Thank you Turtle Beach/ROCCAT for sending us this headset to review!

ROCCAT's newest headset, the Syn Max Air, is their latest and greatest flagship, which is priced even higher than their Turtle Beach division's Stealth 700 Gen 2 MAX, which I loved for its sound quality and features; its only major flaw was related to connection distance, which is not a concern for desk use. So while reviewing the Max Air, I felt that listening to it on its own is important, but also it makes sense to compare it against ROCCAT's previous Syn Pro Air, as well as Turtle Beach's 700 Gen 2 MAX, as it's in a nearby price range. When I last reviewed ROCCAT's Syn Pro Air, I felt like it was a good headset, but Turtle Beach's Stealth 700 Gen 2 was a huge step up from it. Having listened to all three, the Syn Max Air is definitely a big step up from the Pro, though the Turtle Beach model is in much tighter competition.

Having used it for a while, the Syn Max Air has quite a few things going for it. The presentation and build quality are quite nice. The unboxing experience makes it seem premium from the beginning, and the headset itself looks and feels well made and durable. I like the protein leather padding for the top of your head, as well as soft-touch rubber. The ear pads are really great, with a combination of protein leather and fabrics, and the memory foam with cooling gel makes them really comfortable to wear. Even with my extra-large noggin, I had no trouble wearing these for many hours - sometimes, they would be on my head for ten or more hours in a day without issue. They look and feel more premium than their Turtle Beach counterpart in my opinion.

They also sound quite good. I've long felt that Turtle Beach's high-end headphones really do have an approachable sound, with good balance between bass and treble, with nice detail retrieval. Comparing them directly with the TB Stealth 700 Gen 2, the 700 has slightly more bass (out of the box), while the Syn Max Air has slightly more details in the sound. The differences are not large, and it's a matter of preference as to which is better. Both are a large step up over the older Syn Pro Air, as these have much more space between instruments, and is overall a more detailed and balanced sound. The Syn Max Air has a powerful equalizer (EQ) in the Swarm software, so they are easy to tweak to your liking, with both presets and custom settings available. Do note that this EQ setting is not saved to the headset, but sent through the drivers in Windows, shaping the sound. This setting also does not impact any audio coming through Bluetooth. So if you don't like how they sound out of the box, you can't entirely escape it; thankfully, I found the default quite inoffensive and a decent default for most.

Speaking of Bluetooth, I love that it supports both a 2.4GHz wireless connection via the USB charging dock, and a Bluetooth connection - at the same time. The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 also supports this, and it seems to work largely the same way. Regardless, it's an extremely useful feature that I found myself taking advantage of constantly. Do you want to take a phone call while gaming? How about listen to music or a video on one device without disconnecting from the other? As someone who works from home, this is endlessly helpful. Before I received this Syn Max Air for review, I would often grab the Stealth 700 Gen 2 MAX for this feature, even if I had other headsets/headphones around because it's just too convenient. The only major complaint I have with the Syn Max Air's implementation is that the right ear cup wheel cannot be configured to adjust Bluetooth volume. You could configure the Stealth 700 Gen 2 to do this via the app, which is doubly confusing. I guess they didn't share that feature with ROCCAT.

Another thing worth noting is that the headset does store the RGB LED settings so that it remembers that while Swarm isn't running; this is great because honestly, I disable RGB on headsets, because I can't see it. I understand why people might like pretty colors on things they can see, but on what they can't? It doesn't make sense to me. Outside of RGB LEDs, most other settings are sadly not stored on the headset. Whatever the second volume wheel was configured to before, it gets reset to voice monitoring - where you hear yourself talk while using the microphone. It's a decent default, but it doesn't appear that you can change it without Swarm. The left volume wheel, or the primary one, only adjusts the software volume of the headset in Windows, or whatever kind of computer it's connected to (it worked in Linux also in my testing). It has no impact at all on Bluetooth, so if you are connected to your phone (or another computer) via Bluetooth, you will need to use that device's volume adjustment settings. On the plus side, the Syn Max Air gets much louder than the Turtle Beach headset, so if you like to have your head rumble (or to assist in bringing on deafness), ROCCAT's headset works well.

One final positive thing to note about the Syn Max Air: The wireless connection quality is rock solid, especially in comparison to the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 MAX that I've compared this to several times. The Stealth will occasionally 'get dumb' and do little pops and clicks before clearing up, while the Syn Max Air has been pretty much flawless in that regard.

I wish that the previously mentioned minor quirks with the Syn Max Air was the end of it, but sadly that is not the case. My list of odd or buggy behavior is actually kind of long.

Before I go too far on this, it's probably fair to note that I had bad luck while reviewing this headset, and my first review sample was defective. It slowly died and it wasn't obvious at first; I had problems with it randomly shutting off. Thankfully, the second sample I have does not have this issue, but it still has another, less significant issue. I'll detail it later, but I just wanted to point out that any time you have trouble with something, that can make it difficult to be as unbiased as you may want to be.