Roccat is a name we are hearing more and more in the world of audio, and this is partly because they are a subsidiary of Turtle Beach, but also because they bring the big guns and really try to push the envelope with their range of products. With that firmly in mind, I was sent a set of Syn Buds Core to review that definitely fit themselves into an oddly niched pigeon hole.

These days you get wired headsets free with your phones, but you never get one with a console anymore, not since the odd mono one you get in brand spanking new PS4 console boxes, but even then why you would want a mono thing dangling out of your head is anyone guess. Roccat provides a virtually inexpensive method for adding personal audio to your 3.5mm laden devices for just £19.99, with the caveat that, yes, you need to have a 3.5mm jack to hand. Personally, as an iPhone user, I haven't had the pleasure of a native 3.5mm socket since the iPhone 6S, and so I have to rely on remembering a dongle to convert the Lightning socket to 3.5mm should I choose to bin off my Bluetooth options in favour of hardwired sound.

Technical Specifications:

• 10mm driver units
• Nintendo Switch™ ready
• 3.5mm jack
• High-quality silicone ear tips in S, M & L
• In-line audio controls
• Cloth carry case
• 2-year manufacturer warranty
• Speaker Frequency Response: 20Hz – 20kHz
• Speaker Size: 10mm with Neodymium Magnets
• Inline Controls: Master Volume Control, and Multifunction Button (on supported devices)
• Microphone Design: Built-in In-line Microphone
• Headphone Design: In-Ear Headphones

Once the Roccat Syn Buds Core are inserted into both your device and your ears, it's a pretty standard affair of adjusting the volume to suit your needs and giving them a ruddy good testfire; or so I thought. As described on their website this device is equipped with: "In-Line audio controls" and is "Nintendo Switch ready", but further to their description they also state that "In-line controls work great with compatible Android devices". This was pretty much somewhat of an eye-opening moment for me with these earbuds, purely because firstly I'm an iSheep, and secondly, I'm an owner of the Nintendo Switch and to not be able to use the volume controls on either was like being told you can live in an Air-rich environment, but you can't breathe it unless you have a certain haircut. It surely makes little to no sense to advertise this without specifying that it is an Android-centric set of earbuds first and foremost? Secondly to this, aren't all 3.5mm earphones intrinsically "Nintendo Switch and mobile gaming ready"? I suppose it's just the sound quality delivered by the 10mm drivers that elevate it to "gaming quality" from any other £5-10 set of wired headphones? When plugged into an Android device they work perfectly, as you would have expected, but on iDevices, only the central button operates to invoke your digital assistant, and on Nintendo Switch; not one of these buttons does a single thing.

That said I experimented with a selection of wired headphones in my Switch and noted that indeed NONE of them worked with inline controls, however, headphones with volume wheels muted the cups and not the system so, therefore, could be adjusted from the peripheral rather than the system. Further to this I tested a couple of headsets on my iPhone 12 Pro Max and noticed that only official wired headsets adjusted the volume for me using the inline controls, and on my older devices when connected to the phone directly with a 3.5mm jack and not using an MFI certified adaptor. With how infrequently I used wired headphones, I noticed that this information needs to be more widespread, there aren't many places that explicitly say "inline controls work with all devices" perhaps because of cheeky first-party lookout mechanisms, or perhaps because of the tight component cost-vs-margin requirements of production. The fact that headphones aren't effectively universal is a shock to my system, and knowing that you cannot use third-party wired peripherals to change the volume is a very strange thing to have to consider when making a purchase because it's freaking 2022 people!

Moving past this I gave the buds a real workout with my standard playlist and was pleasantly surprised at the depth of sound and vibrancy these 10mm drivers deliver. The sound reproduction is, in my opinion, exquisite with bass-thumping, clear instrumental definition, and vocal tones shining through no matter what the genre. In testing on consoles, namely the Nintendo Switch and the PS5 via the DualSense controller: I found the sound to be extremely lively and highly detailed with no crushing of sounds and no distortion to audio which was nice. The overall profile is bass-heavy but pleasingly clean and rather vibrant when listening to in-game sound effects such as weather and rumbling of tyres etc.

The design of the buds is questionably retro-futuristic, and what I mean by this is that this is perhaps how someone in the 80's thought tech would look in 202X, so the resulting aesthetic for the inline remote is heavily cubed-off matte plastic with simple parallel ribbed lines over it all. The buds themselves are smooth cubes of plastic with a small inlaid logo emblazoning your ears with the Roccat emblem, and ridged casing for the cable connections. The cables are smooth and apparently anti-tangle however, with just minor usage I managed to tangle them up insanely well to a point that I actually did a double-take that "anti-tangle" was even a listed feature on the site.

Naturally, these buds isolate sound in your ears and block lower-pitched external sounds with ease giving you a rather nice experience throughout; when typing I can barely hear the clatter of keys which is a nice added benefit of owning these without shelling out a heap for ANC that rarely does any better than these do by simply filling your ear canal with rubber.

Overall, these earbuds are a relatively good price for excellent sound quality and a decent fit in your ear canal, thanks to the three supplied alternately sized tips. With little to no fatigue whilst wearing them and a decently loud profile combined with high fidelity sound reproduction, these buds are definitely one to recommend, especially if you are an avid Android user who doesn't want to opt for wire-free Bluetooth headsets. Any potential purchasers should be aware that though compatible with any 3.5mm device and while touted as Switch compatible, as any 3.5mm headset will be, they do come with the caveat that the inline buttons simply do nothing unless in use exclusively on an Android device.