I love wireless gaming headsets. I consider myself an audiophile, but my downfall is that when I buy a good headset with no cables, I throw away a good sounding headset because I can rummage through my refrigerator in the middle of the night without disconnecting it.

The Razer Barracuda Pro should be an absolute winner for me, one because its wireless connection actually extends to the fridge without disconnecting, and two because the headset that shelved the nice wired planar magnetic headphones is the Razer BlackShark V2 Pro, and because in theory this should be an upgrade.

The Barracuda Pro uses essentially the same drivers, but with biocellulose speaker diaphragms as opposed to the titanium-coated ones used in the BlackShark Pro V2. This should result in the same high quality, detailed audio, but with a slightly softer, warmer sound.

This time, however, the 50mm Razer TriForce drivers are integrated into an enclosure that looks like a lifestyle-oriented Sony can. It is specially designed not to look like a gaming headset and is quite sleek for what it is. The microphone does not stick out or have holes in it. In fact, the microphone is built into the headset itself.

Razer also refrains from shading the logo on each ear cup in aggressive green, something I wish they had done with the Razer Blade 14 (opens in new tab).

The Barracuda Pro is definitely a more lifestyle-oriented headset, and its active noise cancellation, ambient noise, and dual wireless connectivity features bear that out. ANC is quite effective, providing an auditory shield between you and the outside world. It does provide a good auditory shield between you and the outside world, but the promised 40-hour battery life is inevitably compromised.

However, I am not a big proponent of using ANC for extended periods of time. It is too oppressive and after a few hours of use, I feel fatigued to the point of wanting to be free of the headset for a while.

That has nothing to do with the comfort of the plastic frame, which is firm and doesn't try to crush my skull, and the cushioned ear pads feel good against my head. The cushioning on the ear pads fit my head comfortably. While relaxing on the couch, playing "The Quarry" projected on the living room wall, the Barracuda Pro wanted to slide off my head.

ANC is a bit funky in games, and I experienced audio artifacts, but it works very well when listening to music or podcasts. However, it is very effective when listening to music or podcasts. My main problem is that it makes any soundscape super close around my ear canals. Even when I select a level on the Razer Audio app on my phone, it gets tiring after a while.

Yes, there is an app for that.

The ambient mode is designed for when you're out and about, or when you're playing a late-night game and your baby starts squeaking upstairs and you need to hear it. It processes the outside world and filters it through the headset's drivers, making it sound artificial, as you would probably expect. This is convenient, but not necessarily comfortable. Mechanical keyboards dominate the ambient sounds that the Barracuda Pro prefers to pick up, especially since I prefer mechanical keyboards.

The dual wireless connection is not just the fact that the headset has both Bluetooth and wireless 2.4GHz connectivity and can connect to both simultaneously. This sounds stranger than it actually is. In other words, you can connect the headset to your phone via Bluetooth, listen to podcasts or music on the go, and with two presses of a button on the earcup, switch to HyperSpeed Wireless and connect to your PC. Conveniently, the connection to the phone is maintained, so if someone calls you, you can hear the ringtone and chat without frantically removing the headset and searching for your cell phone.

The app allows you to set a "do not disturb" mode so you can continue to ignore people who are actually trying to establish some kind of human connection over the phone. I mean, how dare they?

Functionally, it looks fine. But in practice, it is just underwhelming. While you might appreciate the isolation of the active noise cancellation during gaming, I experienced audio artifacts that added a strange quality to the game sound. Turn it off, however, and all is well. In fact, it may not be "good". It's fine. Because the aural experience with the Barracuda Pro is truly positive.

The BlackShark V2 Pro ostensibly uses the same TriForce drivers, but its frequency range is much wider than the Barracuda Pro's 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. I use one set of Barracuda Pros in my office and another set at home, and the home set suffers from disconnections. It is intermittent and only one set, so it is certainly not a pervasive problem, but it is a concern.

One thing I have noticed in common with both, however, is electrical interference with the Hyperspeed Wireless connection, something I have not experienced with the larger Hyperspeed Wireless dongle on the BlackShark V2 Pro headset.

I almost forgot about the microphone. The microphone is built into the headset, so there is no need to use a hidden mic or take a removable mic out of my bag. And since I don't use the microphone, I almost forgot about it. I've been testing this headset for a while, and no matter what I do in Windows, I can't use it for meetings or voice chats because the beamforming dual mics are not loud enough and I can't hear clearly.

That means that now that I've finished my testing and am about to put a final end to this review, the Barracuda Pro has been returned to its solid black carry case and is stored in the PC Gamer kit cupboard. Next to the Ark of the Covenant. Because it should meet all the requirements, but somehow Razer has made a lifestyle headset that is worse than the best gaming headset (opens in new tab) and is charging nearly $100 more for it.