Gravastar Sirius Pro

Aesthetically, the Sirius Pro buds are the most 'gamer' of all the wireless headphones I've tested recently. The case isn't so much a case as a cage. Attached to a battery pack of a bottle opener. Really. Yeah, there is maybe a feeling that Gravastar is maybe trying a little too hard to hit a particular niche of a user.

But hey, it's a crowded market, so why not do something to make yourself stand out? The thing is, you need to be able to also deliver on the fundamentals so that the thing which makes you stand out isn't the only thing you have going for you.

And that's arguably where the Sirius Pro buds fall down. When you're talking about a wireless set, what is it you want? You want battery life, good audio quality, and a reliable connection. I'd also say, having tested out some of the rest, you want decent noise cancelling, too, whether that's passive or active.

Battery life is one place where the Gravaster buds struggle. The 4 hour battery in the buds themselves is so weak you'd only want to use them on your shortest journeys. For most commutes I guess it's fine, but if you're going transatlantic it's a definite no. The fact the pseudo-futuristic charging cage can deliver another 12 hours of charge doesn't really help when the charging time is, at a minimum, 90 minutes.

But it's the audio quality where I really struggle with them, especially at this price. The Sirius Pro earbuds seem to have been too heavily tuned towards the bass. While that doesn't necessarily muddy the rest of the audio, as I initially thought it might when I first stuck Rage Against the Machine on, it just becomes too overpowering after a short time.

It's almost lucky there's such a low battery life here, because I don't think I could deal with this overwrought bass response for long.

That's only in music mode, however, as when you switch to the low latency gaming mode the bass bias disappears. That seems to be in order to cut the lag, which it does to great effect when I've been hitting men in Hitman 3 on the Steam Deck, but it does add a certain artificial quality to the aural experience.

There is some strange, almost electronic distortion going on, and the drop in audio quality is rather plain to hear. Still, you do get used to it; the human brain is very adroit at normalising poor audio over time. And the audio latency is low enough that the trade-off is almost acceptable.

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Or would be if other buds didn't deal with it far better. The Creative Outlier Pro's Bluetooth connection is speedy enough, when the specific low latency mode remains enabled, and the JBL Quantum TWS has a Type-C dongle that makes it indistinguishable from a wired connection. The Gravastar seems to just lower the audio quality to tighten up the latency issue.

When there are better sounding, longer lasting, and more affordable options on offer, even if I loved the more 'gamer' aesthetic of the Gravastar Sirius Pro, I would still recommend you spend your money elsewhere.