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HyperX has decided to throw its hat into the ring of open-back gaming headsets with its latest, the Cloud Alpha Air. It’s definitely not the first open-back headset we’ve seen in recent years — others include the $200 Corsair Virtuoso Pro$180 Turtle Beach Atlas Airand, of course, $900 Hear the LCD-GX. The Cloud Alpha Air is at least somewhat budget-friendly at just $149.99.
The Cloud Alpha Air is a wired over-ear open-back gaming headset designed for comfort and immersion. It has dynamic 40mm drivers with a frequency response range of 20 – 20,000 Hz and a special “HyperX Bass Tube” to keep the low end present without compromising the open-back design. And, like other HyperX headsets (which some of the best gaming headphones we tested), it’s extremely light and easy to wear for hours at a time.
Design and comfort of the Cloud Alpha Air
The Cloud Alpha Air is a wired over-ear (circumaural) open-back headset with a detachable boom microphone. It has large, plastic oval-shaped ear cups with metal grilles attached to a padded steel headband. It’s a relatively light headset – HyperX listed its weight at 9.6 ounces (272g) without the boom mic attached (the boom mic is listed at about 0.42 ounces / 12g), but we found the headset to weigh closer to 10 ounces (283g) (the boom mic weighs close to /20 oz), but just under 0.20 oz. 10.6 ounces (300g) with both boom mic and cable attached. This still makes it one of HyperX’s lightest headphones – slightly lighter than the HyperX Cloud Stinger 3 Wireless in the Turtle Beach Atlas Air open back headphones.
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The ear cups of the Cloud Alpha Air are quite large, covered with thick memory foam padding and soft ultrasuede material. The earcups tilt and swivel a bit, but they’re not as flexible as the earcups on many gaming headsets — and they don’t spin flat. The headset has a steel headband with leather-covered padding on top and metal-reinforced yoke, thus explaining the rigidity. The ear cups are independently height adjustable, with about an inch of extension for a maximum inner headband measurement of about 12 inches (300mm).
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I found the Cloud Alpha Air very comfortable, despite the relative stiffness of the headband, as the whole package is quite light and well padded. However, I can see users with larger heads having issues with the top of the headband, as the padding pressed slightly on my crown.
This is a wired headphone, so there aren’t many ports or on-ear controls. The left earcup has two 3.5mm jacks, one for the detachable boom mic and one for the primary audio cable, as well as a microphone mute button, and the right earcup has a volume wheel.
The Cloud Alpha Air is wireless, but the wires are removable, and it comes with everything you need in the box to plug it into different devices. The main cable is a standard 4-foot (1.2m) 3.5mm, and it comes with two extension cables: a 4.5-foot (1.37m) 3.5mm to USB-C extension (connected with a USB-C to USB-A converter) for plugging it into a PC or console, and a 3.5-foot (1m) PC microphone cable (1m) Microphone cable (1m) PC- and Extension cable. That gets you about 8 – 8.5 feet of cable when plugged into your PC, which is decent – although personally I’d prefer single long cables instead of the extension system, as the extension system means there’s a weight (where the cables connect) in the middle. The cables are braided and seem high quality, if a little heavy. The headset also comes with its detachable boom microphone in the box, as well as a thick string bag to keep everything together.
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Specifications
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Driver type | 40 mm dynamic |
frequency response | 20 – 20,000 Hz |
Design style | Over-ear (circumaural), open back |
Microphone type | 10 mm, uni-directional |
connectivity | Cable (USB-C/A, 3.5 mm) |
Weight | 10oz / 283g |
Cord length | 4ft (3.5mm AUX) 4.5 ft (3.5 mm to USB-C) 3.5 ft (3.5 mm to |
Battery life | N/A |
Lighting | No one |
Software | HyperX Genuity |
MSRP/price at time of appraisal | $149.99 |
Release date | September 2026 |
Audio performance of the Cloud Alpha Air
The Cloud Alpha Air features dynamic 40mm neodymium drivers, with a frequency response range of 20 – 20,000 Hz (still pretty standard for gaming headsets, despite some companies coming out with premium models that have a wider range).
Music sounds very good on the Cloud Alpha Air. The headset has a mostly neutral sound profile, with bright, detailed highs, a full, present mid-range, and firm but not overly powerful bass. It definitely has a wider soundstage than its closed counterparts, but it’s not quite as wide or as open as some open-back headsets (like the Audeze LCD-GX). Mid-range-heavy songs like K-931’s Lonely world and Enya Orinoco Flow sounded especially dynamic. The headset has a built-in “HyperX Bass Tube” designed to retain powerful bass, despite its open-back style. This works decently well – while I still found the bass to be more powerful on closed headphones than the Razer BlackShark V3 Prothe bass was definitely present (and quite detailed – I could hear the entire run of the bass drum in Lorde Royals).
Games sound even better on the Cloud Alpha Air, thanks to the open-back design. Players with multi-layer audio environments, such as Unknown 4 in the God of War: Ragnarokreally stood out on the headphones – I could hear every single creature in the jungle and carry out conversations with (possibly unrealistic) clarity in cities. Directional audio was also very good, though I’d probably still opt for a closed headset for competitive first-person shooters where the direction of footsteps and gunfire is essential. But you can’t beat open-back headsets for exploring an open world (and for hearing things in the real world).
Microphone from the Cloud Alpha Air
The Cloud Alpha Air features a detachable 10mm boom microphone with a unidirectional polar pattern. It sits at the end of a 3-inch flexible metal gooseneck you can bend towards the mouth for better pickup, and the arm has a small red indicator light near the microphone end that lets you know when it’s muted. It’s the same microphone found on HyperX’s other premium headsets, including the Cloud III S Wireless and the Cloud Alpha 2 Wireless.
The mic performs about as well as expected – it’s good for a headset mic, but it’s definitely still a headset mic. My voice was clear and full-sounding over both voice chat and recordings. But the pickup of the mic was pretty low by default – for other HyperX headsets I could adjust the gain in its Ngenuity software, but I couldn’t get Ngenuity to recognize the Cloud Alpha Air (I imagine if it would have recognized it, it would have been adjustable though). Hopefully this will be fixed in a software or firmware update soon.
The mic mute button is easy to press, and the indicator light is a nice thought – but it was too low and too dark to be useful to me (I had to keep moving the mic up to see it, which seems to defeat the purpose of an unobtrusive light). I also had the same problem with the mute mic button on the HyperX Cloud III Wired Headsetwhere pressing the mute button caused a noticeable blip in my recordings.
Features and software of the Cloud Alpha Air
The Cloud Alpha Air should be configurable with HyperX’s Ngenuity peripheral software, which should let you do things like tune the EQ and adjust the input gain of the microphone. But again, I couldn’t get any version of Ngenuity to recognize the Cloud Alpha Air.
Bottom line
If you’ve been thinking about getting an open-back gaming headset, the Cloud Alpha Air might be the headset you’ve been waiting for. As long as you don’t mind the wires, it’s an excellent headset for the price – it’s comfortable, light, and it sounds great whether you’re listening to music, watching movies, or playing games. While I couldn’t get it to connect to Ngenuity, I honestly don’t count that as much of a point against it – peripheral software often causes more headaches than it’s worth, especially for a headset that’s mostly analog to begin with.