Nacon R5 MAX HD Wired Headphones – What a Difference a Small Package Makes

[UPDATE: Nacon clarified that the 40mm Graphene drivers are different from those featured in the R5 Pro as indicated below.]

For years, my regular assortment of gaming headsets around the office has either been adorned with Razer’s signature green and black colors, with the occasional headset from Steelseries stands out among the competition (I use their Arctis Nova Pro Wireless every single day for my day job, thanks in part to its swappable battery system). What most of those headsets have had in common is a wireless form factor that’s easy to move about the office without dropping a note. It takes something special for me to want to give up the convenience of wireless audio, and I feel that Nacon has truly come up with something that’s going to change the game with the RIG R5 MAX HD while feeling familiar to those who have already used their headsets in the past.

Nacon’s RIG lineup has been around for years and has been known by a few different names throughout the years, but fully became under the Nacon umbrella around 2020, right around the time when Plantronics was exiting the consumer/gaming space and reformed as Poly to focus on the business and enterprise headsets. This helped cement the RIG line almost solely in the gaming space for everyone, from kids shopping for a new headset to esports teams competing on the world stage. No matter your budget, there was a RIG headset that I would readily recommend while working at Gamestop, above Turtle Beach headsets, frequently at twice the price with half the durability. 

When Nacon offered me the opportunity to get a sneak peek at their latest headset, I was curious to see just what they meant by wanting to prove that they were “built different”. Their latest product, the RIG R5 MAX HD, packages their $70 R5 SPEAR PRO with all of its bells and whistles, along with a more modular design and external USB-C DAC.

Just as the original RIG R5 headset included in the design, the RIG R5 MAX HD also features the same-sized 40mm graphene drivers (branded as GrapheneQ from ORA) but with one major distinction: while the RIG R5 Pro features Mylar drivers that have been coated in Graphene, the RIG R5 Max instead features 95% pure Graphene drivers. Nacon markets these drivers as using >95% pure graphene to help deliver richer audio with less distortion that you would hear from your average drivers that muddle the listening experience. The proof here is in the listening experience with the audio drivers able to handle a rich soundscape with layered audio sounding its best when running through the DAC, which makes this a complete package. Songs with a prominent bassline still have a noticeable thump to the audio without either overpowering or being overpowered by the higher ranges. Even with the DAC, you won’t be feeling any thumping bass or heavy explosions here like you would on something like Razer’s Sensa HD lineup, but instead a low end that functions as it should, thanks in part to Dolby Atmos for Headphones. Hearing a shot from miles away in Call of Duty Warzone still sounds as it should, and the positional audio helps players pinpoint direction even amidst comms chatter or background noise.

The included DAC, or Digital-to-Analog Converter, helps the R5 MAX HD sound its best across a variety of platforms that could benefit from a wired audio connection. Bundled inside the DAC is an amplifier that helps boost the audio signal with a total power of 30mW at 32 ohms and 32-bit/384kHz sample rates. This minuscule four-inch device also packs in both an AUX input to mix in a second source as well as an 18W power charge passthrough to keep your mobile device running during those six-hour sessions of Arknights Endfield. The USB power is isolated ot the point that you won’t see much impact to the audio fidelity.

A modular design was what the original RIG R5 series brought to the table, and Nacon has kept its simple design intact here with the R5 MAX HD. All but the headband itself feature a Snap+Lock design, so players get access to swappable ear cushions, exterior plates (Nacon provides .stl files if you would like to 3D print your own pair), and studio cable. There still aren’t a lot of options for players to get replacements directly from Nacon, currently limited to half a dozen designs available in either white or black colorway, and a single option for replacement ear cushions. After about a month of regular use, the fabric stitching on the ear cushions already started to feature a small bit of wear from rubbing against the arms of my glasses, but it was nothing significant. If nothing else, I would love to see some sort of cooling gel options that can support wearing glasses, as some of their contemporaries on the market offer (of course, the magnetic design here makes it so much simpler to swap the component out versus the competition). There’s also a pair of audio cables included that also take full advantage of the modular design: a 1.5-meter cable with a microphone attachment or a full 2-meter cable if you want to run these headphones without. Depending on your ideal setup, you can swap the cabling between the left and right earcups, and there’s no audio degradation if you prefer one side over the other.

The microphone is a serviceable addition to the headset, as I’m sure most gamers wouldn’t want to purchase a set of headphones that would not include one in the package. With its unidirectional design and a claimed frequency response of 50 Hz - 15 kHz, it’s one of the more average additions to the package. For one, it came through incredibly quiet, even when boosted to its highest setting, and I was frequently told that it sounded a bit tinny when using it for telecommunications. If you have the capabilities in your setup, I would recommend sticking with the full-length 2-meter cable here and leaving the audio input to a free-standing microphone instead if you want to make the most of the audio fidelity. 

To get the most out of Nacon’s R5 MAX HD, you’re going to want to run these on a platform that fully supports USB-C audio, and preferably, a Windows machine to get access to Dolby Atmos. For mobile phone usage, obviously, you’ll want to take advantage of the USB-C DAC since nearly every other cell phone maker has abandoned the 3.5mm headphone jack unless you’re REDMAGIC. Ditching the DAC turns these headphones into just an average set of headphones with layered audio tracks, feeling isolated and sharp piano high notes instead of simply blending into the warmth of the audio, as I noticed when listening to one of my favorite albums of all time.

For a complete package, Nacon’s RIG R5 MAX HD takes what was an average $70 headset and elevates it with a refreshed modular design and external audio DAC to truly get the most out of the GrapheneQ drivers. While the package itself is more than twice what the R5 Spear Pro’s cost on their own, what you get on offer here is something that elevates a perfectly fine budget headset into something you’ll want to reach for over your wireless headsets.

[Editor's Note: The Nacon RIG R5 MAX HD Wired Headset was provided by the hardware manufacturer for editorial purposes.]

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