As for the Asus ROG Delta S, I came for the MQA audio and dabbled in listening to some incredible sounding music. I am a no-good audiophile and was not prepared to endure the uncomfortable fit for the amazing auditory experience that Tidal offers through the Asus cans.

I am also a bad audiophile who abandoned a great set of open-back Audeze LCD-1s with their wonderful planar magnetic drivers for the wireless simplicity of Razer's BlackShark V2 Pro headset. Asus and ROG Unfortunately for the Delta S, this is not a headset that will change my ways.

And more importantly, it doesn't even make the list of best gaming headsets.

At $200 (£190), Asus' high-resolution headphones are marketed as a product for almost everyone; with USB Type-C connectivity and MQA support, Asus is compatible with PlayStation 5, PC, and Switch, making audiophiles and all kinds of matching gamers.

To be fair, there is multi-zone RGB lighting around the earcups, clearly geared toward gamers. I wouldn't mind wired headphones. The cycling lights are of little use to me as a wearer, but they are not a waste of resources like a wireless set would be.

If it's gaming-specific, what I'm leaning toward audiophile is support for MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) technology, which is basically a form of digital origami that uses the highest-resolution master-quality audio MQA is essentially a technology that uses a form of digital origami to fold a file into a format small enough to be streamed or stored on a mobile device.

Standard lossless high-resolution audio files take up enormous amounts of space, but with something that can encode and decode MQA, it is possible to use much smaller files, even ones that sound like the original masters directly from the studio. But this is possible with software, so your PC is more than capable of running the MQA file itself. This means that with good headphones you can get incredible sound, which is the main reason I subscribe to Tidal every month.

With the built-in ESS9281 Pro DAC and the proper frequency response of the Delta S headset, these are truly great headphones for listening to music from a purely auditory perspective. I also like the sound in the new, softer soundscape of Windows 11 Insider Preview.

However, I don't like the actual sound in-game as much.

It's not bad, but it doesn't have that "wow" factor like when bullets fly in "Battlefield V" or when burning rubber or replacing paint in "GTA". There is detail in the audio when playing music, but when it comes to games, some of it feels a little flat.

This may be due to the flatness of the initial EQ settings in the included Asus Armoury Crate software, but once into the sometimes clunky software (somehow, I think I deleted one of my browsers during the update), it was still something I couldn't wipe away! . There are sound optimization settings for games and general audio, with myriad buttons and levels, but no amount of tweaking could give me the rich game audio I craved.

When playing games, no matter what you do with the software, it feels kind of empty. Though, to be honest, that may just be nitpicking, as I really like the auditory experience of having a Blackshark V2 Pro can placed on top of my skull. Even with a flat EQ, the Razer set has much more depth to its gaming sound.

The reason I wouldn't go back to the ROG Delta S is not the gaming audio, but the fit.

I don't know if the polystyrene heads in the design lab are a novelty extra large size, but even with the headband set to the smallest setting, they don't fit snugly on my, probably toddler-sized cranium.

It feels almost too tight just above my ears and unnecessarily loose below them. As a result, the headset quickly became very uncomfortable for a trad tech geek with glasses. I blame the headband, although the oddly angled ear cups may have something to do with it.

Whatever it is, if the headset isn't comfortable enough to listen through an entire MQA album or a Battlefield V conquest match, it's not for me. And unless you have a head the size of a beach ball, it's probably not for you. Sure, a serious audio source can sound great and provide an adequate gaming experience, but if you want to get it out of your head after 10 minutes, the auditory experience means little. At best