. There is a lot going on in the software. This is something you can assume the moment you download the software to find out that it is a whopping 103MB in size (there are actually 23,329 files hidden inside that little EXE file–wow).

Once you have them dialed in to what your ears are hoping for, you are ready to start listening to some audio.

Function

These function quite well as gaming headphones. The 7.1 effect isn’t always mind blowing, but it is there. This is something you can’t do without the software (switching to 3.5mm aux cable will leave you with plain stereo). The feature is perfect if your game supports it, allowing you to hear when enemies are sneaking up behind you. These headphones offer a LOT of low-end (bass), so this is great if you are looking for that kind of thing. Else, you can dial that down in the control panel or use press the volume scroll down to switch to bass control (press it down again to switch back to volume control).

I won’t say these compare to something like their triple driver over-ear headphones (actually we don’t have one of those on-site to test, so the best I can do is guess based on the performance of their triple driver in-ear models), but they do compete well against competing gaming headphones models. There is a lot of sound being delivered to your ears and the bass feels quite unique–mostly because it is being delivered to you by a 50MM maglev graphene driver (what that means is, the driver is floating inside of each muff, sliding back and forth to deliver the sound). That last part is pretty cool.

Outside of gaming, if you are using these headphones for listening to music, I would say they are comparable to an average $100 pair of over-ear headphones. They sound really good, but if 1MORE launched a triple driver version of these, there would be no contest to how great they would sound. However, due to the amount of bass they offer, these headphones shine quite well if you are listening to something like hip hop or your favorite bass trap album. They are also great for watching action movies with. Did I mention there is a LOT of bass? You can tell from the video above that our Senior Editor is a big fan.

The microphone sounds pretty good as well, which can be absolutely one of the most important things when playing online. Nobody wants to play with someone they are just going to end up muting because their mic sounds terrible. The headphones offer ENC (Environmental Noise Canceling), which uses dual microphones to help filter out background noise and focus just on your voice. I mean, nobody cares about what music you or someone else are listening to in the background. Also, when you slide the control on the left muff to mute the mic, it will light up solid or pulse with the rest of the LEDs. If the mic is unmuted, the light will turn off until you say something (in other words, it will pulsate to your voice as you talk). Another cool feature.

There is minimal cable noise (noise created by the cable dragging across your clothes and other objects, that can sometimes be heard while wearing headphones).

Nitpicking

We found only few things that caught our attention that leaned towards a list of cons, neutral points or requests.

•   The volume levels are kind of inflated, which leads to not having enough fine adjustment. We felt that the best levels fell between 0 and 15%. Anything beyond that quickly becomes overkill. This is more than likely a software issue than anything else. So I’m sure they will work on this in future updates. The average user will more than likely find their preferred setting between 5 and 15%.
•   The maglev driver (this is more neutral than it is a con): This is so freakin cool to have in a pair of headphones. However (uh oh, that word has been dropped), when moving around, placing them on your head or adjusting them, it causes that floating driver to move around (to jolt slightly). This causes an odd vibration you can hear. Again, this is more of a neutral reaction than it is a con, but still something that demands your attention everytime you move them around or put them on. Maybe we are just being a little too OCD.
•   Needs Dolby Atmos for Headphones support in windows as an optional solution for the surround experience. Optional since the user does have to pay $15 within Windows to buy the license to use Atmos.

Compatibility

The Spearhead VR headphones work with just about anything. By anything, I mean all versions of Windows or Mac, PS4, Xbox (2.55mm to 3.55mm adapter might be required), smartphones, tablets, media players and just about anything else that has a 3.5mm plugin.  As for USB, it appears to only support Windows 7 or higher for now. Which means 7.1, LED and controls, EQ and everything else depends on using USB on Windows.

Our Conclusion

These headphones feature 7.1 (virtual) channels of gaming awesomeness. They rock as gaming headphones, showing that 1MORE can make trouble regardless of what niche they are trying to break into. The 7.1 surround and profile control including LED color is limited to Windows 7 or higher PC’s for now, but they will work hard-wired with the 3.5mm cable as stereo headphones to pretty much anything that has a headphone jack. The amount of bass they put out is way out there (assuming you have them plugged in via USB at least), making them great for gaming, movies and music that relies on heavy bass. This is a new turn for 1MORE, one that can easily lead to a whole new line of products in the future, I’m sure. Competition, be afraid!