PDP AG9+ Review

Good audio, wireless and RGB styling, all for one of the most reasonable prices you can find.

• Developer: PDP
• Platforms: XBOX
• Reviewed on: Xbox
• Supplied by: Zebra PR/PDP

The AG9+ on first appearance is clean, sleek and unique: the design of the headset is minimalist and simple, and completely designed to show off its awesome light-up ear cups.

The biggest draw of the AG9+ for me admittedly was the fact it was wireless and it has a fully lit ear cup. In the PC space this is fairly common but for consoles I have yet to see another headset embrace the RGB craze that has taken over the PC market, and it’s a welcome addition to the AG9+.

This is not to say that’s the only reason to pick one up, as the design behind the RGB is quite attractive in itself. The clear plastic shows off the clean lines and details of the circuit board beneath and that in itself is a stunning and unique design for a headset, now add the fact you can choose to light that board up with any colour you want and in my opinion you are onto a win.

Again, looks aren’t everything, comfort is king in my books. You can have the greatest speakers and the best design but if you lack in comfort it destroys all of the effort put into the rest of the headset. The AG9+ is not the most comfortable headset in the world admittedly, the fabric used on the ear cushions could have done with being a bit softer, and it took me a fair bit of fiddling to find the right fit, but once you are there it’s not a huge issue.

Whilst streaming in my small stream room, with an Xbox and a PC running it gets warm quickly and I managed to wear the AG9+ for around 3 hours straight without complaints. In fact, one good thing about the fabric used on the cups is that it’s extremely breathable – less sweaty ears is definitely a big pro for me.

The next most critical aspect of any gaming headset for me is the mic, most gamers will buy a headset mainly for the use of the mic – in fact 99% of my time online a headset will be referred to as a mic: it’s a key element to so many games, it’s how you communicate with your friends, team and for some even your viewers.

With that in mind I used the AG9+ for hours with my friends and in a couple of live streams. So far the AG9+ was proving to be an excellent addition to my setup and I wanted to really give the mic a test.

During my testing it never missed a beat, providing extremely clear audio and I never had to repeat myself. There are however a couple of gripes I had; one was that it seemed to be a little quiet and second is that the mic is quite stiff and hard to position. Other than that it’s a damn good mic.

Last but not least the audio performance. Sound is pumped out of some wicked 50mm drivers so quality was never really going to be an issue, and the directional sound was pretty spot on. My only gripe was that they only included 2 modes, the standard being pure audio and the second being bass boost.

I can never get on with bass boost, as to me it does nothing but hinder my gameplay. For example, when you are playing games like Call of Duty, bass boost will amp up the sound of explosions and generally make already loud noises even louder, and in my personal opinion that’s the last thing you want. I’d prefer if they had fine tuned an EQ preset similar to other manufacturers that helps with hearing small details like footsteps and suppressed fire, but it’s not the end of the world, Pure audio mode is still on point and performs pretty damn well.

Summary

Overall the AG9+ is a wicked piece of kit and I’d say it’s a steal considering you can pick them up for around $80 USD (or around £69.99 in the UK), especially as they are completely wireless and look the absolute business with their RGB styling.

If you want wireless convenience and damn good performance for your hard earned cash then the AG9+ is well worth considering.

One last aside that I won’t list as a con, is that it would have been cool to have the option to have the RGB lighting cycle colours automatically, or have some other modes other than just lit or unlit.