RIG 900 Max HX Review: High-quality audio comes at a cost

I’ve been lucky to try a few RIG gaming headsets over the last couple of years and the 900 Max HX is the company’s latest gaming headset to grace my ears. It’s RIG’s most premium offering and with a price of $249.99, that’s not likely to be lost on anyone. While I have generally enjoyed my time with other RIG headsets, it was clear that they were budget offerings that couldn’t hold a candle to what I’m usually used to. That’s not the fault of RIG of course. I’ve been spoiled by the likes of the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless and Logitech G Pro X.

And it’s hard for headsets in the same price range to compete with those. Let alone some meant for entry-level budgets. So I thought, what a great opportunity to see what RIG has up its sleeve in the high-end gaming headset space. How does its premium model compare to those that are less than half the price? Thankfully RIG sent this over for me to find out and I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed. At least, not in the sound quality. But we’ll get more into what I didn’t like later on. Let’s dive into the RIG 900 Max HX to see how it stacks up to the competition and if it’s worth your hard-earned money. Especially at this price.

RIG 900 Max HX Review: Design

I was never terribly fond of the design of other RIG headsets. That’s not to say they were bad by any means. On the contrary, they’re perfectly fine. I just prefer something that looks a little higher quality. RIG has certainly provided that here with the 900 Max HX. With past headsets I’ve tried from this brand, the entire frame was made of plastic. And while RIG prides itself on the durability of its headsets, the all-plastic build just wasn’t my favorite.

For the 900 Max HX though, RIG has turned things up a bit and added in a metal headband. It’s actually quite a nice design that incorporates the stainless steel band for the top portion of the headset. Which as one would have it, is the part of the headset that is going to flex the most. When you pull the ears away from your head to pull the headset off, the top part of the band is what’s getting the most stress. RIG is increasing the durability by using the stainless steel here. Not only does it look nicer, but it makes me feel better about the longevity of its structure after months and months of repeated daily use.

As someone who plays games just about every day for a few hours to wind down, sometimes all day on the weekends, I use my headsets a lot. So they need to be able to stand up to daily wear and tear. Rest assured, I treat the headsets with care and don’t just haphazardly rip them off my head. But I have had headsets before that don’t hold up well to constantly taking them on and off. Which I tend to do. This has never been a worry for me with the RIG 900 Max HX. That’s a good thing considering this headset’s high cost.

The comfort factor

I’m just going to come out and say it. I honestly didn’t find these to be as comfortable as I was hoping for a gaming headset that costs $250. But, this is also a bit nuanced. The headset as a whole is not uncomfortable. Just one particular part. The earcups. They’re soft and fairly breathable. So there was never an issue for me with them getting too warm after a few hours of use and making my ears sweat.

The issue for me is that after 30-45 minutes of wearing these, the earcups start to feel itchy and I’m constantly having to readjust them or pull them off to scratch my ears or the side of my head. There were a few occasions when it was so uncomfortable for me that I just ended up swapping to another headset. Not everyone is going to have this issue. And particularly I think anyone with slightly smaller ears might be fine with these earcups. However, mine are a little bigger and I think this had an impact.

There’s also a potentially easy fix here. You could swap out the earcups for a different pair. Something aftermarket maybe that’s made from a different material. I think this would solve the problem for comfort for me personally so I would expect it to do the trick for others. That being said, the headset is already $250 so I feel like this isn’t something you should have to do. But if you really like this headset and don’t find the earcups comfortable, this is one avenue you could take. The earcups do come right off pretty easily too. So you can pop them off in just a few seconds and put on new ones.

RIG 900 Max HX Review: Sound Quality

This is really where the headset shines. I think the Dolby Atmos is doing some of the heavy lifting here. But even without that turned on these sound better than the RIG 600 Pro I tested just a couple of months ago. So already we’re off to a good start on the sound quality.

For me, this almost makes up for the discomfort I have because of the earcups. These provide decent bass with nice mids and highs for clearer voice and detailed sound. When using these on PC, you most certainly want to use the Dolby Atmos. This really makes your games sound more alive and does well to sort of put you in the role of the character you’re playing. The nice thing is you get the Dolby Atmos for headsets free with this purchase. You’ll need the Dolby Access app installed to use it, but this normally has a $14.99 lifetime purchase cost. Something that isn’t needed when you buy this headset.

After turning this on and playing a few hours of Destiny 2, it was like I was living my Guardian’s life and fighting back against the enemies of humanity as if I were there. The Dolby Atmos really helps amp things up for movies and TV shows too. In short, use it when you can. You’ll get Dolby Atmos on the Xbox Series X|S as well. So if you primarily play on the Xbox console, this is also a must with the Xbox version of the same Dolby Access app. PS5 also supports Dolby Atmos now so it should work on PS5 as well, but there’s no Dolby Access app for PS5 so you won’t be able to configure anything.

