This is the review of the comparison between the Razer Kraken Ultimate and the Razer Kraken. Both of these headphones are from the Razer Kraken family. These are retailing for different prices and one of the headphones among these does lack some of the features in the other. To know which one is better than the other, go to the detailed review.

Razer Kraken Ultimate	Razer Kraken
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Good sound quality. Robust software. “Underglow” lighting looks pretty neat. THX Spatial Audio is a decent software-driven surround.	Decent price for a gaming headset. Consistent sound across most media. Comfy to wear and adjust. Simple to use.
CONS	CONS
Somewhat expensive. Ridiculously large.	Heavy reliance on bass. Feels a bit cheap. Light on features. Polarizing green aesthetic.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail review:

INTRODUCTION:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

The Razer Kraken Ultimate is a USB virtual surround sound gaming headset from Razer that supports THX spatial audio, it comes with 50 mm tuned drivers, and active noise-canceling microphone.

Razer Kraken

The Razer Kraken is the updated version of its predecessors. These are currently retailing under eighty dollars. It’s super comfortable to wear, the audio quality is quite good, and the ability to use this both on PC and console is always nice.

DESIGN:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

These have the steel and aluminum construction design, which is on the headband and around the outside of the ear cups. It means there should be quite a durability. It’s got a lot of flexibility, you can take Bend if you’ve got a big head, or you’re gonna be taking it on and off regularly. I don’t think construction and durability are gonna be an issue with these. There’s a volume wheel on the back for easy access, as well as the THX button so you can turn that surround sound on and off. It has only 2 meters of braided USB cable. I wish this was a bit longer but it’s a minor gripe.

These headphones also have RGB lighting on the ear cups and cooling lined ear cushions. The microphone does have active noise-canceling. This is still a good one at this price range. The microphone is also very flexible and bendable, there is a LED ring around the end which is quite good and there is also the sidetone in the mic as well, so you can hear it when you’re turning it off. The microphone here is fully retractable. These have faux leather on the outside of the ear cups so it does block out some external noise. Although, it still lets in some as well. 

The downside for me in these is there’s no swivel mechanism in the ear cups and they are very stiff, they are not going anywhere. So, you don’t have any way to adjust it. I really like that on the Astro A50, for example, you can easily turn their cups and tilt them to fit your face a bit better. But these are not like them. I feel a bit underwhelmed by it in general and a bit disappointed.

Razer Kraken

The construction of the headset feels solid, offering rugged durability for day-to-day life. The bauxite aluminum frame is strong, yet lightweight and the one thing I like about the new Krakens is that the metal construction extends to the ear cups as well. One of my favorite features of the cushions is the hidden glasses cutout, which makes it so, that your glasses frames don’t get smashed in by the padding. If you wear glasses, it’s gonna help you pretty well.

The microphone has the retractable design that goes up into the ear cup that we’re used to seeing from most of Razer’s headsets. I really like this because it allows you to use this as a pair of headphones as nobody wants to be out in public with a big gaming headset with like a big mic boom in front of their face. This is definitely a decent set of headphones as well. If you want to just take this out and plug it into your phone and listen to music it makes it much more viable, when you can hide the mic. Another nice thing about the design of this mic is that because it is bendable, it’s able to be positioned anywhere that you want it and it holds its shape really well.

COMFORT:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

These headphones have cooling gel ear cushions and I’ve noticed they actually do keep a kind of cool and against your head and ear as well. So, there’s no problem with getting over hot. It also has nice large ear cups, reasonably deep, well encompassing, they don’t squash the ears so they’re not uncomfortable. There’s not much padding on top of the headband. Although, I haven’t noticed much the way I’ve discomfort but very little padding up there. The only issues I’ve had have been messing up my hair and squashing that, it’s a minor gripe.

The other benefit of the ear cushions is these are eyewear friendly because they don’t press quite well or more. There’s not a pressure on the side of their headband. The headband is quite wide and it doesn’t clamp to the head very tightly but it’s not gonna come off easily. I found it is fairly comfortable.

