BitFenix Flo Gaming Headset Review

By Patrick Cook

Manufacturer: BitFenix Co. Ltd.
Product Name: Flo Headset
Model Number: BFH-FLO-KWSK1-RP
UPC: 4716779444803
Price As Tested: $69.99 (Amazon | Newegg)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by BitFenix.

BitFenix, a company best known for their chassis development, has decided to venture into the peripherals market. The BitFenix Flo gaming headset, model BFH-FLO-KWSK1-RP, is their first attempt at the audio accessory market. The BitFenix Flo is a headset that is aimed at both PC gamers, and users on the go. With a removable microphone and interchangeable cables, the Flo can be used for that heavy gaming session at the PC or easily converted to be taken on the road.

The headset market has plenty of competition to choose from, so I plan to put this headset through its paces to see how it performs and give a thorough review. I will see how this Flo gaming headset fairs with music, movies and games. I plan to use the site www.audiocheck.net as well because the tests offered there are easily repeated by anyone reading this review. I will also be carrying this headset with me from home to work and back so I can get an idea of how the headset is to travel with and how it holds up to daily commuting.

From the very first glance I was really attracted to the look of the Flo. The headset was designed with beauty in mind and the “SofTouch™ Surface Treatment” BitFenix used on the headset is a pleasure in the hands. The included interchangeable cables have a good thickness to them and appear to be well built. The gauge of the cables is at least twice that of the other headphones I have had previous experience with.

The 1m mobile audio cable is long enough to allow whatever mobile device you have it connected to rest comfortably on your lap or if it is a smaller device, in your pocket. While working in my office, I would attach the mobile cable to my phone and stick it in my pocket for listening while I worked.

Also included with the headset is a 1m long cable with in-line volume control, a 2m long PC cable with headphone/microphone plugs and a detachable flexible microphone. The cable with the in-line remote allows easy adjustment of volume to the headset and a mute button for the microphone.

The microphone and the cables connect to the bottom of the left ear cup. The microphone can be flexed from right to left for adjustments as close to your mouth as needed. When using the microphone, I never had a complaint of not being heard.

The headset is truly a pleasure to use. The soft touch surface gives the headphones a luxurious feel and the connections on the headset and the cables themselves appear to be made very well.

One last stop before we get to the testing, let’s take a little closer look at the BitFenix Flo headset.

As you can see, the BitFenix logo is set into the side of the headset. The logo is very unique in my opinion, so I am glad to see it placed here. The raised symbols for the microphone and headphone jacks are easily identifiable from the side. There should be no issues making the proper connections when switching between cables and attaching the microphone.

Here is another angle of the microphone and headphone ports. The ports are built into the left ear piece and are well constructed. The connections were very secure and never felt like they would pull loose accidentally. The swivel hinges that attach the headband to the ear cups seem solid as well. When holding the headset up by the headband the ear pieces don’t flop around, but they still easily adjust to the angle of the ears and head.

The ear cups feature BitFenix’s own “SoftFeel™ material” . The ear cups are very comfortable and even during extended periods of use, my ears never got sore or felt like they needed a break (I feel that I have an average size head, so individuals with larger heads may have a different experience). The cushions do offer an adequate amount of isolation from outside noises when listening to audio at moderate volumes. One thing to note is that the actual material used to cover the cushions does not appear to be very thick. I am not too sure how well they will hold up over time.

The headband for this headset is a soft, flexible plastic band (with five cushions along the inside) that is attached to the plastic housing of the headset. Even though the Flo uses this rather simplistic design, the headset sits on your head without being painful or annoying. The steel frame around the outside of the headset gives the headset its rigidity and structure, while delivering adequate pressure to stay put on your head. The only complaint here is that BitFenix could have used a little better design for the headband. Maybe something similar to the pair of Sennheiser HD 419 headphones I have here.

Above you can see the five cushions on the inside of the headband. Despite the few number of cushions, the headset is very comfortable.

Let me start off by saying that I am no audiophile; I won’t even pretend to be. The speakers I use are the M-Audio Studiophile AV40s and the best pair of headphones I have ever owned are the Sennheiser HD 419s. My explanations during this testing will be based on the comparison of the 419 headphones with the BitFenix Flo headset. The Sennheiser’s retail for $59.95, so I feel the comparison is fair.