Outside of the Dolby Atmos, the RIG 900 Max HX provides decent sound no matter what you’re playing. I used these for all kinds of different game types and didn’t really have many complaints about the headset concerning the game type or genre. Some of the titles I checked out include Final Fantasy XIV, Destiny 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Final Fantasy XVI, and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.

It sounded pretty good with all of these games and I don’t think anyone would be discontent with the sound. However, these don’t pick up on subtle sounds like footsteps as easily as other headsets I have used. This will really only matter though if you pay attention to these kinds of audibles. For me personally, the audibles are a big part of how I react to situations in first-person shooter games. So I prefer a headset that will give the best clarity for those kinds of more subtle sounds.

In games like Modern Warfare III, footsteps play a big role in discerning where your enemy is and can give you an advantage. These pick up on them but they just weren’t as good as other high-end options like the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless or the Logitech G Pro X 2. If this kind of detail isn’t a big thing in your games or you simply don’t rely on it as much as I do, then you’ll find the sound quality with these to be more than suitable.

RIG 900 Max HX Review: Microphone Quality

One of the main complaints I had about the RIG 600 Pro was the microphone quality. I think it was a bad design that hampered the experience. When in use, I was pretty consistently told that I sounded rather quiet. Like I was too far away from the mic. And that started to make perfect sense because the mic was pretty short. So it just wasn’t picking my voice up as easily. Unless I raised my voice to speak louder. In doing that though I could end up causing other issues. Like disturbing others in the home or coming across too loud over the mic.

Thankfully RIG made the microphone on the 900 Max HX a little longer this time around. It’s still shorter by a good measure than other headsets I use almost daily. But it is longer than the last RIG headset I tested and the microphone sound quality is better for it. I most certainly come off louder than before and that makes a noticeable difference when playing games where communication is a big part of the game. Say you’re playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and you’re trying to call out to your teammates where the enemy just killed you.

In situations like these I never really worried about whether or not my teammates would understand me since my voice was coming through nice and clear. The noise suppression helps with this and overall, I think the microphone quality is perfectly fine. This is something I was hoping for, but not expecting, given my past experiences with the RIG 600 Pro.

The microphone is once again a flip-down boom arm only this time it doesn’t fold into the construction of the left ear cup. It’s not as aesthetically pleasing but because of this RIG also likely had more room to make the boom longer to be closer to your mouth when speaking. It also keeps the flip-to-mute feature which I thoroughly enjoy because of its ease of use.

And of course, like any other headset, you’ll get an audible tone in your ear when the mic is muted and unmuted. Though this isn’t exactly as necessary since it’s pretty obvious which is which. Up for muted and down for unmuted. Still, it’s a nice touch for the confirmation.

RIG 900 Max HX Review: Connectivity

On the surface the connectivity in the RIG 900 Max HX is fine. But you’ll find that if you dig a little bit deeper there are some small drawbacks. I do love a wireless headset because I just don’t like the feeling of the cable from wired headsets brushing up against my arm while I play. So right off the bat I already like the RIG 900 Max HX because it provides me with a solution to this weird little pet peeve I have concerning gaming headsets.

You can connect the headset to your PC or console using either Bluetooth or the included 2.4GHz USB adapter. And if you’re using the adapter, you can plug it into your PC or console directly or you can plug the base station in instead. If you opt for plugging in the base station, there’s a little USB slot for you to plug in the adapter. Both of these methods should allow you to use the headset wirelessly with your chosen platform. Only I seemed to have some inconsistency when trying to connect wirelessly with the adapter in the base station as opposed to a direct connection.

When trying to use it on PS5, the headset would connect just fine with the direct adapter plugin. But not so much when I plugged the adapter into the base station. I never really had this problem when using it on PC. Also worth noting is that sometimes the headset would randomly disconnect and the reconnect a second or so later.

The base station also only has one USB-C port on the back so you can’t connect it to two or three platforms at once. Like you can with the Astro A50 X. So you’re going to be removing the adapter from the base station or one platform’s port and moving it to another at some point.

You could also forego all of this and just connect using Bluetooth if you’d like. But you do get a low-latency connection if you use the dongle. So this is what I would recommend. The reason you might want to use Bluetooth however is for the multi-source connection. You can connect it to the PS5 for example using the adapter, but then to your phone as well using Bluetooth.

There’s no multi-source audio mixing

The only real issue I found here is that the 900 Max HX doesn’t have multi-source audio mixing. Meaning you can’t listen to audio from two different sources at the same time.

This is a big thing for me since I like to use Discord for voice chat when playing games on PS5. I can just connect my Arctis Nova Pro Wireless headset to my phone using Bluetooth for voice chat. Then to the PS5 using the direct base station plugin. This lets me independently control the volume for both the game audio and chat audio separately.

