Asus ROG Fusion II 500

The ASUS ROG Fusion II 500 is a great gaming headset, offering excellent build quality and crisp and clear audio. Fantastic compatibility means you can use it with virtually any device, taking virtual surroundings to another level. Excessive plastic frame makes it feel a bit cheaper and with its microphone sound cancellation better, you’ll be better off with an external boom mic. Disease Fusion II 500 is also quite expensive, making it an option only for those who have a more generous budget.

Introduction

The Asus ROG Fusion II 500 is the brand’s latest wired gaming headset and is designed with audiofile-level gamers in mind.

It has some sharp audio features, high-race audio support and is also quite good looking, courtesy of its 50mm driver.

At 9 179, it’s quite an expensive headset, but with an array of features, can the Fusion II 500 justify that price?

Design and features

• Strong build quality but extremely plastic frame
• Fine but sharp RGB light
• Lots of on-board media control

In recent years the design of gaming headsets has tended to be more concise and has featured the portrait of the Asus ROG Fusion II 500. There is no doubt that this is a great looking headset, which presents a nice mix of smooth curves and sharp edges in the ear cups.

For its construction, the Fusion II 500 is quite well made, although unlike other headsets, it can feel a bit plastic. Perhaps the addition of some more metals will help make the Fusion II 500 feel more premium. Nevertheless, the plastic used is hard-wearing and smooth to the touch, and overall decent.

You can get some RGB lights here, but it follows the overall short vibration of the headset. It comes in the form of a pair of strips that line the ear cups of the headset, which (by default) rotates through the color spectrum. This can be changed with Asus’s intuitive Armory Crate software – and all in all, the aura lighting here really does look smart.

There is a decent amount of padding around the ear cups and a small leather strip on the headband. All of this, combined with the 310g weight, makes the Fusion II a comfortable headset for long wear and also allows the unit to offer some bright passive sound isolation.

If you want to exchange bundled protein leather ear cups for another set, Asus has been generous enough to drop the second pair in the box; They’re making a more breathable foam mesh. Personally, I like these on the test, even if the leather stuff feels a little plush.

With the bottom of the Fusion II 500 appearing as a one-stop-shop for all of them, you’ll also get more multimedia controls than you can handle with a stick. On the left is a 3.5mm port for phone connection and USB-C cable for connection to console and PC, along with a volume roller, surround sound toggle and mic mute button. The other side favors you with a device selector switch and a dial that lets you balance game and speech audio, as you can with the Spotify app on Xbox consoles, a simple addition.

For compatibility, the bundled USB-C cable, with a 3.5mm cable and USB-A to USB-A adapter, the Fusion II 500 is said to work with virtually anything – be it a PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, or Nintendo. Connecting the switch headset to my PC or Series X was a doodle and it worked absolutely fine.

Sound and mic quality

• Crisp and sharp audio with a bright sound stage
• The sound of the virtual surroundings adds more immersion
• Mike is good at canceling AI noise but subpar without it

Of course, it’s nice to have a headset that shows the part, but if it’s not good then you have some stuff. Okay, I’m happy to report that the ROG Fusion II 500 sounds great.

Its 50mm drivers ensure the audio is nicely crisp and clear with a balanced middle and height. Even without the noise around it, this headset has a nice low-end roar to remind you that it has some extra power. The balanced audio makes the Fusion II 500 rather agile, the headset responds well to any game sound or music I throw at it – whether it’s the crushing guitar of the Percupine Tree’s Blackest Ice, or the piano and vocals of Paul McCartney’s English T. .

The Fusion II 500 Virtual 7.1 comes with surround sound that can be toggled with the bottom switch on the headset or through Armory Crate software. In my experience, mentioning the sound label around 7.1 in a headset box is usually a tactic, with little difference from the actual audio following.

With Fusion II, however, it makes a pronounced difference. Your sense of placement must have been higher, for example, CS: GO makes it easier to identify where your enemies are hiding. For musical performance, turning on the surrounding sound can result in that thumping bass, although it presents a stable-balanced middle and height with enough subtlety to override or drown.

The inclusion of Armory Crate software opens up many more audio-based paths for you to explore with the Fusion II 500, including a base boost and another function to increase vocal clarity. You can even add some reverb to the audio, which I haven’t seen in gaming software before.

You’ll also notice that unlike many other gaming headsets, the Fusion II 500 does not have a pronounced and detachable boom mic. This is because the functionality sits inside the headset, using Asus called ‘AI Beamforming Microphones’ which features some interesting AI noise-canceling technology.

What this translates to is some decent pick-up with good clarity that can also eliminate common annoyances when chatting with friends, be it a clicky keyboard or otherwise. It’s not going to cancel everything – and even when it’s off, the mic takes up enough background noise.