Tipping the scales at 162 grams, the Eksa AirJoy Pro is, as of September 2020, the lightweight champion of the world, trumping the competition of over-ear gaming headphones available on the market!
The Eksa AirJoy Pro is not only ultralight but, it's also far less bulky than any other over-ear gaming headset. The AirJoy Pro headset is very compact with a similar footprint to a pair of on-ear headphones and integrating 40mm drivers. In terms of sound reproduction, the AirJoy Pro 40mm drivers are very accurate, delivering a more natural sound quality than a lot of gaming headphones.
The AirJoy Pro drivers have similar sensitivity to the E900 Pro but, the AirJoy Pro don't deliver the same big dynamic sound reproduction and unbalanced bass-heavy sound as the E900 Pro. The Eksa AirJoy Pro 40mm drivers also have similar impedance rating (32 ohms); hence you can easily drive the AirJoy Pro from the headphone jack of most phones. If the dac/amp in your phone is not the best, you can always use a headphone amp.
The AirJoy Pro headband and yoke are made of hard plastic with an inner steel rubber band that forms part of the adjusting mechanism of the headband. The top and underside of the headband is made of extremely soft artificial leather covering cushiony foam padding.
The earcups have a wide range of tilt and can rotate inwards (up to 90-degrees ) and outwards (up to 30 degrees), allowing the earpads to sit comfortably on the sides of the head. The earpads feature 2cm thick memory foam padding covered with honeycomb soft fabric mesh and artificial leather along the inner rim of the earpad. The inner hole of the earpads measures 5.5cm tall and 3.5cm wide with a 1.3cm depth to the driver, which is covered by a thin layer of fabric. The outer dimensions of the earpads are 7.5cm wide and 9cm tall.
The front side of the AirJoy Pro earcups have paw scratch styling crossed by four red led bars running vertically across the earcups. When the led bars illuminate, they look like mini lightsabers. The words "No Burden" and "Just Joy" are laser printed on the earcups.
Thanks to two audio inputs - USB-C and 3.5mm - you can connect via digital connection or analog connection; hence you can connect the Eksa AirJoy Pro via 3.5mm connection to a smartphone for mobile gaming, as well as some gaming controllers including the PS4 controller, Xbox One S and X controllers and the original Xbox One controller via a Microsoft Headset Adapter (not included). You won't be able to use the Eksa AirJoy Pro with a PS3 or Xbox 360 because these consoles don't have a 3.5 mm jack for headphones.
The Eksa AirJoy Pro also comes with a desktop software driver, which you will need to download in order to enable 7.1 sound, which is only emulated via USB connection to a Windows computer; hence the AirJoy Pro cannot deliver 7.1 sound via 3.5mm connection. If you want to experience 7.1 sound via 3.5mm connection, you will need a 7.1 surround sound USB adapter like the Eksa W1, which is a nifty 3-in-1 solution: headphone stand, USB hub and sound card.
In terms of amplification, the Eksa AirJoy Pro bidirectional microphone does not sound as loud as the omnidirectional microphone in the E900 Pro headset. This is because the AirJoy Pro bidirectional microphone has naturally lower gain input due to bidirectional microphones only picking sound from the front and back, whereas omnidirectional microphones pick sound from all around.
In terms of noise cancelling performance, the Eksa AirJoy Pro microphone does a far better job than the E900 Pro omnidirectional mic, which is not surprising because bi-directional microphones naturally reject sound from the sides where most of the unwanted noise comes from, making the noise canceling effect even more pronounced.
Since it picks sound from the front and back, bidirectional microphones are popular for interviewing people. On a gaming headset though, a regular bidirectional microphone wouldn't work unless it integrates noise cancelling like the AirJoy Pro microphone does.
The noise cancelling bidirectional microphone in the AirJoy Pro naturally rejects sound from the sides but, it is also designed to reject sound coming from the back, allowing the noise cancelling bidirectional microphone to perform better than unidirectional and omnidirectional microphones, which the vast majority of gaming headsets use.
Like with all other headsets, once connected to a computer, you will be able to adjust the volume of the Eksa AirJoy Pro bidirectional microphone manually from the sound settings of the computer. The Eksa AirJoy Pro microphone is attached to a 13cm long boom arm, which is detachable and bends at any angle you want. The boom microphone weighs 5 grams.
As mentioned earlier, the AirJoy Pro headset is ultra light, weighing just 162 grams. When adding the weight of the boom microphone (5 grams) and the weight of the cord, the weight does go up to 200 grams, although the AirJoy Pro still beats the top contender - the Roccat NOZ - by 10 grams. The USB-A to USB-C cable weighs 34 grams and measures 1.20 meters long. The USB-A to 3.5mm cable weighs 26 grams and measures 1.60 meters long.
A headphone cable splitter is also included, as well as a 37-gram thick mesh drawstring pouch with slight padding, which looks like a mini gym mesh drawstring bag. You can buy the Eksa AirJoy Pro from Eksa or amazon. Check out the new E910 5.8Ghz wireless headset and the Eksa E7000 Fenrir headset.
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