SteelSeries Arctis 7 - Lossless Wireless Gaming Headset with DTS Headphone: X v2.0 Surround - for PC and PlayStation 4 - Black

Wireless Headsets I went through before keeping this one: (problem from memory in parentheses) HyperX Cloud Flight - Bought/Returned (pressed ears slightly?) Corsair HS70 - Bought/Returned (pressed ears) Corsair Void Pro - Tried in-store (pressed ears) Logitech G533 - Tried in-store (clunky, harsh cups) Razer Nari - Bought/Returned (heavy) Astro A20 - Tried in-store (pressed ears) Sony Gold Wireless Headset (late 2018 updated version) - Tried in-store (pressed ears) Bluetooth aptX Headsets (well get into why later if youre interested): TaoTronics TT-BH036 - Bought/Returned (latency) Avantree HT4189 - Bought/Returned (latency, clamping force, pressed ears) Comfort: This is the most common reason I returned/did not purchase many of the previously mentioned headsets. I apparently have a very weird head. Im super sensitive to shallow cups (ears stick out causing pain if pressed for a long time) and clamping force (big head causes headaches if squeezed for very long). Heavy headsets can still squeeze my head due to weight on top of my head even if they dont have much clamping force on the sides. Due to this, I feel confident that I am as critical as it gets as far as headset comfort goes. The Arctis 7 was kept because it did not cause discomfort when wearing for many hours. There is a caveat: As it comes in the box, it has too much clamping force for me. Luckily, the headband is made out of sheet metal and an adjustable strap. The strap can be loosened to let the headset contact as much of the top of your head as possible (distributing weight to remove pressure points). The metal band can be bent backwards to reduce how hard it squeezes your head. I found a forum post somewhere made by an acclaimed Steelseries employee who advised this, so that is what I did, and it worked great. Just be gentle, do it a little at a time, eventually it will be perfect! There is no padding on the interior of the cups which scared me as I usually need it, but these cups do not touch my ears somehow so it is not required. Latency: This is more of a side note for the bluetooth headsets. Most everyone knows that bluetooth headsets will have higher latency than headsets with proprietary wireless transmitters. What some dont know is that there is a variant of bluetooth protocol that aims to correct this, it is called aptX. To use it, both your transmitting and receiving devices must be aptX enabled. I will admit, the latency was very low for the aptX bluetooth headphones. When watching videos it was unnoticeable, however when playing an FPS, it was very very soft but it was there. Switching over to my wired headset confirmed this. If you are going for a wireless headset for gaming, you currently must get one designed for it. The Arctis 7 does not have noticeable latency, nor did any of the other gaming headsets I tried. Speaker Quality: Im definitely not an audiophile but I have higher than average taste in sound. This headset sounds nice. I have not played with the EQ, but I may try to turn up the lows a little bit. Mic Quality: Its wireless, and a gaming headset, so it is what it is. It seems to pick up more depth to the sound than other mics, your voice wont sound as flat, however I suppose this comes at a cost on background noise cancellation as it seems a little more prevalent in this headset than others. Construction: This is one of the more well-built units Ive got my hands on. Time will tell how it holds up, but the build quality seems upper-tier. Battery: I cant comment on this, but I highly advise that you get some magnetic micro usb cables. Basically, the cable becomes two pieces. You plug a little micro usb dongle in your headset and then you can connect the corresponding cable any way around. The dongle and cable magnetically snap together. Makes plugging the headset in so easy that you wont ever be conflicted with should I fumble with the connector or should I skip charging for now and just do it later. Any time I set the headset down, I charge it, because its super easy to do so now. Therefore I will never be able to comment on batter life. If you too are plagued by comfort issues, and maybe do not want to go wireless just yet (cost being the only reason I can think of), I would highly recommend the HyperX Cloud Silver. Theyre not cheap but they are worth it. To this day they are the most comfortable headset I have ever worn, with good sound and great build quality.