I tested the Flo headset with music, movies, and games. I also used the “Headphones and Earphones Benchmarking Test Files” located at www.audiocheck.net so anyone reading this review could run the same tests themselves. I chose music that I have had for a while and have listened to on varying devices. Dave Matthews Band is always one of my favorites because their songs use a wide variety of instruments and effectively use mids and highs. Lecrae’s “Gravity” album has become a go to for me when I really want to test the low end of an audio device. For movies, I picked the most action packed scenes of both Pacific Rim and Star Trek Into Darkness, to see how well the headset would fair at producing a “cinema” type experience. And for game testing, I played through a few levels of Metro: Last Light.

IMPORTANT: I will again stress that I’m no audiophile by any stretch of the imagination. The best way to determine if a headset is for you is to test them before buying (if you have that option). Please don’t base your purchasing decision solely off of my comments contained within this review.

Test System

• Motherboard: ASRock X79 Extreme4
• System Memory: 16GB (4×4 GB) Samsung MV-3V4G3D/US
• Processor: Intel Core i7-4820k @ 4.5 GHz
• Audio: Syba 24bit/96KHz DAC
• Video: EVGA GTX 780 Classified
• Disk Drive 1: Intel 530 180GB
• Disk Drive 2: Western Digital Black 1TB
• Optical Drive: Samsung Blu-Ray SH-B123L/BSBP
• Enclosure: Corsair Carbide Air 540
• PSU: Corsair AX860
• Monitor: HP ZR24w
• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional

With that being said, let me brag on this headset at how well it handled the music I threw its way. Dave Matthews sounded better than I previously have heard from headphones before. The mids and highs were reproduced so well that I really was surprised that this was a gaming headset. The Lecrae tracks I chose really tested the lower end frequencies of this headset. The bass that this headset produced was smooth for the majority of the time, but would distort somewhat if I pushed the volume too high (this can be expected with any device when pushed to far). The channel separation from right to left was great and I never had difficulty recognizing which channel the music was coming from. Overall, listening to music on this headset was extremely enjoyable and being able to switch the cable to use them as mobile headphones adds value.

Let me just say, this headset really shines with movies and games. I ended up watching far more of both Pacific Rim and Star Trek Into Darkness than I had intended. For the Flo to be just a stereo headset, it sure did a fine job of completely immersing me in cinematic ecstasy. I could not get over how well the action scenes sounded on this headset. The bass never became muddled or distorted and the actors’ voices came through very clean and crisp. The same can be said with my experience with playing Metro: Last Light. The headset helped immerse me in the game – character dialogue was easy to understand and firing guns delivered a very satisfying “punch”. The sound delivered by this headset helped capture the atmospheric effect of the game and the origination of enemy fire or environmental noises were easy to detect. With a headset like this, I see myself watching far more movies and spending far more hours playing games on my PC than my wife might appreciate.

And last but not least, I would like to go over my findings after running the tests on www.audiocheck.net (the site does a much better job at explaining what each file test, so I will give just a brief explanation here). First up we have the “Frequency Response” test. There are two files included in this test. The first file is used to test bass extension. Basically you play the file until you can hear an underlying sweeping tone as it rises. The test starts at 10 Hz and goes to 200 Hz. I started hearing the sweeping tone at the 20 Hz level which is in-line with what BitFenix rated for this headset. The second file is used to test the treble extension and instructs you to play the file until you start hearing the underlying (high pitched) sweeping tone as it descends. I heard the high pitched tone right at 18 kHz, which is below what this headset is rated for (though this could be due to my hearing more so than the headset, because the results were comparable to my findings with the Sennheiser HD 419s).

The “Dynamic Range” consists of a single test file. “Dynamic range represents the ratio between the loudest signal you can hear and the quietest.” BitFenix doesn’t list any specifications on this for the Flo, but this test can help showcase the isolation offered by the headphone or headset. This file plays a noise at full scale level, followed by a voice over played at a specified level. The volume is then lowered in steps with the voice over announcing the “decibels below full scale” level of the voice you just heard. The voice over I could still accurately hear on the Flo was 54 dBFS (decibels below full scale). This is slightly better than the Sennheiser HD 419 headphones I ran the test on as well. This test can also vary based on how well your hearing is and cannot solely be blamed on the headphones or headset.

The “bass shaker” test is designed to expose weaknesses in headphones that cause them to rattle or distort when playing back loud or deep bass. The file goes through varying bass frequencies and looks to shake the drivers of the headphones. The bass tone used should remain clean at all frequencies to pass the test. The Flo produced smooth bass that transitioned very nicely and never distorted or rattled.

