Antlion and Apos’ R70X Refine & ModMic 2 Review: A Killer DIY Headset
What makes a great gaming headset? It has to have immersive positional audio, have a quality microphone, be comfortable to wear, and generally sound good no matter what you’re listening to. The best gaming headsets deliver on these qualities, but they tend to split their focus across sound quality, fancy features, and the mic. Gaming headset designers generally don’t get the luxury of focusing on just one element, they have to do it all, and that’s where the Apos x Audio-Technica and ModMic bundle comes in.
What this bundle aims to deliver is a great pair of audiophile-tier headphones, a broadcast-worthy microphone, and the means to combine them into the Optimus Prime of gaming headsets. Picking these up as a bundle saves you some cash, but it doesn’t come cheap – the end result, however, is one of the best-sounding and most comfortable gaming headsets I’ve ever worn.
Apos x Audio-Technica R70X Refine + ModMic 2 – Design and Features
This is a different kind of review for us at IGN since we’re actually looking at several different products packaged as a bundle. At the core is the Apos x Audio-Technica R70X Refine, a customized version of the Audio-Technica R70X that features new grilles, ear cushions, a shorter cable, and a refreshed sound profile that fills out the bass. It’s worth noting that the original R70X is still a popular choice among audiophiles for its balanced but spacious sound and truly exceptional comfort.
The other half of the equation is the recently released ModMic x 2 series. You can choose to bundle the ModMic Uni 2 (which uses a 3.5mm connection), the ModMic USB 2, or the original ModMic Wireless (we expect a new version of this at some point, but this is still the “classic” ModMic Wireless). If you’re new to the ModMic, it’s essentially a standalone microphone that can attach to any pair of headphones with a clever magnetic clasp. With it, you can turn your favorite headphones into a full-fledged gaming headset and enjoy microphone quality well in excess of anything gaming headsets have been able to deliver. Or, if you have a headset you love and want to make better or repair, that’s a fitting use case too.
That was true at the time of the original ModMic’s release back in 2012. In the years since, the company has released several revisions to stay ahead of the curve. The ModMic Uni 2 and USB 2 are its latest releases and feature redesigned and improved microphones that offer noise canceling and a full-bodied sound that you would typically expect from a full-fledged, more expensive desktop mic.
Each piece of this bundle is outstanding.
The original Audio-Technica R70X was released in 2015 and was the company’s first-ever pair of open-back reference headphones. They were designed to deliver a neutral, highly detailed sound that mixing engineers could rely on. Its earcups are big and circular with wide-open grilles that allow sound to travel in and out. Sound bleed is an expected side-effect of this design, and you shouldn’t count on isolating yourself from any sound around you (or keeping anyone from hearing what you’re listening to), but they have the benefit of sounding wider and deeper than just about any gaming headset on the market.
I say “just about” because it would be impossible to test every gaming headset, but I’ve been reviewing them professionally since 2015 and can say that they’re better than any gaming headset I’ve ever heard. There may be a unicorn out there, but I doubt it because there’s no other gaming headset that shares the R70X’s design.
The Refine carries through everything I’ve described but the flat sound signature. While they’re not bass cannons, they’re designed to be more enjoyable for everyday listening. This set isn’t designed for the audio engineer grinding out their hours in the studio. It’s made for audio enthusiasts, gamers, and normal listeners who appreciate high quality audio. Apos didn’t skimp on specs, though. It still uses the same 45mm dynamic drivers and has the same extra-wide frequency response range of 5Hz to 40,000Hz.
Apos has made some other changes in addition to refining the R70X’s sound. The wide-back grilles now have a gold finish instead of black. The cable has been trimmed down to a more manageable six feet instead of nine like the original. And the ear cushions have also been reworked by Audio-Technica itself, and are now thicker to enhance their comfort over time, while still being wrapped in oh-so-comfy velour.
If sound quality is the leading feature of the R70X, comfort is a close second. Weighing in at only 210 grams, they’re surprisingly lightweight. The cushions are thickly padded but aren’t bulky and feel very nice on the skin; literally like pillows. The headband is milled out to reduce weight but isn’t adjustable like you might expect. Instead, it uses two cushioned “wings” that rest on either side of your head and adapt to its shape. Even over 3+ hour gaming sessions, there was no hotspotting or soreness whatsoever. The clamp force is just about perfect: the headphones stay in place well but don’t squeeze tightly enough to cause discomfort.
There’s a good amount of plastic in the frame to accomplish its airy design but the grilles and headband are metal and the yokes are reinforced to promote durability. Even still, I would take care not to drop them. They don’t feel fragile, but with its light mass, you can’t expect a lot of resilience if you’re careless.
The ModMic Uni 2 and USB 2 are very similar in their design and how they attach to the headphones. Both mics come as kits with their own branded carrying cases. Each uses a steel boom arm that’s meant to be bent to properly position next to your mouth. At the base of the arm, before it bends to a 90-degree angle and transitions to its six-foot cable, is a two-part magnetic clasp. One half attaches to the headphones. The other stays attached to the microphone. The magnets are strong, so when they’re next to each other they pull together and lock in place with interlocking teeth.
It’s cleverly designed – you can rotate the mic up and down by lightly pulling up from the base to move it out of the way. Since it’s just moving it on the base, there’s no flip-to-mute but both versions have an in-line mute button that you can easily access. You can also remove it entirely, leaving only the receiving half of the base attached to the side. A small baggie in the carrying case includes a second base so you can swap to another pair of headphones, as well as a replacement adhesive pad.
