Zalman ZM-RS6F USB

Zalman’s ZM-RS6F USB headphones come packaged in a unique dome container. The cables and documentation are stored away along with the manual and driver CD (shown below), however it is possible to see the headphones very easily. On the underside of the box are various details and overall this package gives the consumer an excellent understanding of the product within.

The first thing which should be noticeable about the Zalman ZM-RS6F USB  is that the headset does not connect to a standard set of 3.5mm jacks, this is purely a USB product.

Further up the 7.9ft cable there is a small box, externally this has two functions, the first is the volume control and the second is a small activity LED which flashes as the product is used.

The most interesting technology is found within this little box and that is a fully functional soundcard. Based on the C-Media’s CM6206 chipset, this is a 5.1 channel soundcard which features a 16bit, 44.1 kHz (48 kHz compatible) sampling rate.

The headset is reasonably heavy (386.6g) and features a large padded headband with extendable length. As shown in the pictures, the earpieces are able to rotate and that combined with the folding headband allows the ZM-RS6F USB to become compact, ideal for travelling.

The earpieces feature a padded lining which completely encloses the user’s ear and within this the speakers are covered by a thin layer of fabric. The frequency response of this product is 50Hz-20 kHz with impedance of 16Ohm at 1 kHz with the centre speakers actually being 32Ohm at 1 kHz. The sound level is rated at 89dB at 1 kHz.

As the Zalman ZM-RS6F USB has an inbuilt soundcard this means that drivers are required, Zalman provide both XP and Vista drivers on the CD bundled with the card and we had no trouble installing them, in fact the headset was recognised by default in Vista and a more generic driver used to begin with.