The cable is almost entirely covered in a braided material up to the point where it breaks off into the three separate plugs. The last 2.75ft of the cable are split off into the respective mic, speaker and USB power plugs. I was surprised to see just how long these cables were, I don't think they needed to splice the cable nearly as far up as they did - it gets really messy with the three long ends dangling around. It would have been nice to see these three breakaway cables mesh-covered as well because cables rubbing against the back of your steel computer cases are still susceptible to damage! My last question in this area is why didn't they use an entirely USB design for this headset? That could have eliminated the need for this breakaway cable section all together because one USB cable could run both the mic, headset and provide power to the fancy lighting. Maybe we'll see this in a future version?

Installation:
Not being a USB headset, there really isn't any installation past plugging it in that you need to worry about. It's generally only USB headsets that will come with a software/driver suite to customize sound settings.

Testing:
Although it's designed for gaming, I gave the Piranha a full-on audio test for this review. Not only did I game, but I also listened to music, flipped through some DVD's and just did my general day-to-day computer usage while using only the Piranha as my audio listening device. All tests will be run using Mackie's Onyx Satellite firewire audio interface as my primary sound device. This is because the converters in studio equipment like this allow for much more accurate sound reproduction without any "hyping" like many consumer sound cards tend to induce in the signal. I will be comparing the headset to the SteelSeries Siberia headset that I've found to be one of the best sounding that I have around here right now.

When it came to multimedia applications, I found that the Siberia headset had a more balanced and "fuller" sound compared to the Piranha. Part of this will be due to the fact that the Siberia has a grilled design on the outside of the ear cups and the Piranha has an entirely enclosed design but the main fact is just what the purpose of either headset is, the Piranha is a gaming headset not a multimedia one. When I flipped into some gaming, this hyped up bass was excellent. It accentuated explosions and impacts, added more "power" to racing car engines and helped to better immerse me into the games I was playing. Overall sound quality was very representative of what I'd expect from a $79 headset.

I found the headset to be very comfortable with the perfect amount of pressure over the ears ...except for those who wear glasses. I found whenever I used the headset for any length of time that the pressure of the ear pads right on my ears was pushing the arms of my glasses into my head in a painful way. This is a problem I generally don't run into with normal sized ear pads that fit right over my ears because they don't put pressure directly on my ears causing them to push into the frame of my glasses. Keep in mind this probably won't happen for all of you, a lot will depend on the style of frame your glasses have as well as your head size.