Along with testing out the Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% keyboard, I was also trying out Razer’s latest Kraken headphones.
The Kraken V4 Pro sound fantastic and are fairly comfortable, though not the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever used. Still, I had no problem wearing them through multi-hour gaming sessions.
The headphones sport ‘protein leatherette’ memory foam ear cushions, which feel great. I do wish the earcups were slightly larger, as I was just barely able to fit my ears in the cups comfortably. If you’ve got big ears, keep that in mind when considering the Kraken V4 Pro.
Razer equipped the Kraken V4 Pro headphones with its triforce ‘bio-cellulose’ 40mm drivers. The company says that the bio-cellulose diaphragm is ultra-thin and improves the soundstage and clarity by reducing distortion. I’m not exactly an audiophile, but the headphones sounded clear for me and were great across all my uses, from listening to music or podcasts to gaming. Games like Path of Exile, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 sounded fantastic, and that last one was particularly good with guns sounding powerful and footsteps clear so I could catch people sneaking up on me.
I’m also a fan of the headset’s retractable mic. I love that I can tuck it out of the way when I’m gaming solo but it’s always ready to go when I hop on a Discord call with some buddies. The mic also supports wideband, which helps improve the clarity of my voice and my friends could hear me clearly.
The Kraken V4 Pro sports Razer’s Sensa HD Haptics, which means that you get haptic feedback from the headphones itself. This works by either converting audio input into haptic feedback, or through direct integration with select PC games, like Final Fantasy XVI and Silent Hill 2.
Like any good Razer product, the Kraken V4 Pro features Chroma RGB lighting. Unfortunately, there’s no good reason to use RGB on the headphones and a very good reason to turn it off: battery life. Razer says the V4 Pro can last up to 50 hours with lighting and the Sensa haptics disabled when using 2.4GHz wireless, but that drops to just 13 hours if you turn those features on. Yikes. The only argument for turning on the lighting is that it looks cool. And yeah, sure, it does look cool, but you can’t see it when you’re wearing the headphones, so what’s the point? Sensa haptics is more of a toss-up, as I can see how some people might really enjoy the haptic feedback, but I barely noticed it when it was on and ended up just turning it off to further extend the battery life.
One of the biggest things setting the Kraken V4 Pro apart is the OLED Control Hub. The Control Hub gives you a central device to manage your audio experience on the Kraken V4 Pro, with access to volume, EQ, haptics, input and more. You can also customize the OLED panel, much like with the BlackWidow keyboard, to show animations or other details. My preference was to use it to show an audio waveform with information about what’s playing.
The Control Hub is also helpful for connecting multiple devices to the Kraken V4 Pro. You can connect two devices, like a PC and console, to the Control Hub to quickly switch between them. It also supports Bluetooth and simultaneous Bluetooth and 2.4GHz wireless audio, so you can listen to your phone and PC or console at the same time. I didn’t try this out myself, mostly because I have my Xbox connected to my TV in a different room than my PC, but if you’ve got a console and PC in the same spot, it could be a great option for using the Kraken headphones across both.
While the Control Hub is cool, I don’t think it’s entirely necessary. For one, if you have the BlackWidow keyboard or another Razer accessory with an OLED screen, there’s a lot of overlap. I ran into this issue while testing both — I had the media player screen on the Control Hub, but then there weren’t any good options to use on the BlackWidow OLED. Further, there’s very little the Control Hub can do that you can’t already do from Razer’s Synapse software or via controls built-in to the headphones themselves. The main benefit of the Control Hub is easy connection to multiple devices.
And that brings me to the pricing. The Kraken V4 Pro starts at $549.99, which frankly is insane for a pair of headphones. But what makes the price more egregious here is there is practically no difference between the V4 Pro and the Kraken V4 headphones, which cost $249.99 (also a lot, but more reasonable for a pair of high-end wireless headphones). There’s also the $109.99 Kraken V4 X, which is a wired version, though it has a few other notable differences.
There are very few significant differences between the Kraken V4 and V4 Pro. These include the drivers (the V4 sports 40mm drivers, but not bio-cellulose versions), fabric cushions, a lighter weight (350g versus the V4 Pro’s 397g), no Sensa haptics and better battery life (up to 70 hours with RGB off vs. 50 hours on the V4 Pro with RGB and Sensa off).
I don’t think anything in that list justifies the $300 price difference between the Kraken V4 and V4 Pro, so unless you’re really into haptics in your headphones and frequently switch your headphones between a PC and console, the Kraken V4 headphones are a much better option in my eyes.
Overall, I really like the Kraken V4 Pro headphones. They’re super comfortable, they sound great, and they have a great microphone. However, the high price tag makes these headphones really tough to recommend, especially when Razer sells a nearly identical set of headphones that cost $300 less.
The Kraken V4 Pro is available for $549.99 on Razer’s website, Amazon and Best Buy.
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