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

All the advertised features (besides stereo sound and microphone) have stopped working for me on Windows 10. I had my suspicions, but the issue didnt become apparent until I was watching Netflix show that had 5.1 audio, and noticed I was missing the center audio channel (I could hear background noises, but there was no dialog). I switched over to my 5.1 speaker system and confirmed the problem was only with the Arctis 7. The headphone software allows you to toggle 7.1 audio on, but offers absolutely no solutions for testing. Windows does not light up the Configure button on either of the Arctis 7 audio devices, so its also impossible to test from there. Since the problem only started after reinstalling Windows 10 after getting a new motherboard / CPU, it seems like the problem is a conflict with my onboard audio system / software. What is Steel Series solution? Uninstall all other audio software on your computer, uninstall any VPN software, then follow a series of troubleshooting steps (remove all Arctis devices from Device Manager, uninstall software, reboot, etc). I tried this the best I could, but it did not resolve the issue. The request to uninstall all other audio software / any VPN software (WTF?) is totally absurd in this day and age and is not happening. Im also not going to spend hours and hours troubleshooting a terribly designed product (I did that way too much when I was younger). --- Beyond the above deal breaker / in terms of the other headset features / quality, its so-so. The audio quality sounded good in 7.1 mode while it lasted, but was not as good as my previous Logitech set. The stereo audio sounds very muddy / tinty; its almost unbearable. Now I only use this headset when my other bluetooth headset is recharging. The build quality is surprisingly good, but the Volume Wheel and Chat Mix wheels are terribly placed; your thumbs naturally rest on them when you don / doff the headphones, frequently causing you to accidentally roll one of the wheels (more on this below). The microphone pull out system and the mic mute button are great. I wish the headset had a basic pause / play button, and maybe even skip forward / skip back buttons. The software has always been a complete nightmare, ranging from frustration, to facepalm design choices: -Why doesnt it have a popup notification via Windows 10 saying the battery is low? -Why do I need to get 3 clicks deep to just see the battery level? I have to: expand system tray list > double click the slow / clunky software > be greeted with a home screen full of advertisements I didnt consent to > click Engine > wait 10 seconds for it to load the battery level. Why cant I right click the sys tray icon (or hover) for the battery percentage? It seems like Steel Series deliberately made you click through their home screen full of ads to get to the battery percentage. -Why is the battery level displayed as a microscopic 3 bar battery icon instead of just giving me the percentage? Or why cant I hover over that little battery icon to get a full percentage? -Why cant I disable the useless (never works) Chat Mix feature? I cant tell you how many times Ive accidentally slid the Chat Mix roll wheel all the way down, effectively muting the device, and wasted a couple minutes trying to figure out the problem. Why do I need to go to insane lengths to get the feature to work in the first place? It seems like Steel Series is deliberately trying to make it extremely cumbersome to switch to another audio device (effectively forcing away the competition).