Ive been using these Arctis 7 since March 2021. These are the best Ive owned so far I previously have used 2 Afterglow and 2 Turtle beaches headsets and they all have their ups and downs but these are well off all around. For starters the Afterglows would die too fast likely because of all the RGB lights they have all around The Arctis 7 last a very long time and if your like me on a Ps4 they last you around 16 hours plus you can just charge while playing. The noise cancelling is pretty good i have had countless people walk into my room and i am unaware of their presence because i cant hear nothing but the game. The surround sound is amazing you can easily tell whether footsteps are on your left, right, above, and below. Now the volume of sound on these is what shocked me they are extremely loud so even if you are deaf you will hear everything perfectly. It was so loud I had to change the max volume input to the headset through the PS4 and its on literally 3 out of the 20 bars or so you have to pick from. ALSO THE SKI MASK HEADBAND DESIGN IS SO COMFORTABLE!

Ive gone through a lot of high end headphone including, logitech, corsair, razer, sennheiser, sony, jbl, turtle,hyperx, beyerdynamics,sony, boss, lucid sound,technica, and jabra-just to name a few. Ive owned some that werent aimed at gaming with price tags over 1k, focal, grado, onkyo. The arctis 7 I think are the best bang for the buck, the software is very intuitive with my frp games, the lossless sound once adjusted and maximized is excellent. The biggest thing is the fit, they dont squish my ear in any way, they dont fall off my head when i have to bend down and pick up the pizza I just dropped before the dog gets it. The buttons are placed so you dont change settings while turning them off and on. You know which button your pressing by the feel. No they dont sound as good as the over 1k headphones when playing music, but for gaming the Arctis is an excellent choice.

My SteelSeries Arctis 7 died way too quickly for a $100+ headset. I purchased a set in October 2019, and they broke during June 2021. When they broke, I heard rattling in the left earpiece and no sound from the right. The U.S. warranty expires after a year so I had no luck with customer service reps. Its a fine headset while it works, but clearly the quality is not worth the price tag. The audio output is fine for general usage. Now I saw in other reviews that there may be distortion. Im no audiophile, but I couldnt notice any issues while watching movies or playing games. The mic isnt great, but I really only had issues with it picking up some background noise. Most VoIP services will cut out that noise that the mic picks up anyway. A very convenient feature is that the mute toggle is a well placed button on the left earpiece. Speaking of buttons, the On/Off button needs more documentation as it must do something more than just turn the headset on or off. Sometimes if you dont hold the button long enough to turn it off, I think the headset would go into some sort of sleep mode - I dont know. I never could figure out a consistent way to turn it off after that - I would then keep pressing the button until the light disappeared. It was really strange and quite frustrating if this happened while you wanted to listen to something. The headset also has a physical volume control wheel and Chat/Game audio volume control (cannot speak to how that works). The main volume control wheel is fine, but I noticed after a couple months that it was already loose in its fittings. By far my biggest issue with the headset was the comfort. Wow, its bad. Instead of an adjustable earpiece that retracts into the headband, they use a Velcro strap that is supposed to sit atop your head. My head is fairly thin so the headband would fall in front of my eyes if I moved my head too much. It just could never be tight due to this terrible design choice. The final issue must be the design of the connection from earpiece to the band. My headset broke due to normal use and it must have been from how fragile the wiring and connectors are at least in the left earpiece. As you put on and take off the headset, the earpieces will wobble. So I guess after a year and a half of use, this internal connector for the left earpiece must have snapped which leads to stressed wiring which leads to no sound. I had this headset for a year and a half, and as I stated earlier, I did try my luck with seeing what SteelSeries would do after the warranty expired. They took 2 days to respond to the ticket which felt reasonable, but after I immediately replied back to their email, it took another week and a half and multiple follow-up emails to hear back from them. Just dealing with this ticket was irritating.

