I’m two soundbars in at this point, and the OXS brand hasn’t done me wrong yet. Despite not being a major brand of audio equipment, I’ve found its speakers offer great quality and value for money, albeit with a few minor caveats.
The Storm A2 is the first headset from OXS I’ve tried and it’s a similar story here. However, while there are still plenty of small victories to be celebrated, those minor caveats do begin to feel a little bit more major when the speakers are now pressing right up into your lug holes.
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A Storm In An Earcup
Storm A2 is the second in OXS’ headphones range, following on from the G2, but the similarities are only skin-deep. The A2 is the higher-end model, as you can probably tell from the more muted, RGB-less style. The build quality is decent enough as well, with comfortable ear cushions and a handy space-saving folding design for portability.
Although the lack of RGB is a plus, I would’ve liked for the material of the cups themselves to be different. The rippled, grey matte plastic feels cheap compared to other headsets, making it look more like a toy than a piece of high-quality audio equipment.
In the cups, you’ve got 40MM neodymium drivers, active sound cancellation, and virtual 7.1 surround sound. For connectivity, there’s the usual range of options like Bluetooth, 2.4Hz dongle, or USB-C, but the dongle itself has a rather clever modular style that can be pulled in half to reveal an extra USB-C input if needed.
It’s also got incredible battery life; OXS advertises it as lasting up to 70 hours, but I’ve been using it for longer and haven’t had to plug it in to charge yet.
The sound cancellation, while not perfect, is up there among some of the best I’ve tried. We’ve been in the middle of a heatwave in the UK, which means I’ve been running a rather loud and obnoxious air conditioning unit just to survive. The A2 Storm has reliably cut the loudest parts of it out, with only a remaining small hum and me not being a puddle of sweat to remind me I’ve had the AC on at all.
As for all audio equipment, I tested sound reproduction on four things:
- Left 4 Dead 2 for positional audio.
- Go! by the Chemical Brothers, Lone Digger by Caravan Palace, and Dearly Beloved from Kingdom Hearts for different musical elements.
Right away, it’s noticeably light on bass. I’m personally not a bass fiend and so am fine with this, but those wanting a bit of punch will find these lacking. On the other hand, they’re very good at trebles, with higher notes coming through loud and clear.
No More Noise
A big flaw is how much audio quality suffers when you enable sound cancellation. It’d be nearly impossible for there not to be a hit to quality, as cancellation involves adding extra sound on top of your audio to cancel out the environment, but the tradeoff here is a bit extreme. Turn ANC on and there’s a marked flattening of your audio; the bass largely drops away completely, and the top ends are stunted.
As is always the case with ANC, it’s not a feature you’re going to be using all the time. If you’re in a quiet environment where you want to hear the best of your music or game, turn it off and you’ll get reasonable (if not perfect) reproduction. If you’re specifically trying to drown something out and aren’t fussed about losing an audiophile-grade listening experience, these do the job.
The positional audio is great, though. It’s nice not having to deal with any configuration software to get it set up – I whapped this bad boy right on Left 4 Dead 2 (and other games with surround sound support) and immediately got an all-encompassing, immersive experience.
The microphone is fine for voice chat, but is on the quiet side and lacks the audio quality you’d need for streaming or content creation.
The largest stumbling block I’ve encountered with the OXS Storm A2 is its latency. OXS advertises “ultra-low” latency of
This isn’t something I’ve noticed on any other headphones, even when using the same connection. The only improvement I’ve found is by using the smaller USB-C dongle in a third-party USB-C to USB-A adapter instead of the one that comes with it, but even that isn’t a surefire way of fixing the issue.
The OXS Storm A2 is good, but it’s a far cry from the company’s excellent soundbars. The sound quality is passable, it’s comfortable to wear, and the sound cancellation and battery life will ensure it’s likely my go-to headset for long journeys in the future. But I also can’t recommend it as a daily driver, especially at £130.
The sound quality isn’t as rich as OSX’s soundbars, or even other, cheaper headphones like Sony or Logitech. And the desync problem makes it nearly impossible to use for gaming unless you have the patience to troubleshoot the problem first. Unless you’re going for a full OSX build for some reason, or can find these on offer somewhere, I, unfortunately, can’t think of a reason you wouldn’t look elsewhere first.
