Razer Kaira Pro for PS5 - Review

Last year, Razer released the Kaira Pro for the Xbox, a wireless headset with Bluetooth capabilities that performed reasonably well all things considered. Now, Razer is sprinkling some of that Kaira love towards the PlayStation 5 with the brand new Kaira Pro for the PS5.

The Kaira Pro for PS5 is priced at $199.99 - almost twice as the Sony Pulse 3D - but packs a ton of premium features to make it worth the buck. You get a wireless headset, Bluetooth capability, PC and Nintendo Switch support, Razer’s HyperSense haptic rumblers, and a number of audio presets, all wrapped in a stunning black and white colour scheme that matches the overall design of the PS5.

While the headset performs fairly well across the board - as most Razer headsets now do - it’s Bluetooth support, like the one found on the Xbox version, still leaves much to be desired.

Design and Features

Not to write lyrical about this, but the Kaira Pro for the PS5 is an absolute stunner. The black and white colour scheme - which matches the PS5’s almost exactly - is gorgeous, and the little hint of blue inside the ear cups, and the silver hinges, is a perfect touch. It is far less splashy compared to the Xbox version, which had bouts of green covering the headband and outsides of the ear cup - which I did like - but some may find it a bit gaudy for their taste.

Speaking of flashy, there indeed is RGB support on the headset. Both the ear cups feature subtle Razer logos which illuminate as you turn on the headset. You can set the RGB to any colour you want, or turn it off completely from the Razer Chroma mobile app. I chose to turn it off not only to maintain the overall aesthetics, but also to save on precious battery life.

The build is mostly plastic, except for the aluminium headband adjustments, but feels quite sturdy in hand. It’s not particularly light at 331g, so there is a bit of heft to the headset, and doesn’t feel “cheaply built” when compared to something like the Razer Barracuda X which weighed at around 250g (not that it was any less durable).

The Kaira Pro for the PS5 is also supremely comfortable. In fact, I wouldn’t mind being quoted as saying that these are the most comfortable headset Razer has ever built (maybe just a tad behind the Razer Kraken V3 Hypersense), and are possibly the most comfortable gaming headset I have had the pleasure of wrapping around my noggin in a long time.

Funnily, Razer suggests stretching the headset a bit before wearing it in the manual, but that’s not something you would particularly need to do. They are comfortable right off the bat, and there are several factors as to why that is. With the Kraken V3 Hypersense and the Kaira Pro for PS5, Razer seems to have almost perfected the trifecta of what makes for a comfortable headset - a well-padded headband, luxuriously soft (but not overly thick) pleather ear cups, and the perfect amount of clamp force.

I have poured in a number of 3-4 hour sessions with the Kaira Pro, both when playing games and for watching movies, and I rarely felt them on my head. You simply slap them on and forget about them. I have a notoriously twitchy right ear (I know, that’s an odd sentence), so most ear cup and headband variations ultimately put a little too much pressure on it and cause it to feel itchy. I did not encounter any such problem with the Kaira Pro, and honestly, for me at least, that’s a win in my books.

The headset has a number of controls on both the ear cups, so let’s go over them. The left ear cup hosts the power button, an infinity volume scroller, and a mic on/off switch, while the right ear cup has the Hypersense button, a sidetone volume scroller, and the Razer SmartSwitch, which is basically a fancy term for saying that it can switch between the wireless and the Bluetooth modes.

Yes, ‘switch’ between the two wireless frequencies, which means that you cannot receive Bluetooth audio while using the wireless dongle on your PS5 (or anywhere else). The lack of simultaneous audio between the two wireless modes is a bit of a bummer as most gaming headsets that support Bluetooth allows for that, and is quickly becoming a crucial way for gamers to chat with their friends and stay connected via Discord.

It is also a departure for how Bluetooth was handled on the Kaira Pro for the Xbox, which did support simultaneous audio. Of course, the caveat there was that you couldn’t use the headset just as a Bluetooth device without turning on the Xbox first - a technical limitation of how Microsoft handles its proprietary wireless communication on the Xbox. But free of that limitation on the PS5, I am not sure why such a feature was not implemented on this version of the Kaira Pro. The only thing that you can do is automatically take calls, but again, it simply switches to the Bluetooth mode and reverts back.

And knowing that this would be a problem for many users, Razer tries to compensate by beefing up the Bluetooth support a little bit. The headset supports a Low Latency mode for Bluetooth, which should make playing games on your mobile devices a lot more bearable. With that, the Kaira Pro also becomes a great companion for your on-the-go gaming needs, and not just being relegated to a home console.

Software and Performance

If you do choose to connect via Bluetooth, you will be able to configure some settings on the Kaira Pro via the Razer mobile app. Unfortunately, the PS5 does not allow separate apps for headsets like the Xbox does, and there is no Razer Synapse PC support for it either, so you will have to use the mobile app if you want to tinker around with the headset.

