The house of HyperX has been cranking out some excellent hardware of late. We’ve been particularly impressed by the Cloud line of gaming headphones the company produces, like the Cloud Revolver and Stinger, which produced great sound in addition to being some of the most comfortable headphones we’ve tested. Today, we have the HyperX Cloud Stinger Core in the house, and it’s time to see if it is cut from the same cloth as its peers.
The Stinger Core is advertised as a headset for console gamers, with the packaging declaring its affiliation with PlayStation boldly. The headset itself, which features a plastic construction, comes with blue accents that further emphasise this relationship.
The Core features a rather short cable, clearly meant to plug into a DualShock controller and keep things neat and tidy, and the cable features volume controls and a mic mute switch. The mic itself is attached to the left earcup, and while it can swivel, it is not the detachable kind.
The Core, while decently comfortable, is a far cry from the rest of the Cloud line-up in terms of comfort. The rigid plastic construction and foam earcups press down rather hard on the ears and the crown of the headset also features only a small, thin cushion, making this the least comfortable headset in the line-up. The fact that they do not fold up in any way means portability is not their strong suit either.
Sound, on the other hand, is quite good, and the Core reproduced most of the media we threw at it well. It provides a decent soundstage for music playback and we found it competent while gaming, picking up little environment details and isolating sound direction well.
All things considered, while we were a little disappointed with it on the comfort front, the Cloud Stinger Core’s redeeming factor is its price. Compared to even the regular Stinger and higher variants like the Revolver, the Core is priced at a very aggressive ₹3,000 (approximately), which makes some of these trade-offs acceptable. On the whole, it is a very competent package, though we do urge that you try and get your hands on one and try it on for size before investing in it.
