I have used the Penrose for a few days now and am ready to put out a quick review, though really it's 50% consolidation of various impressions I have posted already and 50% remaining impressions.
Sound Quality
Let's face it, this is why we are all here. This is the reason why we chose the Penrose over its competitors, which there is an entire ocean of. We are here, because we are tired of the sub-par sound offered by the likes of SteelSeries, Astro, Corsair, Logitech, etc despite their claims of precise clarity or stunning detail. So how does Audeze's sound quality stack up to its competitors? In a nut shell, there is no comparison in sound quality. This can be either impressive or sad depending on perspective, but Audeze's arguably worst offering is noticeably superior to the best their competitors have to offer in the realm of lossless wireless and honestly any wired "gaming" headset I have tried (and I have tried a LOT of them). With the provocative intro over with, let's talk what anyone reading this really wants to know about.
Overall the planar magnetic drivers offer fast, detailed, and rich sound reproduction that makes critical listening of music enjoyable. Is it to the level of the LCD-2s or HiFiMAN HE-500s? No, but at a fraction of a price it's not supposed to be. The treble is rolled off a tad at the higher frequencies to prevent fatigue from long listening sessions. There is meat behind the midrange and bass, which basically means there is substance and richness behind what you will hear. This is very important as midrange defines vocals and most sounds we hear in games, music, and movies. Things like dialogue and most sound effects take place here, with higher pitched gunshots taking place in the low-mid treble range where the Penrose is also great at. The bass as mentioned is rich (as expected of planar), but more importantly it has accuracy, tightness, and good extension into the lower frequencies. I see many newcomers to the "audiophile" world state that it is a bit weaker than expected, a statement that I find flawed though not of their fault. Since this is a subject of it's own, I wanted to talk about it separately.
In the general consumer world, bass produced by cheap home theater subwoofers and "gaming" audio products are are bloated and overly exaggerated. High quality reproduction of bass is again accurate, tight, and with good extension, not this vomit of "BWOHM!" that we so commonly hear. This is what provides texture to bass. In comparison with the highly inflated mid-bass (talk about overcompensation), this can indeed make good bass sound almost lean or mild in direct comparison. The trade-off however is that your bass now will actually sound good once your ears adjust. In games with good sound, explosions will actually sound like explosions where you have the sharp crescendo of eruption followed by the more gradual fall off of both the boom and rumble. That said, if you really want more mid-bass, you can easily EQ it adjusting the last 3 bands in the AudezeHQ app.
There has been much talk about whoosh sounds, though I personally haven't heard it. I do here very quiet noise when no sound is playing, but it quickly goes away from when anything is playing. Now it could be that I haven't looked hard enough for it or mentally blocked it out, but honestly I don't go looking for flaws when I use a product. In a way, that's what makes me a terrible reviewer I suppose.
Lossless 2.4GHz Wireless
Lossless 2.4GHz wireless is the reason why you chose to purchase the Penrose over the Mobius or Panda or any wired alternative. For whatever personal reason, we wanted wireless and that's the other big reason why we are all here. This was kind of a bit of mixed bag for me in all honesty. When I had the USB dongle connected to the back of my computer under my desk, the connectivity wasn't very good. Songs would have random drops here and there, which needless to say was quite disappointing. I didn't have any issues with range however. While I cannot say I had the luxury of walking to the restroom during any listening sessions, I did go downstairs to get water, which was easily more than 15m away and while drops increased, I never lost connection. Given the complaints of the obnoxiously loud "Connect!" alert, I don't intend on trying to test that range either. That said, I don't believe this is Audeze's fault as the back of my tower is a cluster of cables and electronics. There is no doubt a lot of interference back there and bringing it to the top of my desk via a powered USB 3.0 hub (connected to a USB 3.0 port of course) made all of those issues go away. Now, whether this means an interference, bandwidth, power issue or combination of it, I have no idea. For the people having connection issues however, I would definitely recommend using at least an extension USB cable connected directly to the motherboard.
Comfort
I am old now, so I can't seem to sit down for 3-4 hour gaming sessions as frequently as I did in my youth. This means comfort during long sessions is not as important to me as it once was. That said, the Penrose is for the most part, pretty comfortable. There is definitely sufficient padding on the cups and under the headphone pads, though the clamping is a bit too snug for my tastes. As been repeated multiple times however, a folded pillow should quickly take care of that for most people if you don't want to wait and let your head naturally break it in. The breathability of the pads however are extremely sub-par, which I knew coming from the Mobius as well as any other headphones or chairs that use pleather. Leather already heats up quickly enough and it is a far more breathable material than pleather. I do have some suede Dekoni pads awaiting, but I am waiting on Dekoni's response in terms of the re-usability of the sticky tape on them before I actually install them. Returning to the original topic, the stock pads suck for long term listening. They start getting really hot 20-30 minutes in and at 75-77F with 35-38% humidity, when I take them off my head it is an influx of cool air on my ears. Ever walk into an AC cooled room after going for an afternoon run in the summer? That's how my ears felt. I am not sure if Audeze went the pleather route versus some sort of fabric for noise isolation or costs, but please consider offering perforated leather or velour options in the future at an additional cost. I would gladly pay it!