There isn’t a lot here, so you aren’t missing much even if you choose to ignore the app completely. You can shuffle through the different audio presets (you can also do this by repeatedly pressing the SmartSwitch button on any platform or wireless mode), but crucially, it allows you to set a custom equaliser preset which could be a valuable setting for some. The app also allows you to block incoming calls, and set the Bluetooth connection to either the Gaming Mode (shorter range, higher quality connection), or Quick Connect via the Smart Link feature (which can be turned off entirely, as well).

Besides that, to configure the RGB on the Kaira Pro, you will need to download a separate app called the Razer Chroma RGB. Here, you can change the colours, apply different effects, control the luminosity, and also disable it completely, as well.

The Kaira Pro uses Razer’s now ubiquitous 50mm TriForce Titanium drivers to pump out audio. It doesn’t sound a lot different from its other premium headsets, so if you have used anything from Razer in the past year or so, you should find the performance almost comparable.

The headset features a subtly warm sound signature, with a balanced (if not slightly lean) bass support, emphasised mids, and smooth highs. I tested the headset mostly on the Amplified audio preset, as the Default one sounded a bit low for my taste. The amplified state brings out the mids more forward, but doesn’t compromise on any other frequency because of it. There is plenty of detail to be had here, and the bass perfectly lends support to the action happening on screen.

The soundstage is expectedly not that large, but the Kaira Pro does well in overall sound positioning. In Halo Infinite on PC, I could accurately make out enemy footsteps from behind, or up and below, and while they were not as sharp and pinpoint as my daily drivers, the open-back Phillips X2HR, they still held reasonably well in giving me that distinct advantage.

Since these are built for the PS5, the headset also inherently supports the console’s 3D audio, and performs just as well with it turned on. I have tried a number of first party PlayStation titles, from Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Returnal, and another title that’s under embargo, and all produced highly detailed audio with excellent all-round surround sound.

A thing I should note here is that my impression of the headset was far less favourable when I first started using them. For some reason, the audio was highly compressed, there was no bass to speak off, and the audio positioning was almost non-existent. The overall sound was so off that I feared my unit was defective. Razer has made some questionable gaming headsets in the past, but their new TriForce drivers are pretty solid to be this bad.

However, it suddenly seemed to ‘fix’ itself somehow and the audio returned to actually being good. I have tried to reproduce this problem by playing around with the Bluetooth connection, trying different USB ports, etc, but to no avail. It hasn’t happened to me after the first few days of using it, so yeah, I am not sure what went wrong. So, if you experience this yourself, just try turning it on and off, I guess?

Let’s talk about what is quickly becoming a more interesting feature of Razer headsets for me - the Hypersense haptic support. I was not particularly fond of it on the Kraken V3 Hypersense, but something about the implementation on the Kaira Pro worked for me.

Hypersense is basically rumble for the headset, but they are a little bit more intelligent than normal haptics found on other devices. The Hypersense haptics are able to deliver different variations of rumble, and also provide positional rumbling thanks to its Lofelt L5 haptic drivers on each ear cup. What this means is that, let’s say in Halo Infinite, if you are getting shot from the left, you will find only the left ear cup rumbling, and the intensity will vary based on how much of the bass-line has been engaged.

I really enjoyed using the Hypersense with the headset. I found it to be quite immersive for both movies and games, as it allowed me to enjoy the action with a lot more impact as it rumbled away with every explosive action happening on screen. Of course, this won’t be for everyone as some may find it distracting or overly gimmicky, even at its lowest intensity (there are three of them: low, medium and high). I do urge you to give it a shot before outright rejecting it and you may find yourself converted, just like me.

I do, however, wish Razer allows us to granularly adjust the intensity of the haptics. Even at the lowest setting, the rumble was a bit too much for me sometimes. An even lower setting, where the haptics would lightly trigger to give a more subtle rumble, would make it far more enjoyable than it is.

Finally, coming to the mic. It uses Razer’s HyperClear Supercardioid technology to provide greater noise isolation and voice pickup. The mic is decent but still of lower quality compared to other headsets in the market. As you can hear from the sample below (captured on a Windows 11 PC), the voice clarity is rather soft with an overpowering amount of noise cancellation that introduces a lot of compression to the overall quality. It does manage to successfully eliminate most of the sounds from my mechanical keyboard but at the cost of clarity.

Battery Life

Razer claims around 20 hours of battery life with the RGB/Hypersense haptics turned on, and around 50 hours with both of them turned off. While we have no accurate means to track it, I did get around a week or so of continuous use with the haptics turned on (with an avg of 3hrs play time), so I would say the battery lasts pretty much around the claimed numbers.