Razer Kraken

The Krakens have done a really good job of maximizing comfort for those long marathon gaming sessions. The new Krakens take it even further by increasing the amount of padding in the headband for a more snug fit, which puts less pressure on the top of your head. The memory foam ear cushions have a layer of cooling gel inside of them, to help reduce that nasty hot feeling you can get when wearing a headset for a long time. In my experience testing it, this makes a substantial difference.

The cushions are also nice and deep, so the tip of your ears won’t touch the inside of the ear cups, which can be a little uncomfortable as well. All of this combined with the lightweight of the headset makes for a really comfortable experience.

FEATURES:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

In the Razer Synapse software on the first page, when you click on the headset, you can see your various options for basic adjustments, where you can roll the wheel, and you can switch between stereo and surround sound. On the next tab, you can also adjust between different programs there in the software, so you can set specifically, for example, to have surround sound on Chrome or you can also set it as default. You can choose between those options or else you could just turn it off. You can also calibrate the position of the speaker and adjust that accordingly. There you can see various standards of EQ settings, and you can create your custom ones also for the most part. You can also adjust the mic volume levels, sensitivity, and side tones. You can adjust how much of your own voice you hearing, and the active noise cancellation on and off, and the voice clarity. Then you have the various effects, you can customize the headset color that is the RGB lighting on the ear cups.

Razer Kraken

The Razer Kraken has seen many versions over the years from the Pro V2 to the Tournament Edition. The Kraken is the updated version from them all. The updated Kraken will be available in three colors classic green, black, and quartz pink. For some added value the Krakens are compatible with cross-platform use, so you can use this single purchase to the game on your PC and on your console both. There is no RGB on this headset, which for me is no problem at all because you can’t see the lights when you’re wearing it. So, it doesn’t really make that much of a difference.

The cable on the Krakens is nicely braided, although it is a little bit short and it does have some simple inline controls. You get a volume scroll wheel and a dedicated mute button, which I think as far as inline controls go is more than adequate. The cable ends in a single 3.5-millimeter headphone jack. You can use this with an all-in-one port or Razer does include a splitter, so if you need to separate the mic and headphone jack, you can do that as well. It also works to extend the cable, which is a little bit on the short side. The only negative I have with it is that the cord is a little bit short if you’re not using the extender. Depending on where you plug in your headset, this may not be an issue for you at all.

MICROPHONE:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

The microphone here actually blocks a lot of external noise. You can’t hear easily PC in the background or the fan running in your room while using this. It’s not the best noise-canceling headset I’ve heard and obviously it’s not passive. The microphone which is blocking out a lot of external noise is pretty good but the quality is just not as good as a stand-alone microphone or even indeed as other mics I’ve tested on other headsets. All in all, it’s not too bad.

Razer Kraken

The microphone on this headset is a cardioid microphone and they’ve tuned it up a little bit to help reduce some ambient background noise to kind of increase that vocal presence. These headset does have a pretty good sounding microphone for this price range. I would have liked to have seen a little bit more bass in it, just to give it some more vocal presence but I think overall for the applications that it’s meant for that, it’s more than enough.

SOUND:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

Sound-wise I’ve found this headset to be a bit of a disappointment. I’ve gone on from the HyperX Cloud high rated headphones to the Turtle Beach Elite much cheap that about the same cost as this headset, and onto this and I found this headset just doesn’t have the audio range of those headsets. The base is lacking, it basically lacks the quality, and it lacks that range of audio across the board. I found I actually felt it as sounding like I just put a plastic cups on my ears. The audio range is quite tinny or small and really disappointing. After I saw the THX certification I thought this gonna be a great in a headset unfortunately, it’s not. If it was $60 of thing then it probably would be worth it. However, at a similar price point there are probably better quality, better-sounding headsets out there. This headset supports 20,000 Hertz at the top end in terms of frequency response which explains the sound problems.

