Razer Opus: Solid midrange ANC headphones

These cans are priced to compete, but don’t expect magic.

- ADAM PATRICK MURRAY

Razer is stepping out of the world of gaming with the release of Opus, a pair of over-the-ear active noise canceling (ANC) headphones priced at $200. Opus is THX certified and has a very muted design (especially for Razer) and a fairly limited feature set. The sound is relatively clear and powerful and favors a bright sound stage, but the noise canceling is lacking against some of the top ANC headphones like the Sony WH-1000XM3 (go.macworld. com/swh3) despite its advanced design. It’s available now on Amazon (go.macworld.com/rzam) and Razer (go. macworld.com/rzrz).com in Midnight Blue, with a Black option coming at a later date.

SPECS AND FEATURES

The Razer Opus features 40mm drivers inside a lightweight headset with plush leatherette memory foam ear cushions, weighing in at 265g. It connects by a 3.5mm analog cable (included) or Bluetooth to your phone or PC via AAC, and there’s aptX support. Inside the carrying case is the mentioned 1.5m 3.5mm analog cable, a 30cm USB-C cable for charging, and a USB-A to USB-C adapter, as well as the standard airplane analog adapter. Both the 3.5mm and USB-C ports are located on the left can and are easily accessible.

Opus is also equipped with four microphones (two external and four external) used for a mixture of calls and for ANC—more on that later. The microphone call quality is very average, which is to be expected given the over-the-ear design—there is just only so much tuning that can be done to battle the physics of the microphones being so far from your mouth. I didn’t run into any glaring problems during calls, and neither did the recipients.