Customer Ratings & Reviews

The Sony H3 are a set of lightweight headphones for gaming and everyday use. Unlike other SONY branded headphones, this one looks right at home with its PlayStation lineup of gaming accessories. The headphones can be used with a PlayStation 5, but given the USB sound adaptor, it is also useable on a gaming PC. Opening the box was a delight. I love eco-friendly packaging. In this day and age, with everything wrapped in clamshell unrecyclable plastic, it is nice to see a manufacturer use cardboard and other recyclable materials for the packaging of these headphones. The build quality is impressive. The headphone is all plastic, but it's built well. There is plenty of headband padding, and the ear muffs are the soft fabric to allow breathability. The left ear cup carries a microphone and a volume dial. The box includes a USB soundcard that you can plug your headphones into to utilise the microphone on a computer that does not have a unified headphone / microphone audio output port. On the first listening impression, I was not impressed. It felt extremely flat, with no character or tonality, despite the good looks on the outside. Running it through a few hours of use, I found the sound quality improved significantly. It needed a break-in. The response frequencies are not bad, and it goes down to 25hz, but in reality, the headphones are useless for those low notes, it just rumbles, not producing sound and SONY in their official specs say 10-20,000 Hz response, I believe that may be true but its not outputting sound at that frequency, it's just vibrating. Even after hours of break-in, the overall sound output was brighter than I had hoped. It's fine for everyday use, but it is not an audiophile headphone that is balanced. It sides slightly on the brighter end of the audio spectrum. Don't get me wrong, the sound quality is not bad, but for my taste, it is still incredibly bright. The highs were all there, but the lows and low-mids were missing, which can cause listening fatigue. Overall the headset is worth it for two reasons, the build quality, which is quite solid, and the lightweight nature of the headset; it's comfortable for an entire day's use. InZoneHub: The new headphones allow you to install the optional INZONE Hub software. To experience unique spatial surround sound modes, this software is necessary. This feature works best with the included USB Dongle soundcard, but I found it worked with the regular audio output. On laptops with a unified microphone + headphone output, the microphone works out of the box, but on a desktop, the USB adaptor is required to use the microphone feature. I had higher expectations on the INZONE software. Honestly, the spatial surround works but given that the headphones lack the audio imaging and quality I was hoping for, the surround effect is a gimmick. The in-software bass boost did not improve the low-end situation, it still sounded quite bright. Honestly, I preferred using it normally without the software. I didn't get to test the headphones out on the PS5, but it seems the controller has an audio output to provide for similar in-game surround effects. The headphone for everyday use is not bad. I joined a few meetings with it, and it worked fine; people could hear me well. Gaming with the headphones is comfortable, and I was able to game for hours, but the overall sound quality is apparent even with the INZONE software. The volume output is lower than other headphones I have used in the past. Maybe my expectations from SONY were higher, given that I have used various SONY branded headphones for years, including the fantastic WH1000XM4, the WH710N, ZX110, and my all-time favourite MDR 7506 Studio. In comparison, I’ll say this has the worst of the audio qualities I’d expect from such a good-looking and well-built headphone.

It feels nice put other players say that i sound different. My old phone earphones sound better.

I was looking forward to writing a great review on this set of headphones. But 30 seconds into testing them, they started to fail. The aesthetics are great. The white on black is very elegant and sleek. I like that the volume rocker is on the back side of the left ear. And they are sensibly lightweight. But even being as light as they are, the cushion for the head band still put enough pressure on my (bald) head to be uncomfortable and I could tell I wouldn't be able to wear them for any extended period of time. And the thinness of the cord from the headphones leaves me worried about the longevity. For the very brief time I was able to listen to audio, I wasn't very impressed. The drivers seem to be lacking a great deal of low end range. I tried a few eq settings which were able to somewhat fake this lack of range. But I could tell that these drivers weren't going to be capable of anything more than what you get out of the box. I used the supplied USB dongle to connect the headphones to my PC. About 30 seconds in to plugging them in and listening to some music, the audio just stopped. I had to toggle audio inputs for the audio to come back. Another minute later and the audio cut out again. Requiring the toggling of audio inputs to get the sound to come back. During one test, I was fiddling with the microphone while listening to audio. I was lowering and raising the microphone to see if it had any impact on the audio, and unfortunately it did. There is an audibly notable series of clicks when the microphone is about half way down (which is where the connection to turning the mic on is I assume). While the microphone was engaged, I was getting interference if I messed with the tip of the microphone. Which also then led to the headphones no longer producing audio, which required toggling again. These headphones aren't very expensive, so I can see why there are some shortcomings. But I feel like the number of issues these have far outweigh the pros of saving a few bucks. I just don't feel comfortable recommending these.