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PDP has added to its roster of gaming headsets with a new family dubbed LVL50 (See it on Amazon). It comes in four designs, with both wired and wireless variants for either PS4 or Xbox One, and all versions work with PC as well, but are otherwise platform-specific. At just $80 for the wireless versions it's one of the most affordable wireless gaming headsets around. Turtle Beach is a close competitor with the $79 Stealth 450. Meanwhile, the best wireless gaming headsets and those from more established brands typically cost considerably more. For example, the SteelSeries Arctis 7 costs $149, the HyperX Cloud Flight costs $159, and the Logitech G533 costs $149. Since it's so affordable, the question is what trade-offs did PDP have to make to keep the price so low?
PDP LVL50 – Design and Features
Taking the PDP LVL50 Wireless headset out of the box, it’s immediately clear one way PDP helped keep the price down – plastic. Just about everything you can touch on the headset besides the padding and microphone pop filter is made of plastic. It’s not plastic that inspires confidence either — while stretching and twisting it, there’s a bit of creaking where plastic pieces connect.
Structural integrity aside, the design has a simple elegance to it. The headset uses gray plastic on the earcups and yolks, which also double as size adjustment sliders. The headband is matte black with a glossy groove in the middle. There’s padding for the crown of your head and thick earpads, all of which is covered in a breathable nylon mesh. My ears never got steamy even during long gaming sessions, though noise isolation is limited.
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The sliders have a decent range, and the headband is flexible, offering room for larger heads. There’s also a slick little accent inside the sliders, as the audio cable is coiled and visible through a slit in the slider. The earcups also pivot on the yolks, ensuring you can get a good fit around your ears. The flexible plastic of the headband is comfortable but I didn't think it created enough clamping force.
While the earcups are large, fitting in 50mm drivers where many budget headsets would opt for 40mm, the plastic design helps keep the headset down to just 0.7lbs, so it never felt heavy on my head or irritated the crown of my head, which is usually the major point of discomfort for cheaper headsets. The right ear cup features a sizable volume dial that’s easy to use. The left earcup includes a micro-USB charging port, a power button, an audio mode toggle, and a flip-up boom mic.
The mic is on a very long, flexible arm. When the mic is aimed up, it will mute, while flipping it down turns it back on. The mic is incredibly easy to position. Unique to the Xbox version, there’s also a game volume/chat mix dial.
PDP LVL50 – Gaming
The PDP LVL50 Wireless headset connects to Xbox One and PS4 consoles and PC with a small USB dongle. There are no other options for connecting unless you get the wired version. That 2.4GHz signal is highly reliable though. While in the same room as my PC, I had next to no issues. I ran the headset with the dongle behind my PC, with my phone connected to Wi-Fi near the dongle, and plenty of other opportunities for interference. Audio always came through, even if there was the infrequent crack and pop to the audio signal, neither of which were loud.
The LVL50 Wireless boasts a wireless range of 40ft, but it didn’t seem to have as easy a time communicating through walls as the SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless, which also has a wireless range of 40ft but a much larger base station instead of a USB dongle. I live in a long apartment, and walked from my room to the back of the unit. I was two rooms over at the kitchen doorway, about 35ft in all, before the audio signal cut out. The Arctis Pro held up for me anywhere I’ve gone in the kitchen (except behind the fridge). If you’re the type to keep your headset on while you run across the hall to the bathroom so your teammates have to hear your toilet flush, rest assured the LVL50 Wireless headset can probably allow it, even if your teammates would rather not.
My biggest gripe with the headset is the microphone. As wonderfully flexible as the boom mic arm is, letting me stick the mic in my eye if I so please, and as handy as built-in mic monitoring is, the volume is just too low, plain and simple. The moment I switch to this headset, my teammates said my mic was very low, or to quote one of them, “mad low.”
My biggest gripe with the headset is the microphone.
With no mic volume dial (only an Xbox-specific chat mix dial) on the headset, and no option in Windows to boost the mic volume, I could only suggest that my teammates try turning me up on their end. I recorded some tests into a voice recording app, and it was definitely quiet with the mic in a natural position. Putting the mic extra close to my mouth helped get the volume to a reasonable level, but the pop filter couldn’t do its job at that proximity.
Despite the headset’s shortcomings in the mic department, the speaker drivers are strong. They can pump out audio at a high enough level that I kept the on-headset dial close to just 50% most of the time. I played loads of Apex Legends, and can’t recall a single time an enemy ran up on me and I didn’t hear them coming because the sound was too low. There’s no fancy surround sound effects to help with positional audio, but stereo still does a good job.
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Better still is how clean the audio is. Busy firefights sound crisp through the speaker drivers, and loud explosions roar just as they should. All of the sound coming through felt impressively well-balanced for budget headphones. The low booming of Bangalore’s Rolling Thunder landing all around me, for example, didn’t drown out the potshots enemies took at me. Compared to my experience with the Arctis Pro Wireless, the LVL50’s audio felt just as dependable and clear in combat, even though it lacked surround sound and wasn't quite as warm.
I tested the drivers’ range with a bit of music, and was pleased with how well they perform. There is a Bass Boost mode for those that enjoy it, but I did all the testing in the Pure Audio mode (even then, the bass was properly punchy).
St. Vincent’s Savior sounded full, with the chorus still hitting as hard as always. Bleachers’ Good Morning is a wildly busy track that often moves from up close to distant, and all of that held up. Fine details came through clearly, like the vinyl crackle. The low piano notes especially had their full weight. And, the headset offered enough soundstage for some of the wider, cavernous bits to hit with full force and not feel crammed in.
Bass isn’t muddy, coming through clean and rich.
The bass isn’t muddy, coming through clean and rich. Meanwhile the high-end doesn’t lose any oomph. It doesn’t feel like any portion of the frequency range is sacrificed. In Lawrence’s Alibi, the bass, tambourine, horns, light keys, and vocals all came across.
And, all that sound performance comes on a battery that’s meant to last up to 16 hours. I used the LVL50 over the span of a week with gaming sessions lasting 2-3 hours, and I never had the headset cut out as a result of the battery dying. It was plugged in once, but only for a few minutes to check for wired connectivity. Fortunately, if you ever run out of battery and want to keep gaming, the headset still works while plugged in and charging (so there’s no confusion, the audio is not coming over the USB cable while plugged in.)
Purchasing Guide
The PDP LVL50 gaming headset has an MSRP of $79.99 for PS4 and Xbox One/PC configurations and is the same price online.