Sennheiser is a name long-known in the PC audio space for creating some amazing gaming headphones. We’ve been following their products for many years – going back to our review of their PC350 headphones in 2013! Sennheiser and EPOS (now co-brands in the gaming audio space), have now released a brand-new series audio products. The EPOS | Sennheiser GSX 300 is their external sound option – made for those gamers who don’t want to put a discrete sound card inside their often cramped PC gaming chassis. Instead, all they need to do is hook the GSX 300 up to a USB port and they can get high quality audio to the speakers of their choosing.
From a design standpoint, EPOS | Sennheiser have kept the GSX 300 simple with the choice of either a white or black color scheme – each featuring only two physical controls on the entire unit. The first is a small “smart” button on the lower part of the GSX 300’s front facing side. This button allows you to cycle through your audio presets on the fly. The second control is the larger rotary knob on the GSX 300’s front facing side. This large knob controls volume and features nice, smooth and silent detents throughout its range. Keeping with its simplicity is that there are only three i/o ports on the entire unit: A micro-USB port for audio input and power, a 3.5mm microphone jack, and a 3.5mm speaker/headphone jack. This thing is VERY easy to setup and use. EPOS | Sennheiser should be commended for their efforts in making it user-friendly.
In terms of its physical size, the EPOS | Sennheiser GSX 300 is tiny! It fits in the palm of my hand which makes it very convenient to place on a desktop or the top side of a PC gaming chassis. It has two rubber feet on its underside to help with surface grip, although it still does move around sometimes depending on the situation. This is also due to the GSX 300’s insanely light weight construction. Unfortunately, due to its light weight and plastic body, it does have sort of a “plastic” feel. But, I digress, its still sports a minimal and classy look.
As far as its audio capabilities go, the EPOS | Sennheiser GSX 300 is capable of pushing out 7.1 virtual (16 bit / 48 kHz) surround sound as well as high quality stereo (24 bit / 96 kHz stereo) audio. The EPOS Gaming Suite control software enables gamers to setup audio profiles and adjust the settings of the audio produced by the GSX 300. This suite is full featured and makes use of the GSX 300’s rotary knob to adjust some levels of reverb, etc inside the software. It also features a built in headphone amplifier so even your most basic headphones will sound better when plugged into the GSX 300. The one thing you can’t adjust while in-game is your mic levels, etc. That must me done inside the software itself.
Overall, EPOS | Sennheiser has created one excellent external sound card solution with the GSX 300. Sure, it only supports a stereo output, but for about $80 Dollars, you are getting some high quality virtual surround sound as well as a headphone amplifier to boot. If you wanted an external sound card with multiple channel outputs, you’re going to be paying a lot more of your hard-earned cash.
