Pimax Crystal review after 6 months.
Posted By: CSOCSO-FI on r/pimax
Review
It’s been around 6 months since I received my Crystal.Yall might have seen a review or two from me ranting about the hate-love relationship I had with this headset. TLDR: I haven’t had any “major” issues for a while now and as of now I am pretty happy with the headset but it wasn’t always like this. I will also tell you guys about all the mods I have done so If you want, keep reading.
• The first issue I had was comfort. I would say %90 of this issue was fixed by the Apache comfort strap. ( I just call it an “H strap”) I also feel like for better eye comfort I needed a thicker face pad. I did get one and it shrinks the FOV by a few degrees but not bad at all. I did change back to the original one but sometimes after playing for hours, I do feel like pulling the headset away from my head feels better for my eyes. Just by a few millimeters… but for now, I am staying with the original headset.
• I also wanted to use my own audio headset but it’s hard to fit over or under the headset. Yes… I tried to remove the speakers. I wish there was a better way to control volume. It would be awesome If I could control game volume and chat volume separately and maaaaybe if we could have an easy-to-reach and easy-to-find mute button so when I need to talk to my family or sneeze or get a call I could just easily mute. I did end up using the original pimax audio. I bought some cushions for Skullcandy Hesh which fits right over these pimax speakers ( got them from wicked cushions) Just make a slit in the back of the cushion fabric and slide it right over the speakers. Does not make a huge difference tho but I like it.
• Throughout the months a lot of things were patched up / fixed and released. Not all things are completely perfect but they work pretty well. I rarely have any issues with controller tracking. Some people complain about audio latency. Luckily it does not bother me much. I don’t play beat games. We have eye tracking now and whatnot which works for me but I feel like I need to recalibrate it every single time I start the headset ( 10 second process… max 15) Dynamic foveated rendering works but I wish we could manually adjust ring sizes and resolution to achieve even better performance.
• Still have chromatic aberration but I got over it, mostly… Wish it was fixed, obviously!
• Changing the battery was a pain at first but once you realize you gotta unclick 1 side at a time and not both at the same time it was actually super easy. Unfortunately, the hot swap did NOT work for me.
• With the USB hub I always had connection issues. Without usb hub I had zero issues with connecting to the headset. I was told to use the usb hub but it helps with the power and hot swap. I don’t think I got more battery time using the usb hub. Ended up buying a 100w wall charger and cable. Cost me close to $100 and all I had were issues. Charger never wanted to work. ( It had a little screen to show me power consumption.) I was told I bought the wrong ones so I got these:cable
chargerAfter trying these I still had an issue. Then on discord I was told I was not supposed to use the usb 2 cable if I tried to do the “infinite power hack” and now I had to follow a full unplug - replug sequence to initiate the correct “handshake” between the charger and the headset. Finally it all worked and still working. I do have to unconnect the cable when I turn off the headset otherwise it will stuck in a restart loop. Not a biggie. Haven’t seen a low power warning since 
• Oh… I also got this to secure the cable(s) to my desk’s leg since I did not want to use a ceiling-mounted apparatus. Just put 3-4 together. zip tie the bottom one to the leg at the top and the bottom and this thing is suuuuuper flexible and awesome. i can also easily unhook the cables or unscrew the top 2-3 parts leaving the zip tied one as is so it won’t be in the way.I mostly play seated to be honest. This is PERFECT for sim racing and seated playing. I would say probably better than trying to mess with ceiling mounts.
• Can’t think of anything else right now. I really enjoyed the headset in the past months without any issues, really. If I bought the headset today I would probably have an easier time telling everyone to get one right away. If I had a friend who bought one I am sure he would have a lot easier time and more fun if I was there to help out, explain stuff and teach the tricks. I really hope anyone who buys these nowadays doesn’t have such frustrating times as some of us had after the release.
• I need a freaking 4090… or 5090. lmao. 4090 is still suuuuuper super expensive. I have a hard time getting 90fps in Asetto even at 0.75 render resolution using dynamic foveated rendering. It looks super choppy when fps falls down to 50-60. When I play on racetracks (without traffic) I can set it to render resolution x1 and game looks sooooooo good. ( btw I have a 3080ti)
Thanks for reading, Peace.
Source r/pimax