Fractal Design Scape review

Gaming headsets have, in many ways, become much of a muchness in terms of what you can expect once you start shopping in the $100-$200 range. I've reviewed enough of the blighters over the years to know what I want to see when I open the box of a new review sample. A good microphone, 40 mm+ drivers, comfortable earpads, a 2.4 GHz wireless dongle. Same old, same old.

But the Fractal Design Scape adds such a hefty dose of refinement to this gaming headset recipe, it stands apart. Opening the eco-friendly box reveals a headset and charging stand combo that manages to feel instantly familiar, and yet honed to such a point that it makes most of the models I review seem a bit old-fashioned.

It's $200/£172, and that's a fair whack of cash for a non-noise cancelling model. It's a mostly plastic construction, with textured fabric earcups and a similarly-clothed inner headband, a detachable cardioid microphone, and handsome, understated good looks. So far, so mostly-standard. A quick appraisal of the chassis, however, reveals some design touches that make you realise where all that money might have been spent.

It's the little things that stand out. The headband adjustment, for example, clunks and clicks with the same sort of satisfying thunk you might expect out of an expensive car seatbelt mechanism. The plastics feel thick and weighty, with a slightly dusky, satin finish that feels good underneath the fingertips. And the fabrics? They're more the sort of thing I'd expect to find while shopping for a new piece of furniture, never mind on a piece of gaming gear.

On the rear of the left earcup is a touch-sensitive volume dial, mounted sideways so you can adjust it without reaching fully behind the set. Beneath that is a large, slightly recessed mic mute button, and under that is a flush, spring-loaded three way switch for the connection options. Lock it into the furthest position, and you're in 2.4 GHz wireless mode.

Push it to the middle, and you've got Bluetooth 5.3. Push it to its furthest position, and it springs back to the Bluetooth setting with its pairing mode activated, revealing a tiny flash of blue paint underneath the outer switch gear as it fires back into place. It's all very… nice. Thoughtful. A little bit more than I was expecting.

On the right earcup are RGB on/off controls and an EQ-switching button, complete with a tiny white LED indicator to show you which of the three EQ-modes you're currently in. Speaking of RGB, the Scape's lighting emerges from underneath the gap between the fabric earpads and the frame, creating an attractive, subtle glow. Oh, and I've just discovered that the earpads are easily removable with a satisfying click, while inspecting the RGB rings themselves. That's the Scape all over—the more you look, the more clever details you find.

Cleverest of all, however, is the charging stand. The 2.4 GHz dongle (complete with cute little fabric tab, for easy removal) sockets into its own USB Type-A port underneath, while the whole affair connects to your machine with a Type-C cable. But the real party trick is the charging mechanism itself. There are no clunky connectors here—simply offer the Scape headset up to the stand, and it magnetically pulls itself onto two circular, fabric-covered protrusions and charges itself wirelessly.

It's difficult for me to overstate just what a pleasure this is after wrangling with clunky, socket-based charging stations, like the one you'll find included with the Nacon Rig 900 Max HS. I'm often up and down from my desk, answering the door and making endless cups of coffee. Simply being able to clunk the Scape in the rough direction of its charging socket and letting the magnets do the rest has meant that it's rarely, if ever, without charge, and it keeps my desk looking tidy at the same time.

Should you push it to its limits, the Scape will provide 40-hours of battery life with the RGB turned off, and 24-hours with it on. That's far from the most impressive figure I've ever seen, especially when compared to something like the HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless and its massive 300-hours of potential juice, but the convenience of the charging stand makes it something of a non-issue for me.

Plus, you get four hours worth of battery life out of just 15 minutes in the stand, so even if you do stay up for a 24-hour mega-gaming-marathon with the RGB on, you're a mere snack break away from another 4 hours of gameplay.

The drivers on offer here are 40 mm neodymium units, and out of the box they're what I'd describe as "gently tuned." They're subtle, warm affairs, leaning toward the neutral in terms of sound profile with a tendency towards clarity at the top end. Eager to see what they were capable of (and eyeing that switchable EQ option up with relish), I rushed to install the software, only to find there isn't any.