The microphones are unidirectional, which is a shift from last generation. The original Uni was also unidirectional but used a different capsule and the USB gave you the option between uni- and omnidirectional modes. Traditionally, omnidirectional microphones provide the best sound quality but carry the downside of capturing everything in a spherical radius around the mic. Unidirectional mics sound a bit more compressed but cancel out some of that external noise. With the Uni 2 and USB 2, Antlion claims to have cracked the code and has delivered the best of both worlds with microphone capsules that sound better than ever and block out more external noise than last generation.
If you’re thinking that this sounds like a mess of cables, you would be right. Instead of a single, unified cable like a normal gaming headset, you’ll have two. To help with this, Antlion provides a set of clips to hold them together as one. It’s not perfect but it does work. My secret hope is that Antlion releases some kind of thin sleeve to really bind them together and hide the slack between the clasps. Until then, slim general use sleeves like this one seem able to do the job, though I expect something official would both look and feel nicer to use.
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Apos x Audio-Technica R70X Refine + ModMic 2 – Performance
The R70X Refine, ModMic Uni 2, and ModMic USB 2, are all excellent in their own ways. The headphones are ridiculously comfortable. Genuinely, this is the most comfortable headset or pair of headphones I’ve tested and that’s saying something. I collect and enjoy headphones as a hobby and have sets that range from $300 to over $2,000. Not a single one is as comfortable as the R70X Refine.
Its light weight is only part of it. The suspension wing system looks strange at first but, unlike a normal headband that balances the entire weight of the headphones on the top of your head, this balances it on the sides. The springs allow it to find a balance with the grip force so they can rest with perfect distribution. The cushions are also so, so comfortable and are very breathable. They don’t isolate sound, but with such open-back earcups, isolation isn’t something these headphones are designed to offer anyway.
The soundstage and tuning make the Refine an ideal choice for gaming. It isn’t a pair of headphones that will blow you away by sounding artificially large. Instead, the soundstage offered is all about giving a natural sense of space to everything you’re listening to. Playing through Battlefield 2042, nothing sounded unrealistically close-in, even when shooting it out in tight hallways. Enemies around the corner sounded like they were actually around the corner out of sight. The reverberation of footsteps and call-outs sounded true to life as well.
In outdoor settings, there’s a realistic sense of air to the sound. Gunshots echoing in the distance are accurately distant and directional. Compared to a gaming headset like the Corsair Virtuoso Pro, which is also open back and delivers wide staging of its own, the R70X’s larger earcups make an immediately noticeable difference. Putting spaciousness into words is difficult, but if you imagine the sound of someone clapping in a living room and then someone clapping in a field, you’ll be on the right track. In the living room, you hear the walls. In the field, you hear the distance.
The tuning and clarity play a major role in the R70X Refine’s positional accuracy for competitive games. While there’s enough bass to give tanks and grenades a sense of impact and tactility, the fine-tuned middle and higher frequencies ensure that important audio cues, like enemy footsteps or a window breaking as someone makes their entrance, come through nicely and signal where they’re coming from.
For music, they’re fantastic. You can hear every little detail, from fingers on fretboards to the small breaths vocalists take between lines. Percussion is especially nice, as hi-hats sprinkle through the mix, and make sure it sounds lively. The soundstage is immersive, the details are rich, and the sound is crisp and exciting but full.
Genuinely, this is the most comfortable headset or pair of headphones I’ve tested and that’s saying something.
The ModMics are Antlion Audio’s best yet. Getting them installed was easy sinceyou only have to peel the adhesive and press the base onto the earcup. The cable clips are simple, which is good, because they’re necessary. I tried to go without and draping two long cables from your ears is a pain without them.
Both the ModMic Uni 2 and USB 2 offer impressively rich, full-bodied capture. The work Antlion Audio has done to improve the capsules is admirable. While the built-in mics on gaming headsets always seem to be improving, both ModMics lead the pack in their quality. They’re the closest you’ll find to a desktop mic in headset form you can find today.
They’re an especially good choice for streamers. Their full-bodied sound and clarity make them a viable alternative to standalone microphone setups. Professionals with full XLR setups probably won’t be tempted to switch, but if your desk is cluttered and you want to regain some space, you can simplify things back to a single headset without sacrificing too much on mic quality.
The new unidirectional capsule delivers the best of both worlds in terms of sound isolation and vocal quality. While omnidirectional still has a slight edge in naturalness to my ear, it’s small and the ModMic’s ability to minimize outside noise is definitely preferable. I would take the new capsule over the old omnidirectional mic any day of the week.
Between the two, the ModMic USB 2 offers the best quality. While they both sound great, the USB 2 benefits from having an onboard sound card and amplifier. You don’t need as much gain to achieve the same volume levels, which makes for a cleaner signal. Its built-in processor also removes your motherboard from the mix, so any interference or sub-par components won’t have a negative impact on the quality you can achieve. The Uni 2 may be fine if you have a nice gaming motherboard but the USB 2 will be good with just about anything.
Purchasing Guide
The Apos x Audio-Technica R70X Refine + ModMic Uni 2 and USB 2 Bundle can be purchased from Apos. The headphones on their own retail for $299, a roughly $50 savings from the standard Audio-Technica R70X. Bundled with the ModMic Uni 2, the cost is $349.99, which saves you ten dollars. Bought together with the ModMic USB 2, the cost is $369.99 for a $20 savings. The ModMic Uni 2 and ModMic USB 2 are also available on Amazon or directly from Antlion Audio for $59.95 and $89.95 respectively.
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