This is a wonderful gaming headset. I use it for PC gaming. I came from the very strong Lucidsound LS40 to this. Over all I am pleased with the change. I LOVE the software on this thing, I can actually adjust the Mic sensitivity!! No more friends complaining about background noise. It also stores equalizer, virtual surround, effects and sidetone settings *on the device* so you dont need the software running. Which is a big boon, because I dont YET ANOTHER background app while Im trying to game. The retractable mice is a nice touch too. Controls are easy enough to reach The sound is very well balanced, though a touch bass heavy. Which for games and movies is OK. When wired for music only, These actually stand up as good when coming from great of, Sennheiser HD58x audiophile grade headphones. Wireless there is a noticeable drop in sound quality, but that is sheerly the nature of the wireless beast. They still serve quite well enough to delight when Im not critically listening to audio, like when gaming. Even music listening these will easily please most listeners and might well be the best set of headphones you own. I personally found the ear-cups well sized and comfortable. They are fabric, which is wholly superior to the bonded leather garbage most can have that gives you swamp ears. You will still get warm ears with these, but it will be helped some by the poly fabric. Plus fabric doesnt end up breaking up and flaking off in 6 months. IMO earcups should be either 100% real leather, or fabric to be comfortable. The headband design is actually *very* comfortable, and you can adjust the up and down fit slightly by how you fasten its velcro closure. Its also an all metal headband, so its less likely these will meet the fate of my LS40s and just break in freakin half at the center of the headband after a 1.5 year of use. Wireless works well. Connects the first time every time. Range is also considerably better than Lucid Sounds which would break up when I went the next room over to refill a drink while chatting. From your device to your seat, I cant imagine anybody will have any problems. Now for the cons. I dont like the volume and chat balance controls. They NEED detents. You so much as brush them with your fingers and you either max or min the volume. Its easy to brush them just putting the unit on and off. And mute is right next to the volume....so needless to say you will be adjusting the volume a lot. The headband....this will stretch out over time. Its a very interesting idea for comfort, but having a wear part on a headset is suspect. Like everything these days, these have glued in batteries. That means these will only last as long as the battery does, unless you are DIY savvy and own a soldering iron. And now for the felony crime.... These use a proprietary microphone cable for wired use! Yup you read that right. If you want to plug these in via wire, like if your battery died, you HAVE to use the cable provided by Steel Series. Which of course isnt very long, and costs way too much to buy off them should you need another. Instead of accepting a standard 3.5mm headset jack like a civilized company, they had to go and do this. IMO this is business practice that SHOULD be illegal. And its for this more than anything, I have to take a star off the review. The volume nobs were a naggle, the headband is a minor thing. But proprietary cables is a scum-sucking business move.

Battery will only be good for around 2 years until it wont take a charge.

THe sound Quality is GREAT after you warm it up. the first couple days of using it, it almost seemed like it was cutting the audio out and popping as if it was a cold electronic warming up? hard to describe, but after using it for a couple weeks, NOW it sounds GREAT! Problem I have is if you are too close to the Wireless transmitter it can cause audio cuts. Hardly ANY noise cancellation (unless you have the volume turned all the way but, but then its just loud noises drowning out the rest of hte room). The headband is NON-ADJUSTABLE! if you have a small head its fine, Medium size heads would probably feel the metal bar and it could be uncomfortable, and if you have a big head then just forget it because it wont fit anyways.

The best of the best

I got the Arctis 7 to replace my Arctis Pro Wireless and the white noise/hiss issue it has. I loved the Pro Wireless and I was hoping it would be similar enough headset wise to use but thats not the case. I give this headset a 3.5 / 5. Be warned that you cannot return this headset through Amazon. PROS: -Build quality is decent but its not aluminum like the Arctis Pro Wireless -Headset is lighter in weight than Arctis Pro -Fit is great and I love the ski goggle design, although my ears hurt after a long days working (9+ hours) -Steelseries headsets look very slick and not flashy or huge like the GSP670 -Retractable mic is a nice feature -Mic quality is good but sounds nasally -Connection distance is great and doesnt disconnect or distort when walking around -Battery life is great with 20+ hours of use NEUTRAL: -Sound quality is not good but not terrible either. You will definitely need to mess with the EQ to get it to sound right unless you like everything flat. Even setting the EQ to get things to my liking, the soundstage felt lacking. The sound signature is not the same as the Pro Wireless, which was to be expected. The bass is weak, which can strangely be remedied on the Pro Wireless with DTS 2.0, but not here. DTS 2.0 on the 7 muddies everything up. The headset doesnt handle higher frequencies well if you turn them up. They sound too harsh and clip. In games, things seemed quiet so I always had to crank the headset volume up. Then when I go listen to music or something else its blaring loud. The Pro Wireless wins in sound quality but has that white noise issue. CONS: -Headset does have a white noise/hiss issue but its nowhere close to the Arctis Pro Wireless. This only happens when the headset volume is set to the absolute minimum or maximum, regardless of the system volume setting. Setting the volume wheel 1/4 to 3/4 of the way wont trigger it. Even then, its not that loud. -Poor EQ settings. While you get 6 bars of EQ control vs. 5 on the Pro Wireless, they are not the same frequencies or normal EQ frequencies that you can control. For some reason, the Arctis 9 gets 10 bars. If you want full EQ control, you need a third party tool. -Like the Arctis Pro Wireless, there is a static sound when I stop/pause/mute audio regardless of media source, type, or volume. For some reason this only happens on Steelseries headsets. I cant recommend this headset if you are serious about your sounds in gaming. I can only recommend it if you are on a budget or dont care about sounds and just want a wireless headset. For me, I ended up going with the Audio-Technica ATH-G1WL which sounds better than both the Arctis 7 and Pro Wireless.

