Roccat is one of the few companies that makes good, reliable gear. Whether it's a keyboard or a gaming mouse, Roccat's strength has always been its consistency; Roccat may not be flashy, but it gets the job done. That's why we had high hopes for Roccat's stylish Syn Air Pro wireless gaming headset.

Shockingly, the Roccat Syn Air Pro ended up being a rare swing and a miss. It goes to show that a gaming headset needs to not only sound good, but also be easy to use.

The biggest problem with the Syn Pro Air is the bundled Neon software. Instead of using Roccat Swarm, the usual suite for handling countless settings, Syn Pro Air uses its own. This is where you change settings, adjust EQ, and tweak the headset's RGB lighting. When we first received the headset, there was an initial problem with the software not recognizing the headset. This has been remedied in a recent software update. [User profiles cannot be set and RGB settings are quite limited. User profiles cannot be set and RGB settings are quite limited. This would not have bothered me so much, except that I encountered a number of annoying problems with the headset randomly disconnecting from the PC and having to turn the headset off and on to get it working again. Another annoyance was a series of loud, inexplicable beeps that I still cannot determine what they meant.

Much to my chagrin, the Roccat Syn Air Pro sounds great. I'm not a fan of surround sound in headsets, but turn on Turtle Beach's virtual surround sound technology, Superhuman Hearing, and you might become a believer... Back to this season of Apex Legends, I found myself looking over the wall at the I found this text useful when trying to hide from a team led by Seer, the newest character who can see himself through walls. The results were mixed, but that was mostly due to my lack of skill. The headset is balanced for music and film. I was finally able to re-watch the movie "The Dark Knight," famous for music that drowns out dialogue, and I could hear most of Batman's grumblings, even when the orchestra was booming behind him. Another advantage is that the removable microphone is quite good; I could hear clearly during the Discord call and during the Apex Legends game.

We didn't expect to like the honeycomb-style RGB lighting that Roccat uses on much of its hardware as much as we did. It's understated but striking, and I prefer it to the RGB accents along the edges of the earcups; my only complaint about the Syn Air Pro's appearance is that the matte finish makes the headset prone to smudging.

Roccat claims that the headset provides about 24 hours of gaming time, which is in line with the headsets I reviewed. However, I would have liked to have seen a setting to turn the headset off for a certain amount of time when not in use to conserve battery life. Nevertheless, be sure to turn the headset off when not in use.

Also, the Syn Pro Air is a bit of a tight fit, so if you wear glasses or have a large head (or both, like me), you may feel a bit of pressure after an hour or more of gaming. I would prefer an adjustable headband, like SteelSeries does with the Arctis headset, instead of moving the ear cups up and down.

The Roccat Syn Pro Air is a good sounding wireless headset, but it is frustrating to use. Most features are locked behind unpredictable software, and there are too many connectivity issues; it's hard to recommend a $150 headset; we're hoping Roccat will improve the Neon with updates, but until then we'll wait for this product.