HyperX Cloud Alpha Air Review: Open-back and budget-friendly

HyperX has decided to toss its hat in the ring of open-back gaming headsets with its newest, the Cloud Alpha Air. It's definitely not the first open-back headset we've seen in the past few years — others include the $200 Corsair Virtuoso Pro, the $180 Turtle Beach Atlas Air, and, of course, the $900 Audeze LCD-GX. The Cloud Alpha Air is at least somewhat budget-friendly at just $149.99.

The Cloud Alpha Air is a wired over-ear open-back gaming headset designed for comfort and immersion. It features dynamic 40mm drivers with a frequency response range of 20 - 20,000 Hz and a special "HyperX Bass Tube" to keep the low end present without compromising the open-back design. And, like other HyperX headsets (which are some of the best gaming headsets we've tested), it's extremely lightweight and easy to wear for hours at a time.

Design and Comfort of the Cloud Alpha Air

The Cloud Alpha Air is a wired over-ear (circumaural) open-back headset with a detachable boom microphone. It has large, plastic oval-shaped earcups with metal grilles attached to a padded steel headband. It's a fairly lightweight headset — HyperX has its weight listed at 9.6 ounces (272g) without the boom mic attached (the boom mic is listed at approximately 0.42 ounces / 12g), but we found the headset weighed closer to 10 ounces (283g) (the boom mic, however, weighed closer to 0.07oz / 2g), and came in at just under 10.6 ounces (300g) with both the boom mic and cables attached. This still makes it one of HyperX's lightest headsets — slightly lighter than the HyperX Cloud Stinger 3 Wireless and Turtle Beach's Atlas Air open-back headset.

The Cloud Alpha Air's earcups are pretty roomy, with thick memory foam padding covered in soft ultrasuede material. The earcups tilt and swivel a little, but they're not as flexible as the earcups on many gaming headsets — and they don't swivel flat. The headset features a steel headband with leatherette-covered padding at the top and metal-reinforced yokes, so that explains the rigidity. The earcups are independently height-adjustable, with about an inch of extension for a maximum inner headband measurement of approximately 12 inches (300mm).

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

I found the Cloud Alpha Air to be very comfortable, despite the headband's relative rigidity, since the whole package is pretty lightweight and well-padded. However, I can see users with larger heads having problems with the top of the headband, as the padding did press on my crown slightly.

This is a wired headset, so there aren't a lot of ports or on-ear controls. The left earcup has two 3.5mm jacks, one for the detachable boom mic and one for the primary audio cable, as well as a microphone mute button, and the right earcup has a volume wheel.

The Cloud Alpha Air is wired, but the wires are detachable, and it comes with everything you need in the box to plug it into various devices. The main cable is a standard 4-foot (1.2m) 3.5mm, and it comes with two extension cables: a 4.5-foot (1.37m) 3.5mm to USB-C extension (with a USB-C to USB-A converter attached) for plugging it into a PC or console, and a 3.5-foot (1m) PC extension cable with separate audio and microphone jacks. That gets you about 8 - 8.5 feet of cable when you're plugged into your PC, which is decent — though I would personally prefer single long cables instead of the extension system, as the extension system means there's a weight (where the cables connect) in the middle. The cables are braided and seem high-quality, if a bit heavy. The headset also comes with its detachable boom microphone in the box, as well as a thick drawstring carrying bag for keeping everything together.

Specs

Audio Performance of the Cloud Alpha Air

The Cloud Alpha Air features dynamic 40mm neodymium drivers, with a frequency response range of 20 - 20,000 Hz (still pretty standard for gaming headsets, despite several companies coming out with premium models that have wider ranges).

Music sounds very good on the Cloud Alpha Air. The headset has a mostly neutral sound profile, with bright, detailed highs, a full, present mid-range, and solid but not overly powerful bass. It definitely has a wider sound stage than its closed-back counterparts, though it's not quite as wide or as open as some open-back headsets (such as the Audeze LCD-GX). Mid-range-heavy songs such as K-931's Lonely World and Enya's Orinoco Flow sounded especially dynamic. The headset has a built-in "HyperX Bass Tube" designed to maintain powerful bass, despite its open-back style. This works decently well — while I still found bass to be more powerful on closed-back headsets such as the Razer BlackShark V3 Pro, the bass was definitely present (and fairly detailed — I could hear the full run of the bass drum in Lorde's Royals).

Games sound even better on the Cloud Alpha Air, thanks to the open-back design. Games with multi-layered audio environments, such as Uncharted 4 and God of War: Ragnarok, really stood out on the headset — I could hear every individual creature in jungles and make out conversations with (possibly unrealistic) clarity in cities. Directional audio was also very good, though I would probably still opt for a closed-back headset for competitive first-person shooters where the direction of footsteps and gunshots is paramount. But you can't beat open-back headsets for exploring an open world (and for being able to hear things happening in the real world).

Microphone of the Cloud Alpha Air

The Cloud Alpha Air has a detachable 10mm boom microphone with a unidirectional polar pattern. It sits at the end of a 3-inch flexible metal gooseneck you can bend toward your mouth for better pickup, and the arm has a small red indicator light near the microphone end that lets you know when it's muted. It's the same microphone found on HyperX's other premium headsets, including the Cloud III S Wireless and the Cloud Alpha 2 Wireless.

The mic performs about as well as expected — it's good for a headset mic, but it's definitely still a headset mic. My voice was clear and full-sounding over both voice chat and in recordings. But the mic's pickup was pretty low by default — for other HyperX headsets I've been able to adjust the gain in its Ngenuity software, but I wasn't able to get Ngenuity to recognize the Cloud Alpha Air (I imagine if it had recognized it, it would have been adjustable, however). Hopefully this is fixed in a software or firmware update soon.

The mic mute button is easy to press, and the indicator light is a nice thought — but it was too low and too dim to be useful to me (I had to keep moving the mic up to see it, which seems like it sort of defeats the purpose of having an unobtrusive indicator light). I also had the same issue I did with the mute mic button on the HyperX Cloud III wired headset, where pressing the mute button caused a noticeable blip in my recordings.

Features and Software of the Cloud Alpha Air

The Cloud Alpha Air is supposed to be configurable with HyperX's Ngenuity peripheral software, which should let you do things such as tune the EQ and adjust the microphone's input gain. But, again, I couldn't get any version of Ngenuity to recognize the Cloud Alpha Air.

Bottom Line

If you've been thinking of getting an open-back gaming headset, the Cloud Alpha Air might be the headset you've been waiting for. As long as you don't mind the wires, it's an excellent headset for the price — it's comfortable, lightweight, and it sounds great whether you're listening to music, watching movies, or gaming. While I couldn't get it to connect to Ngenuity, I honestly don't count that as much of a point against it — peripheral software often causes more headaches than it's worth, especially for a headset that's mostly analog to begin with.