And more importantly, it lets me hear both at the same time. The RIG 900 Max HX unfortunately doesn’t allow this. It does however let you bounce between sources. So connecting to two is still viable if you want to use the headset for taking a call should it come in while you’re playing.

No wired connectivity support

Another weird trait is that the headset has no wired connectivity support at all. If your battery dies, you simply have to plug the headset in or place it on the base station to charge. I simply find it odd that there’s no option to plug the headset in and use it wired. I have done this on many occasions with other headsets when the battery gets low. Because it allows for continued use of the headset and charges the battery at the same time.

While not a deal breaker, this is something that would have me considering other headsets if I were looking at buying this one from RIG. I play games quite often so the batteries on my headsets get ample usage. When I’m using something other than the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless and the battery is almost dead, I sometimes just plug the headset into the source with the included cable because I want to keep playing. It would have been nice to see that here with the 900 Max HX. Especially given the $250 price tag.

RIG 900 Max HX Review: Battery Life

One area where the headset shines is in the battery life department. It’s by no means the longest-lasting battery of any headset. However, I could easily get upwards of 50 hours out of it before needing to plug it in. Which for me is about a week’s worth of usage. This battery life is consistent as well. Some of the other headsets I’ve tested are lucky to last for 30 hours. So RIG is really stepping it up here with the battery longevity.

That being said, you can make it so you never have to worry about battery life. All you have to do is simply remember to place it on the base station when you’re done. At 50 hours of battery consistently, you’re probably never going to go through the battery and drain it all the way in one sitting. So, at the end of your gaming session, just place it on the base station. Half of its intended use is to give you a place to park the headset when you’re not using it. It serves as a display piece and a way to charge the headset.

Then by the next time you pick it up to play, the battery will no doubt be fully charged. You might be able to kill the battery if you use this while away from home. At this point, it’s nice to know that you won’t need to plug it in for 50 hours. But in almost every other scenario you’ll never really worry about whether it’s fully charged or not. Or if it’s going to shut off on you in the middle of a session. Because you can use the base station. It’s a neat little luxury that not many headsets offer.

RIG 900 Max HX Review: Sound Customization via the App

Just like with the RIG 600 Pro you get a bit of sound customization here thanks to the RIG 900 Navigator app. The app is also how you’ll initiate software updates to the headset when they’re available. So be sure to check in on it regularly just in case. The nice thing about this being a mobile app is that any sound adjustments you make will translate to mobile use. If customization was through PC software you would generally only get those adjustments on PC.

With the Navigator app you can tweak quite a few things including microphone gain. This is where you’ll turn if you want to amplify the sound of your voice to make it sound louder if you come across as a little quieter than you wanted. You can even turn on mic monitoring so you can see how you sound. I used this for testing during the initial setup since I was having issues with the 600 Pro being too quiet for people I was talking to. I usually leave this off since I don’t want to hear myself speaking. But it comes in handy when you want to test the level of your voice before hopping into a chat.

There’s also an EQ tab for honing in on a personalized sound profile for your games or other entertainment. A lot of the time I just used the preset FPS setting that’s in the app as this sounded the best to me. But you can set up your own profiles if you want to and adjust the EQ manually.

Or you can select a preset and then drag the EQ points around to your liking. The one downside to the app is that you have to be using the headset in Bluetooth mode to use the app. This means if you want to customize the audio in any way before playing a game, you’ll need to connect the headset to the phone with Bluetooth and adjust the audio first. Even if you have the headset in Dual Mode the app won’t recognize the headset. This is another minor thing that won’t be a deal breaker. But it is odd and kind of a hassle if you use the app. More so if you swap between sound profiles from game to game.

Should You Buy The RIG 900 Max HX?

While I don’t love this headset, the main reason for that is that there’s just some tough competition out there for it. $250 is not cheap for a gaming headset. And when you’re spending that kind of money, you want to be sure you’re going to love what you buy. That being said, I can still easily recommend this for multiple reasons. For one, the base station it comes with is a nice thing to have. Not many gaming headsets have these. You can for example find it with the Astro A50 but you’ll typically need to spend $299 for those. And you’ll spend even more if you go for the Astro A50 X.

With the RIG 900 Max HX you get the base station for less money. And if you hate plugging in your headset or swapping out batteries, the base station eliminates the need for either. The Dolby Atmos is also an excellent audio enhancement for any games you’re playing. At the end of the day, the RIG 900 Max HX is a solid gaming headset that is worth the money spent. It isn’t the only option out there in this price range. But it certainly sets itself apart. And anyone who buys it shouldn’t be disappointed.

You should buy the RIG 900 Max HX if:

You want great quality sound with Dolby Atmos support and lifetime access to the feature

The charging base station is something you want

A durable headset is important

You shouldn’t buy the RIG 900 Max HX if:

True simultaneous audio source mixing is something you’re looking for

You want a best-in-class microphone

You want something with more features