That's not strictly true. While there's no software package to install on your local machine, Fractal instead allows you to adjust the Scape via a web app, and that's a dose of "refinement" I could do without. Should your internet connection drop (or, heaven forbid, Fractal ends support), you'll be stuck without the ability to tweak the settings to your liking, and while that may be the way all our devices are going in the near future, I can't say I'm a fan. It also only currently works with Chrome, which is a bit of a downer for us Firefox users.

Still, the web app itself is actually pretty good. Here you can adjust and save your audio settings with an easy-to-understand simplified parametric EQ, or tweak the RGB with several esoterically-named lighting options like "northern lights", "summer sky", or "radiant dawn". You can also customise lighting options of your own, and adjust and test the microphone, complete with a noise cancelling option.

The noise cancelling itself is a bit of a blunt instrument, as you can hear from the digitally distorted breath sounds between lines in the clip above. The mic tone itself is perfectly decent, but, it must be said, not the best I've heard from a headset of this price.

Speaking of which, that's one feature I'd like to see added to the Scape—noise cancelling for the headset, not just the mic. It strikes as a bit of a glaring omission given its $200 MSRP, and the fabric earcups, while extremely comfortable, aren't particularly good at blocking out unwanted noise by themselves. They also rustle slightly when you put them on, which I initially mistook for a crackle in the headset itself. That may be due to an interaction with my long hair that less hirsute human beings won't be bothered by, but still. It's a naughty niggle, on what is otherwise a very smooth user experience.

Anyway, to the sound. As previously mentioned, the drivers have a tendency towards the warm, but they're also very capable of delivering a surprising amount of shiny detail at the top end. For gaming, this means you get the best of both worlds, particularly if you take advantage of the EQ to fatten up the bass response for chonky explosions.

Whizzing bullets and crackling fires have an instant liveliness that certainly helps to up the immersion in a multiplayer shooter, and the Scape's drivers prove to be speedy customers under duress. There's a tightness to the response here that won't be for everyone, but it makes for a very immediate, punchy sonic palette that I find very pleasant to listen to.

Interestingly, the drivers penchant for quick-fire detail response and the tight soundstaging comes with a slightly unwanted effect. Listening to YouTube content (or anything that's, how shall I put this, loosely edited) reveals audio blips with pinpoint precision.

The only other drivers I can think of that do this with regularity are planar magnetics, which probably speaks well of the Scape, but it's one of those things that once you hear it, you can't unhear it. My Sennheiser earbuds also have a tendency to highlight the odd unwanted blip, so the Scape is in good company, at least.

Overall, though, the Fractal Design Scape sounds great, which in combination with its ultra-convenient charging stand and all-day comfort means it's quickly earned a spot as my daily driver. Given that I have an astonishing amount of gaming headsets at my disposal (15 in my house alone, at last count), I think that speaks to just how convenient the Scape is to live with on a daily basis.

I use it for meetings and the odd spot of music listening during my working day, and switch over to gaming with it at night. I'm also a big fan of the weighty bass response it's capable of delivering at low volumes with an EQ tweak, which means I can happily thrum along to a bassline at reasonable volumes while I write. I'm listening to it as I finish off this review, in fact. It's very pleasant.

In fact, perhaps the word "pleasant" is doing the Scape a disservice. It's a refined, honed, unmistakably Nordic piece of design, with enough care and thought put into its features that it really does make other gaming headsets feel a little behind the times.

Enough so, in fact, that I can just about justify its $200 price tag—although it must be said, it's starting to edge into hyper-premium headset territory. The Audeze Maxwell drops down to around $260 on occasion in the sales, and it's a planar magnetic gaming headset that has the Fractal truly beaten for sound quality.

But for convenience, refinement, and something wonderful to put atop your head (and rest on your desk) on the daily? The Fractal Design Scape really is a fabulous thing. Here's hoping it's just the beginning of a wealth of super-comfy, easy to live with gaming headsets to come.