The spatial surround sound from THX is actually pretty good and that is one of the highlights for me. I found that the virtual surround sound offers a very good positional awareness and a very good soundscape when playing games and hear audio such as gunfire, footsteps, incoming vehicles, that sort of thing in Bow RL games. These really do a fantastic job of letting you know where the enemy is and they are really obvious both at close distance and at range as well. If you’re playing games and you need to know where things are coming from then this headset works really well and it does a good job in that area.

Razer Kraken

The Krakens have custom-tuned 50-millimeter drivers that deliver clear powerful sound with nice booming immersive bass. They’re sporting an impressive frequency range of twelve to twenty-eight thousand Hertz. In testing the Krakens, I found that the sound is really good for both for music and for gaming at this price range. With playing games like Apex Legends, for example, it’s easy to hear and pick up where enemies are coming from and the gunshots and explosions sound really full. Like most Razer headsets, they are a little bit bass-heavy in the mix but I think that most people actually like that anyways.

WHICH ONE IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER?

In my opinion, the Razer Kraken ultimate is better than the Razer Kraken because the Kraken doesn’t have the THX spacial sound, the RGB lighting is not available and you are not getting the Razer Synapse software with the Razer Kraken.

Expert Reviews of Razer Kraken Ultimate:

By ThinkComputers
Razer added active noise canceling to the microphone, which does a pretty good job of canceling out unwanted noises. The other change is that you get RGB lighting on the headset itself, which looks pretty cool.

By nag.co.za
The Razer Kraken Ultimate sits firmly in the gaming headset sub-genre for peripherals, with RGB-forward design aesthetics and questionable sound quality to match. While definitely an improvement on previous iterations of the Kraken, there still isn’t…

By PCMag IN
Bottom LineThe Razer Kraken Ultimate wired gaming headset brings powerful bass, programmable lighting, and an excellent microphone to you…

By TechRadar
With an excellent upgrade to an already excellent headset, Razer has made a gaming headset that can keep you comfortable even in the longest gaming binges.

By Craving Tech
As a wired, USB gaming headset, Razer Kraken Ultimate offers great gaming experience: THX Spatial Audio, great microphone clarity and quality with active noise cancellation option, full RGB lighting, comfy thick cushion, and a good length of USB…

Expert Reviews of Razer Kraken:

By TechRadar
The Razer Kraken Kitty Edition may actually be one of the best headsets out there right now. It’s on the mid-range of the pricing scale, and while it’s not wireless, it does mean there’s one less point of failure in your streaming setup. The sound…

By IGN
As far as design goes, the Kraken doesn’t deviate from its predecessor much, if at all. The headset still features a bauxite aluminum frame, which gives it a nice, light feel, and a braided cable. It sports the same 50mm drivers (and 3.5mm audio jack) as the Kraken Pro, so they’re bigger than the 40mm drivers typically found in the sub-$100 headset space.

By  Tom’sHardware
The Razer Kraken is the updated and enhanced version of the best-selling Razer Kraken Pro V2, which is one of the company’s most popular gaming headsets. Aside from a shorter name, the new Kraken features more padding around the headband, an improved mic, and cooling gel in the ear cushions to keep the heat out on those sweltering summer nights.

By PCGamer
Razer has a healthy range of gaming headsets, and many of them sit in the upper echelons of ‘best of’ lists across the internet. And now there’s a new kid on the block: known simply as the Razer Kraken it’s part of a mini-suite of Razer gear designated as the manufacturer’s ‘essentials range’.

By TrustedReviews
The Razer Kraken is Razer’s previous pair of wired gaming headphones. While Razer has previously marketed this range of gaming headsets towards esports enthusiasts, the new name change and generous £79.99 price means the Razer Kraken should appeal to a wide spectrum of gamers and could well be one of the best value gaming headsets currently available.