Asus, through its Republic Of Games (ROG) sub-brand, is one of the biggest names in PC gaming, making everything from power supplies, motherboards, and monitors to mice and keyboards. In recent years, it has started adding gaming headsets to its repertoire, earning a solid but unspectacular reputation.
Its latest gaming headset, the ROG Fusion II 500, is a mid-to-high-end effort that's wired (generally less complicated, in our opinion, since you don't have to worry about battery life) and billed as suitable for any platform. want to connect, including current and previous generation consoles, PCs, tablets, and smartphones.
Asus ROG Fusion II 500 price and availability
The Asus ROG Fusion II 500 gaming headset is available now and will set you back $179.99 ($199.99 and AU$267.57).
At this price, you should also consider the best PC gaming headset, as there may be something else to your liking. If you're looking to spend less, check out the best budget gaming headsets.
Integrated
Nonetheless, the ROG Fusion II 500 makes a great first impression: It manages to be both lightweight and durable, a key consideration for any gaming headset that will, at some point, find itself thrown around the room in frustration. Cheaper headsets often achieve this toughness by using ugly, hard plastics, but the ROG Fusion II 500 makes a decent tactile impression, with faux leather on the headband and tough, quality plastics elsewhere.
The headset highlights Asus' PC gaming background with a standout feature: large LED strips on each earcup, which can be designed to light up in different garish ways (rainbow strobes, color progressions, etc.) via Armory software. Asus Crate. Frankly, that's pretty nifty - you can't see the LEDs while wearing the headset - and rather illustrates that the ROG Fusion II 500, despite its cross-platform claims, is designed for use with a PC.
There is no way to download Armory Crate (which also provides a graphic equalizer and allows you to update firmware and change various settings) on either console. And for the LEDs to work, you need to connect a second cable, as well as the 3,5mm headphone jack (which, commendably, is detachable rather than plugged into the headphones) - a USB-C to USB-C that it has a USB-C to USB-A adapter. You can plug it into one of your console's USB ports and the lights will come on, but you'll have to sit uncomfortably close to your console, and it all seems a bit useless.
As for real-world use, it's easy enough to adjust the ROG Fusion II 500's settings to suit the type of gaming session you're enjoying: click the master volume button inward on the left earcup to turn it on and off. surround sound, there's a microphone mute switch that's easy to find, and the right ear cup has a knob that adjusts the balance between game and chat audio, for audio. PC configuration, which again belies the PC-centric nature of the headset. It's a bit hard to read the graph on this Switch, so you'll probably have to take your headphones off to make sure you've got it right.
audio
Living without its flashing LEDs is a minor imposition, as the ROG Fusion II 500 does the important tasks required of any gaming headset as well-accurate, but with plenty of bass and punch. It leans more towards a neutral and realistic sound than some gaming headsets that can over-emphasize bass in an attempt at dynamic sound. In contrast, the ROG Fusion II 500 just sounds effortlessly dynamic.
This sound is backed up by all sorts of tech tricks, including no fewer than four digital-to-analogue converters (DACs), each assigned their own frequency band, and sealed speaker chambers. The details don't matter though - just know that the efforts of Asus engineers have paid off in terms of audio performance.
It also features an excellent virtual implementation of 7.1 surround sound, which sounds crisp and precise. It was good enough to provide a lot of advanced directional information for incoming aliens in Rainbow Six Extraction, and often came in handy in Elden Ring (when you frequently hear unseen NPCs calling your name as you traverse the map).
Microphone quality
While playing Rainbow Six Extraction, my teammates also enjoyed the ROG Fusion II 500's unusual but effective built-in microphone setup. to the user's mouth. like AI-based noise cancellation. It offered clear voice chat and should be able to do so even in extremely noisy environments; it certainly excelled in moderately loud environments like a shared house living room with music playing.
Comfort
The ROG Fusion II 500 also stands out in terms of comfort. This is largely due to its lightness, but also to the softness of its leather upholstery. It comes with a second pair of ear cushions – unlike standard ear cushions, these are made from hybrid materials, rather than leather, and are designed to be breathable, especially for playing marathon MMORPG sessions. We found that even with the standard ear cushions, there were no comfort issues when wearing the headphones for more than two hours. Asus considers the ROG Fusion II 500 to be ideal for those who primarily play first-person shooters and MMOs (ie, the kind of gamers who really need a decent headset), and you can't disagree with this assessment.
However, there is a key in the works, which is certainly not the fault of the headset itself, but something that affects all gaming headsets that claim to be platform independent. With the X-Series and S-Series consoles, Microsoft has reduced the power output of its controllers' 3,5mm jack, resulting in the ROG Fusion II 500 having an unacceptable lack of volume. The problem was easily solved by cutting out an Xbox audio adapter and adding a preamp to the Series X controller (a €25 Turtle Beach Plus audio controller we already had). But if you don't want to buy extra kit and you primarily use a Series X or Series S, you're better off using a headset that's specifically designed to work with those consoles.
The ROG Fusion II 500 has all the essential attributes that make up a premium gaming headset: great audio performance, usable surround sound, a smart microphone setup that offers great noise cancellation, comfort, and build quality. When it comes to those aspects, it's good enough to compete with more expensive headphones, which is something of a distinction.
But it's more like a PC gaming headset that can also be connected to consoles, rather than a true cross-platform headset. Asus' attempt, through its Armory Crate app, to give you granular control over all of his products in one place makes a lot of sense if you're a PC gamer, but less so if you play primarily on consoles. We highly recommend the headset for PC gamers, and it works great on any console you plug in to control Xbox Series X and S. It's a great headset, but not as cross-platform as it sounds. that.