Comfort: This headset is the most comfortable headset I have ever owned! I often forget Im wearing them as I walk away from my PC because I hardly notice them. Which is by far the best quality this headset possesses in my opinion. Sound: The sound quality is pretty good as well. Im not an audiophile, but this headset definitely has better sound quality than the Corsairs I had before (and I LOVED that headset). Features: The surround sound is pretty good, just like any other headset Ive used. There is a 2 channel volume system which ROCKS. So you have the ability to adjust between chat or your game being louder with a dial on the headset itself, I absolutely love this feature. The sound profiles on the headset are cool and all, but I honestly dont notice much of a difference between the options. The sidetone... is really quiet. I can barely hear myself talk, because the side tone is so bad and the noise cancellation is so good! This is one of the 2 reasons I did not give 5 stars. The other reason I did not give 5 stars, is the software you use to make changes to settings. Its TERRIBLE half the time the changes I make dont apply (yes its plugged in), the other half of the time so much as opening the software causes a high pitch beep that doesnt go away unless I reboot the headset. So overall, this is a really nice headset and its definitely worth the money. But the devils in the details, and I just wish those 2 previously mentioned things were implemented better, because theyd make this headset perfect in my opinion.

This headset is a neck killer! If you have an elevated monitor (where you look up at an angle all day) then you likely wont have the same discomfort that I did with this headset. If your desk setup has you looking down or at a decline, you will likely have more neck aches. I am only giving so many stars because the features are very good and the design seems more durable than what Ive had before. The chat mix feature (the volume knob on the right) is very helpful since Im in a voice chat almost every day. I also like being able to use an audio jack to pump audio from my phone or other device into the headset wirelessly through the dongle plugged into my computer. I have my Nintendo Switch hooked up to my desk, and when I use an aux cord, I can have audio from both my computer and my Switch going into this headset. I am giving this headset one star for noise cancelling because it does not have active noise cancelling. It will reduce noise passively, but not to a level that I would call this a noise cancelling pair of headphones.

Literally the best headset Ive ever used, and Ive tried quite a few. My brother owns a pair of high-end Astros and I actually like these better because I find that they dont hurt my head or ears at all and theyre very lightweight. The included tiny bluetooth connector makes the whole user experience very plug and play and gives it great sound quality and solid connection which I love. The sound quality for both music and gaming is pretty incredible by the way. I would consider myself an audiophile and while these arent necessarily studio quality, the sound profile was impressive to me. Very balanced/loud, and while I wish there was slightly stronger bass response, for wireless headphones I cant complain at all. For gaming, the sound profile works extremely well which is the point of this product anyway. A lot of people in the reviews complained about the build quality and them breaking easily or losing elasticity in the headband, but I havent experienced any of those issues and its been a few months now. As long as you take good care of them theyll be fine. The only bad thing about this headset is that the microphone is slightly annoying to pull out or push back in and the mute button can also be kind of annoying to find with your finger and push every time you need it. However, I kind of like that the microphone hides inside the headset because it protects it really well, especially in transit, so its a double-edged sword. But those are tiny cons anyway. This is definitely in my list of top 10 amazon purchases of all time. UPDATE: The Arctis 7 is still an amazing headset. My one gripe after a year is the quality of the MicroUSB charging port. After about 8 months, it somehow got damaged even though I took great care of it and I could no longer wear the headset and charge it at the same time without taping or clipping the cable in a certain position. It makes me a little sad considering everything else about this headset was such a great experience. I tried to get a replacement and Steelseries was willing to do so, but they were making me jump through hoops and asked me to purposefully break my old headset and send pictures so I couldn’t fix or resell it instead of just sending it back??? The whole thing kinda rubbed me the wrong way and I just gave up and bought the Arctis Pro since I was getting tired of charging anyway. But yeah I really wish they just used a USB-C port instead. MicroUSB is so fragile.