Usability & Software
The hardware controls of the headset are pretty simple, nothing to write home about. I do however find the toggle switch for the microphone a poor choice and if I actually kept using the microphone, it would probably annoy me a tad. Instead of an actual toggle switch, I would have much rather a button that I can quickly press to mute instead of trying to slide it up or down. By the way, it actually takes quite a bit of force to toggle it, maybe because it's new. In fact, I would have much rather gotten rid of it from the side of the left can entirely and moved it to the microphone gain dial where if you push it, you can mute it. That said, there is always the risk of someone pressing it while reaching for the volume dial. The volume dial itself is fine where it is and I really like the direction of volume control once I got used to it. The power button on the other hand needs to be pressed too long to turn the unit off and on. That time can be cut in half honestly. I know Audeze is going to lower the system sounds of the Penrose in an upcoming firmware, but my God did anyone even listen to the alerts when designing the product? Pro tip to the UI designer at Audeze; if you want people to appreciate your product's sound quality, it's a good idea to not deteriorate their ears with overly loud alerts! That was a bit of humor and exaggeration of course, but the point that it is obnoxiously loud and should never had made it pass design phase however is still a very valid point.
The software is what really does a disservice to the product for me. In my non-professional software design opinion, it sucks. There is no way around the fact that it is extremely barebones on the ONE platform that currently supports it. It was mentioned that the software development is outsourced to 2 people and after using it or rather using what's actually there, I strongly recommend to Audeze to either have more people hired to work on their software or to look for another developer entirely. The EQ adjustment is a great feature for those who wants to spend the time, but the fact that you cannot make changes wirelessly is inexcusable and the lack of battery indicator laughable. This will probably come off as offensive to those at Audeze, but it's like whoever designed AudezeHQ had never used software for headsets on PC, much less design software for it. Some lesser pet peeves are Sidetone, the Device Info tab, and Firmware tab. That sidetone could only be changed via the app is something that should have never made it past the firmware design phase. The Device Info tab is completely worthless. Any other company would have had the contents hidden away in a menu or linked PDF file. Not only does it serve the least amount of purpose, it has the most visual content. Then we have the Firmware tab which is completely blank. Take note Audeze, this tab should always have at minimum the current firmware installed. I can understand not having an Update button, but to not even show the current firmware of the device is pretty bad. Did I mention that you had to have it physically plugged in to make changes?
Microphone and Battery Life
I honestly don't have much to talk about for these subjects and I am sure others will offer much better impressions. I don't game long sessions much anymore and I quickly moved back to my normal USB desktop microphone (Shure MV5) when my friends stated it was better. The recording I made via Windows Recorder sounded OK. Compared to Audeze's uploaded samples, they were more muffled and less sharp. That said, they didn't sound bad by any means and when I used them in Discord, my friends said they could hear me fine. I also have a habit of plugging in my headset and mouse to charge when I am done with them for the day, so I haven't tested the battery life either.
Design
Previously forgot this section and Audeze probably wishes that I did. My immediate reaction to how the headset looks is disgust. I deeply despise "gamer" aesthetic and Audeze seems to have fully embraced it with the Penrose. I actually got the Penrose over the Penrose X initially due to me preferring bright blue over highlighter green. Now that I have it in person, I don't know if I still prefer blue over green anymore. The logo is small, so not so bad. The band that the earpads mount to however, it's absolutely hideous and easily worse than the photos. Ever seen the cartoon Smurfs? It's like Gargamel skinned a Smurf alive and wrapped it's skin around the earpads. Horrific image? Probably, but definitely conveys the horror I felt during unboxing. Like this is seriously the bluest blue that exists in the known universe. In fact, I was so bothered by it that I turned around and ordered the carbon replacement earpads the next day. In hindsight, maybe this was part of Audeze's master plan. Immediate visual disgust aside however, the fundamental design is sound, just like the Mobius. It's a bit on the heavy side, but the cups swivel fine, the band adjusts properly without much effort and little to no give, and the twist plastic of the headband gives me comfort in durability. Overall, it is solidly built. If you take away the gamer colors, the headset actually looks quite nice!
Final Thoughts
Overall, I feel that the Penrose is great for what I use it for and what I am looking for; great sound quality while wireless when gaming on my PC. I am very satisfied with the sound quality performance for the price range and overall happy with the purchase. Have there been issues? Yes, but Audeze is typically quick to address issues as we all saw with Mobius and they have been doing a great job communicating future updates, which is all we can ask for in these current times.