The “driver matching” test is used to detect if the drivers used of the headphones are properly matched. The left and right drivers must respond equally with the sounds that are being played. If one driver plays louder than the other, then you either have a driver mismatch or the hearing between your ears is off. The Flo performed beautifully in this test, which tells me that the drivers BitFenix chose for the Flo appear to be properly matched.

The last two tests consisted of a polarity check (self explanatory) and the binaural test. The binaural test is used to identify if headphones can reproduce a realistic sound that was recorded by placing a microphone in the human ear. The sound you hear from the headphones should be as realistic as if you were hearing it in person. The Flo passed the polarity check perfectly, which shows that the headset is wired correctly.The Flo was also able to reproduce the sound from the binaural test very realistically. So much so that I found myself looking over my shoulder when I played the test for the first time because I thought someone was knocking on my door!

These tests were fun to play around with and can give a sort of “baseline” when comparing multiple devices. Overall I am impressed with how well the Flo headset performed during all my testing.

The Flo is the first headset produced by BitFenix. BitFenix has been in the chassis business since 2010 and the Flo marks their first foray into the audio market. The Flo is being marketed as a gaming headset, but I feel what they have here is something a little more. Available online, this headset cost $69.99 (Amazon | Newegg). The BitFenix Flo needs to deliver at being a good gaming headset, and it does that very well.

The BitFenix Flo headset performed admirably as both a gaming headset and as portable headphones. The headset sounded great right out of the box and got better after a few hours of use. The supplied cables are well built and give you plenty of configuration to get the most out of the headset while at home or on the road.

Before we get to the final score, I will briefly go over my findings one last time. This is just a quick summary of the overall review to highlight a few important facts that may have been missed. I do however recommend reading through the entire review if you have the time to do so.

So how did they perform? From my testing I have to say that the Flo performed exceptionally. Music sounded great and gave me a reason to dig out some old songs that I had not listened to in long time. The headset really shined when watching movies – the lower frequencies that the 40mm drivers produced really brought the movies to life. The atmospheric sound effects of Metro: Last Light were reproduced perfectly and weapons sounded even more violent thanks to deep bass this headset produced. The microphone seemed to function very well. I don’t typically use a microphone, but I did test this one with Steam voice chat to see how it performed. The microphone is flexible, so it can be adjusted to just the right angle. I never got a complaint of not being heard.

In regards to appearance, let me just say the Flo is sexy! I absolutely love the way it looks and would not be ashamed to wear these out in public. They are available in four different colors, but in my opinion white looks most attractive. The cable ends come with aluminum covers that add a high quality look and feel to them. The headset is just the right size for my liking and is light enough that I never felt fatigue from wearing them. The headset really was designed to be used both at the PC and out and about if you wanted to use them as mobile headphones.

The construction of the headset is the only place that slightly disappointed. The headset is covered in BitFenix’s signature “SofTouch™ Surface Treatment”. This gives the headset a matte look and a super sexy soft feel that is a pleasure to hold in your hands. Thanks to this surface treatment, the headset feels (in my opinion) high-end. The one downfall though is the material BitFenix chose to use for the headband. The headband is just a thin band of plastic that is surrounded by a steel frame. It just seems “cheap” in comparison to the rest of the headset. Don’t get me wrong though, the headset is solidly built and very comfortable to use. I would have just like to have seen a little better design done on the headband.

Functionally, this headset does exactly what it is designed for and more. The Flo works great when using it as a gaming headset and works just as well as a mobile headphone solution. The microphone is functional when attached and can be removed when it is not needed. The added benefit of being able to switch between cables gives versatility to an already great device.

As of March 2014, the BitFenix Flo gaming headset cost $69.99 (Amazon | Newegg). In my humble opinion, they are worth every penny. There are a few other products out there in this price range, but I feel BitFenix did their homework and priced these right for the features the headset offers. Being able to swap cables on this headset also adds value, because not only do you have a quality gaming headset, you also have a quality set of headphones.

The BitFenix Flo gaming headset is a well thought out product and I would not hesitate at recommending these to anyone looking for a quality headset. I have no problem with giving this headset the Golden Tachometer award.

+ Impressive sound quality
+ “SofTouch Surface Treatment” feels superb
+ Great looking design
+ Perfect size
+ Interchangeable cables and microphone
+ Very comfortable

– Headband feels “cheap”
– Ear cups could use a little more padding

• Performance: 9.50
• Appearance: 9.25
• Construction: 8.50
• Functionality: 9.50
• Value: 9.50

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

COMMENT QUESTION: What headset do you like most?