Id definitely recommend it to someone but minor caveat. Wireless version, used on PS5: Pro: -Its easy to set up, you plug the USB receiver into the PS5 and thats about it. -It sounds great, and mic is much better according to friends. I had the razor kraken prior. -Battery life seems excellent. Ive gone a couple days of heavy gaming without charging it and it was fine. Its comfortable, my ears dont sweat like crazy. Big plus there. -Dual volume dials for in game and chat audio. Helpful! -Used it in COD warzone and its definitely easier to detect footsteps. If you know what Im talking about itll make sense, if youve never played it it wont make sense. Con: Aside from the price the biggest CON is that Its not intuitive at all. Ive had it for 2 weeks and I cant tell if it turns itself on automatically when the ps5 turns on or not. I dont understand its charge level AT ALL. Instructions say its green for 80+%. yellow for whatever percentage but that doesnt exist. The mic turns red when its charging and turns off when its full.

I have been eying wireless headphones for a while. I love the sound quality of my current setup, but I wanted to have a little more freedom to move around while casually using my computer or gaming. When I saw these on sale, I decided to go for them. Sound Quality: The sound quality on these is pretty cool. At first, they sounded a little iffy, but I was able to go into the Steel Series software and tune it to how I liked it. This was really easy. I gave them a 4/5 because they work great for gaming and for casual use for YouTube and stuff like that it is closer to sounding good than great. I briefly tested the microphone so I could include it in this review. I would call it passable. If you are using it for chatting in-game or over discord, I do not think anyone would think it is bad - but I wouldnt do any sound recording with the mic. Comfort: These are some of the most comfortable headphones I have used. I love the headband design and wish it was used everywhere. It is super easy to adjust to fit your head and is barely noticeable while wearing. You can definitely wear them for multiple hours without fatigue. I have tried them with both glasses and without and have not noticed it being much, if at all, more uncomfortable with the glasses on. Miscellaneous There isnt much else to put here. I think the position of the controls is all right. I have been using them for a bit and still have a hard-ish time finding the power button or the mic mute button without looking. The software seems pretty robust (this is used to change the sound settings and all of that). The bright red glow on the microphone when it is muted is a little annoying. When I wear glasses, I can sometimes catch the reflection of it in the corner of my eye. I would have also preferred if it just muted when you slid the microphone into the hidey-hole rather than using a toggle/button. The wireless is amazing. My setup is on the second floor, and I can go literally anywhere in my house without it dropping. Even the basement. The only time the signal got iffy was when I was standing next to a microwave. Verdict Overall, I would 100% recommend these at the price point I got them ($100) if you are looking for a wireless headset with a microphone. Once you move past $100, you start to get into the territory of other headsets that also have good reviews. I have not personally used any other wireless headset for almost 6 years, so I cannot speak to that. I can say I still would have been mostly happy with these at their retail of $140 (as of writing this review). But my complaints about the controls would have been more substantial at that price point.

I returned my turtle beach wireless headset due to mic and connectivity issues and got these instead. I did an unbelievable amount of research on what gaming headset to get as I hate buying a pair I dont end up liking and get stuck with them. There are SO many different gaming headsets nowadays it was not easy picking one to buy. This headset was everything I wanted. To keep it short and sweet, Ill just list the pros and cons... Pros: Quality materials (no cheap creaking plastics) Very comfortable (not too tight or too loose, ear pads very soft) Great sound and dynamic range (fully adjustable in app) Quality mic (fully adjustable and retractable) Independent master volume dial 2nd dial to adjust the game chat and game volume blend. Mic mute button (mic lights up red when muted) Mic monitoring is a HUGE plus. You can enable with the app so you can hear yourself talking through your mic. This helps you talk normally and not yell due to your hearing being sealed off from ambient noise. It also helps equalize the pressure in the ear cups which adds to comfort and minimizes ear fatigue. Without it, your ears can begin to feel weird after a while from being so isolated within the ear cups (at least for me). Great wireless range. Stayed connected even when I left the room with them on. 3.5mm headphone cable included so you can plug them into your controller (in case you prefer wired connection). Rock solid battery life (power button lights up different colors to tell u what percent battery is left). Cons: None so far. Will update review if something comes up.