Premium sound quality for an affordable price
Cyrus soundKey PC Gamer Edition instantly upgrades the audio output from your PC, Mac or mobile device, producing enhanced clarity, tonal neutrality and precision.
Essentially a USB connected external soundcard, soundKey incorporates high-resolution DACs (Digital to Analogue converters) and amplifiers, developed by Cyrus — a world-renowned leader in the field of high-fidelity audio.
When used with analogue gaming headsets connected via a 3.5mm audio jack, the improvement in sound quality within the gaming environment is impressive. Gamers will experience enhanced clarity of footsteps, reloads and other audio cues. When used for listening to music services, soundKey is nothing short of remarkable.
Drawing power from USB, the soundKey is free of the need for internal batteries or recharging.
soundKey is supplied with cables for connection to most computers and headsets connecting via a 3.5mm audio jack. soundKey works with wired headsets, both with and without microphones.
Small but powerful
Cyrus’ gaming version of the soundKey weighs only 18g, yet delivers a transformative listening experience.
Laptop or desktop PCs generally suffer from poor sound quality (even high-end PCs!) due to quality of the components used in their audio circuits, but also because of the high-levels of electromagnetic interference within any PC case. Even when higher quality components are used, this system noise seriously degrades their actual performance.
SoundKey solves all these issues. The robust aluminium casing, coupled with the fact it sits several inches from the main power circuits on a PC, provides excellent isolation from the noisy inductive effects of the PC. Our designers not only use premium quality components, we carefully calibrate the position of each micro-component on the circuit board to minimise the effects of magnetic interference.
The result is a startlingly clear and precise sound. You may not even have realised how badly your audio was compromised, yet through any reasonable quality headset, the difference will ensure you never want to go back to ‘average sound’.
Bring the battlefield into your headset
We released soundKey in late 2017, the award-winning revolution mobile sound card received an overwhelmingly positive reaction from our customers and press. Notably, winning a prestigious ‘Best Buy’ award from What Hi-Fi?
At Cyrus, many of our engineers are gamers themselves. As we developed soundKey, it quickly became apparent that improvements to audio quality were even more pronounced on PCs than they were through mobile devices.
Introducing gaming soundKey, a sleek: lightweight, mobile gaming centred DAC that transports you right into the battlefield. Giving your game the audiophile treatment improves your perception of space and helps locate enemies from the subtle audio cues that would usually be lost in the mix.
How do I use it an what can I really expect?
SoundKey comes with a USB umbilical, which plugs into any USB port on your PC. (We can also supply other cables which allow soundKey to be also used with your mobile phone or tablet).
soundKey has a single 3.5mm audio socket which you can connect any headset, gaming or otherwise to.
Some PC gaming headsets have a single 3.5mm jack, some have two audio jacks. If your headset has a single jack, we provide in the box a splitter cable, which enables you to connect the microphone separately to the PC. This is a special cable to prevent noisy interference from the PC.
Once connected, you can enjoy incredible stereo sound, or install one of the aftermarkets ‘surround sound’ drivers onto your PC for brilliantly precise full surround — even through a stereo headset.
How is soundKey different to other external sound cards?
Many traditional PC accessory manufacturers offer external sound cards, but there’s a world of difference with soundKey. Although careful circuit design and quality of components is essential for great sound, it doesn’t end there.
Class leading ‘DACs’ (or Digital to Analogue converter) have hundreds of customisable characteristics, which mean that even using the exact same component, you can develop products that sound radically different.
We have over 30 years of experience in producing some of the most highly acclaimed audio products, and this experience has been fully brought to bear in the development of soundKey.
It’s no accident that our products sound better.
Try it for yourself.
Experience Unlocked
If you game on mobile as well as your PC. If you love listening to music on the move, no problem.
We offer upgrade connection options for a variety of mobile devices, using micro USB, OTG and USB C connectors. Simply replace the USB umbilical with one of our alternate connectors and you’re up and running — no drivers, no software, no installation — just unbelievable sound.
Our Thoughts
So we were lucky enough to have been sent a sample to test, hearing high praises from the audio community, we had to test it ourselves.
I’ve been using it plugged into my desktop computer system, from which I have been using the built-in soundcard since it’s inception.
How much of a difference could this little unit really make?
After plugging it into my speakers and then into the audio port of my computer, it auto configured and was running within 10 seconds.
The first test was with my Spotify playlist of Top Hits, OH MY GOD, I was blown away. The depth and clarity in comparison to my standard audio situation was night and day.
Mids and Highs were crystal clear and singing like heavenly harps, while the bass had more definition, less blooming and fit alongside it’s peers with utter perfection.
This was more than I imagined something of such small but precise build could provide. Really is a game changer for those of us in the consumer world.
Next up I turned to YouTube and Netflix, which consumes a lot of my time and audio experience in this digital consumer age.
Even these had a noticeable difference upon viewing, the noise floor was non-existent, dialogue was pronounced, effects were layered, it was like I was listening to a different version of the same videos than previously.
As an avid gamer, I do understand that sound is important in a gaming environment, surround sound and good quality is needed, especially for those in the competitive gaming scene.
So I started up a few of my favourite games, specifically PUBG, League of Legends and Insurgency: Sandstorm, as these offer a good variety of effects and positional audio.
With the added clarity and clean audio, I could easily hear peoples footsteps nearby, gunshots echoing in the distance, position based attacks that were coming my way.
This is stuff I didn’t really get to utilise as easily with my old basic card, so being able to easily identify these noises really helped improve my gaming experience and even performance.
From bullets whizzing past my virtual head, to lasers charging up, the crunch of fresh foliage of a nearby rival, it immersed be deeper and gave me an edge on the competition.
You don’t realise how much of a difference high quality audio can really provide, my mind set was always ‘This is sufficient,’ as I had never heard this type of audio quality in a suitable price range.
However after hearing the soundKey, all of that has changed, everyone SHOULD be hearing their audio content in this resolution, with this impeccable clarity.
Overall, the soundKey really has changed my viewing on what is acceptable audio quality and how we should be diving into digital audio content.
Absolutely recommend the Cyrus soundKey PC Gaming Edition for anyone looking to improve their gaming or just explore and enjoy their digital content more.
Priced at £99.99, honestly it’s a bargain, you would be looking at much more expensive alternatives to get this type of sound. Go grab yourself one today!
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON — https://amzn.to/2AAxX3z
If you use any Amazon links on this review, they are Amazon affiliate links that help the magazine by us getting a small fee from Amazon for referring you.
Costs you nothing at all and doesn’t impede your shopping.
