I’m in the process of evaluating some Steel Series gear but I thought it would be a good idea to talk about what I’m upgrading from. It’ll give you better context when I eventually do publish my review but also, letting go of some of this gear is a pretty big deal. I’ve been using most of my gear for the better part of the last decade so we should put some of this stuff to rest.

The first and oldest piece of gear I have is my mouse. I’ve been using a Razer Death Adder as my mouse primarily because it’s really big and very simple. It’s the Pre-2013 model or something. Newer versions are probably fine but this is the closest I could find. I don’t have big hands or anything but I do have long fingers which is great for playing different musical instruments but pretty unwieldy for some things. The Death Adder fit my hand very well. Also, it only has two macro buttons which I hardly even used. The only MMO I played relatively seriously was FFXIV but that didn’t have much benefit from a bunch of extra macro buttons so the two were more than enough.

A mouse is nothing without a good surface and mine was extra fancy. I think most people are familiar with regular cloth pads but I decided to go a bit crazy at the time. The Death Adder at the time was relatively cheap compared to other gaming mice so I spent the difference on the mouse pad, a Razer Scarab. A hard-surface mouse pad was pretty weird at first but it felt like my mouse was flying across the surface when I got it. Other than that, it’s a mouse pad. What do you say? It’s flat. It’s still there. The Scarab did also come with a case so I could bring it with me in case I engage in mouse-related activities on the go. It’s better to be safe than sorry? They don’t make the Scarab specifically anymore but Razer does offer other hard surface pads.

The most recent piece of gear in my common peripheral lineup is my Cooler Master QuickFire Rapid with MX Blue switches. I think they’ve updated the listing for it because the line has since been updated but this looks about right. I did have a generic Rosewill keyboard but it cough broke so I had to replace it. If you look into either of those keyboards, you’ll notice that they’re both extremely simple which is a general Michael theme. The QuickFire Rapid is so simple, in fact, that it doesn’t even have a number pad. From a functionality standpoint, I don’t have want for more stuff on my keyboard but I’m not allergic to number pads or anything and I’d be down with a few macro buttons. I’d mostly be happy with some fancy LED’s on my keyboard but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The last thing is headphones. I used Astro A40’s for a long time but switched over to some generic Apple earbuds for a couple reasons. First, the A40’s are naturally pretty bass-y. I also have the MixAmp and I’ve tried the EQ presets on there but they’re even more bass-y. While that’s okay for regular usage, it throws me off with any audio stuff I end up working on. Not that Apple earbuds are great either but I’ve found I like the Astro’s less. For clarity’s sake, the Astro’s aren’t really designed to be used for audio production and that’s mostly based on feel. I’ve been meaning to invest in some more trustworthy studio monitoring headphones to get a better comparison but that’s neither here nor there.

I primarily made the switch though because extended use of the Astro’s started to hurt my ears. I would imagine that the ideal usage time is probably under an hour but I know a lot of people who have gaming sessions for longer. I have found that I have a large head so this could be a me problem specifically. I have the Astro’s as big as they can go to fit my dumb head so my ear-itation could be caused by the headphones also pressing against my head and ears more than normal.

That does it for all the basic stuff. I hope this gives you a good idea of what I’ve got going on in some future stuff that should be happening very soon!