Gravastar Sirius Wireless Gaming Earbuds Review: Thumbs Up For Movies And Games, Thumbs Down For Music

TL;DR

These earbuds are comfortable and sound good when playing games or watching movies, but they’re underwhelming when listening to music.

Intro

I’ve reviewed a lot of True Wireless Earbuds, but Gaming Earbuds are something new to me. They are a relatively new subset of TWS earphones, usually with DSP-enhanced low-latency modes. The low-latency option allows you to watch movies or play games without the lag usually present in Bluetooth earbuds.

Additionally, some gaming earbuds have DSP-based surround sound modes that enhance the spatiality of the game, making everything sound immense and more immersive. This, in turn, lets you better hear gaming cues like footsteps and such.

I mainly cover earphones from an audiophile point of view, meaning I put music reproduction first. That’s why I don’t cover a lot of headphones that are marketed primarily toward gamers. However, I’ll take a look if a product is also advertised to have good music performance, like these gaming headphones from Audeze.

For this reason, I’m checking out the Sirius Wireless Earbuds ($89), a new pair of true wireless earbuds from Gravastar, a company that manufactures Sci-Fi themed hi-fi gear.

The Sirius Earbuds are marketed as wireless earphones for gamers with a futuristic design that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. However, as mentioned above, they also have DSP surround effects for music and movies, plus low-latency playback.

Furthermore, they’re advertised to perform well when playing music, possessing “clear, natural vocals and a deep bass.” On paper, it looks like you get a lot for the money, so I’m excited to put the Sirius earbuds through their paces. Are they as good as advertised? Read on, and I’ll give you the scoop!

Disclaimer: The Sirius Wireless Earbuds were sent to us by the manufacturer in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Build/Features

As I said before, since the Gravastar Sirius Wireless Earbuds are primarily marketed to gamers, the design is futuristic, looking like a device out of your favorite sci-fi game. I could see the Master Chief in HALO communicating to his base using a pair of these.

That said, the Zinc-alloy charging case feels substantial enough to take on an outer space adventure, and the button-activated metal clasp that holds the earbuds in also seems industrial strength. On the other hand, I would’ve preferred a fully enclosed case to keep the dust and grime out, but maybe I’m too much of a clean freak.

I also didn’t like how hard it was to get the earbuds out of the case. Maybe it’s just me, but I found them to be seated just a little too deeply, which made it difficult to grasp the angled tops of the buds with my fingers. However, my fat fingers could also be the blame.

Once I got the buds out, I found their compact rounded shape and thick oval ear tips made the earbuds very comfortable to wear, which was nice. They’re also IPX5 rated for sweat and water resistance.

Built into each bud is a little LED light on the top, which provides connection and charging status. The top panel is a touch-sensitive surface to control playback, phone functions, virtual assistants, and audio modes. Nice, clear voice prompts also assist with the operation.

There are three available audio modes, including a Game mode, which provides low latency virtual surround sound. The other two are Movie mode which provides an upscaled surround sound for cinematic effect, and Music Mode, which is your basic stereo sound. There are no Active Noise Cancelling or Transparency modes.

I found the touch controls on the earbuds to be both responsive and intuitive for the most part.

The only thing I had problems controlling was the switch between Music, Game, or Movie modes, which required a triple press on either the left or right bud. In addition, it was hard for me to get the timing right when tapping, so I usually ended up stopping playback or skipping a track most of the time.

Bluetooth 5.2 is onboard for quick and stable connections; each bud can connect independently to the source. As far as BT audio codecs are concerned, I didn’t see any listed spec, but I was able to utilize AAC and SBC with my devices.

Battery life is rated at 4 hours per charge, a little below average but not horrible. The charging case provides three additional charges before you have to recharge it.

In the box, you get a mini USB-C charging cable, three different sizes of spare silicone ear tips, and a chain necklace for hanging the charging case around your neck (weird).

Sound

For my sound tests, I connected the Sirius Wireless Earbuds to my Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra phone and played music, games, and movies to test the various sound modes.

Starting with the Music mode, I have to say I was a little underwhelmed. While the marketing materials talked about “clear, natural vocals and a deep bass,” I mainly heard deep bass, which bled into the midrange and made it sound somewhat muddy. Then, the highs/upper mids were elevated, so they sounded sharp on certain music. The mids were also pretty recessed, which gave the music a “scooped out” sound. I found the whole presentation somewhat thick and bloated, which didn’t sound natural.

I thought the music sounded better in Movie mode, as the midrange was more transparent, making voices clearer, but then the bass was even more elevated, which was distracting.

On the other hand, I did like how it sounded with actual movies, as the surround effect was pretty convincing. Voices could’ve been more intelligible, but the audio and video were in perfect sync, and I could clearly hear effects moving around the soundstage. I also enjoyed how the Sirius enhanced the explosions, making the buds sound like a little movie theater. The movie mode was decent.

Next, I moved on to Game mode, and this is where the Sirius Earbuds shined. I played some FPS games on my phone, and the surround DSP was remarkably immersive. It sounded like I had full-sized headphones on, and I could hear everything happening around me.

In one game I played, a helicopter flew behind me, and it sounded amazingly realistic. So I turned my character around, and I could hear some footsteps off to the left side. The enemy soldiers jumped from the helicopter, coming to get me!

I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that a pair of gaming headphones did so well at reproducing game sounds, but the experience in Game mode was so far ahead of the other two modes that it took me by surprise.

The Wrap Up

In conclusion, I have to say that I wouldn’t buy the Gravastar Sirius Wireless Earbuds to listen to music with. They just don’t have enough clarity or balance for that. However, if you’re looking for a cool-looking, inexpensive pair of wireless earbuds to watch movies or (especially) play games with, I can recommend them for that.

The Game Mode experience was excellent, plus the earbuds are well built and comfortable to wear. Unfortunately, it’s always been hard to make headphones tailored to sound suitable for gaming sound good with music, and Sirius is just another example.

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