From the top of its headband to the metal forks holding its earcups, the Roccat Elo 7.1 Air is a sleek, matte-black beast. Aside from the RGB-illuminated Roccat name and logo adorning the earcups, the Elo 7.1 Air has a relatively understated look for a gaming headset, allowing it to hide its gaming pedigree and looking just as at home in a more professional environment as it does in a gaming setup. The Elo 7.1 Air’s overall design incorporates a number of subtle, thoughtful touches that make it very comfortable to use for extended gaming sessions. When not in use, the earcups swivel, allowing for comfortable neck wear. On/off, microphone and headset volume, and microphone on/off controls are conveniently located on the left earcup. The mic mute and power buttons are significantly different in size, making them easy to find by feel alone, and the individual volume wheels for the cans and the mic are satisfyingly tactile. My fingers never accidentally pressed the wrong button thanks to the headset’s simple, intuitive layout. Most importantly, the weight of the Elo 7.1 Air did not cause any discomfort during long play sessions. The leatherette headband of the headset provides adequate cushioning. Roccat chose a self-adjusting headband over allowing gamers to manually adjust how the Elo 7.1 Air sits on their head, and I’m happy to report that they got it right. The headset clamps down tightly with minimal wobble and stays put without further adjustment. I usually dislike self-adjusting headbands because they never seem to fit my rather large noggin without significant slippage, so it’s great to finally try one that works as advertised. The memory foam padded earcups are comfortably tight with just the right amount of depth to avoid crushing ears against the drivers, adding to the Elo 7.1 Air’s ability to stay rocking for the long haul. They also include Turtle Beach’s ProSpecs Glasses Relief System, which has softer foam in the area where glasses would rest to relieve pressure. To change the appearance of the RGB logos on the earcups, you’ll need Roccat’s Swarm software. Because there is only one RGB zone, the settings for the two earcups are not individually addressable. Color Cycle, Fully Lit, Heartbeat, Breathing, Blinking, or Roccat’s Aimo Intelligent Lighting, which is supposed to react to how you use the headset and improve the more you use it, are all options. It’s possible that Aimo will improve with more use, but our experience with other peripherals tells us that filling up Aimo’s capability meter to 100% takes a long time.