I was on the hunt for a new headset after the one I had which used a flip up to mute system stopped working. I work fully remote, and generally wear headphones for 6-8 hours a day for music/meetings. I needed a pair that would meet my needs, all day comfort, quality mic and audio, a physical mute button, and wireless. It took me three tries, with different brands before I finally decided to bite the bullet and spent what was previously an unimaginably large sum for headphones for me. This model had by far the most reviews of any other, it had solid reviews across the board and I figured it was time to pay for some quality. I could not be happier. The fit is perfect (although it takes a few tries to get used to adjusting with this particular strap mechanism), the sound is great, the retractable mic is convenient and works well, its comfortable for long periods of time, and the wireless range is great (I can move from my office, through multiple walls into the kitchen without losing signal). Ill never go to another brand. Pay for quality, its worth it.

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.

I had to give these things some time before I wrote a review. I have had several turtle beach headsets over the past couple years. And they all broke within the time I have had these Arctis 7. The physical build quality is beyond any headset I have ever had. I have gone through three sets of Sony ps4 (2 gold, 1 platinum) headsets in a year. All broke at the foldable hinges. I went through 5 turtle beach headsets (4 600 stealth, 1 elite pro) in 2 years. All broke at the cheap plastic extensions. Yes, including the elite pros. The Arctis 7 is made of metal. Even the rotating cups have metal hinges! These things are solid. I game a lot. I mean a LOT. And the metal frame hasnt even lost its grip on my head. The elastic headband is comfortable and adjustable. I have a larger than average head and they still fit me perfectly. Super comfortable for extended gaming sessions. I didnt believe the battery life until I got them fully charged and ran a 13 hour marathon one night. The next day they still have a good 5 hour charge left. So the battery life is no joke. Even after running them all the way down, the recharge time only took a few hours. Cant really remember how long exactly. It wasnt terribly long. Sound quality isnt what Im used to hearing however. The mids and highs are good, the bass is very flat. I wish they had a lot more oomph to them. I might be able to get more out of them through the equalizer. In order to use the equalizer you have to connect the arctis 7 to a PC or laptop and install the program. Its a simple program to use too. Be aware however, the DTS 7.1 setup is only compatible with PC, not ps4. There is virtually no noise cancellation. The foam around the ears is reasonable but not the greatest at shutting down outside sound. The microphone is very quiet. I had to turn up my mic level nearly all the way for anyone to hear me. And even then I still have to talk louder than I prefer. The range of the wireless receiver is awesome. I can go into my bedroom behind the wall and not lose connection at all. No wire connection to your game controller for microphone use either. Simple plug and play. I did have to change my sound/devices settings on my ps4 to all audio in order to get any sound. So you wont have any sound on your television unless you change it back to chat audio even with the headset shutoff. Overall I love this headset. The sound quality could be better for the price, but they are so comfortable and the super solid build quality wins my approval. If anything happened to these, I would buy another set no questions asked.

Spent a lot of time reading negative comments on different wireless headsets so wasnt sure if I should get them. Ill address some of the negatives other reviewers gave to clear some things up. The first being about the mic picking up everything but your voice. I experienced this for about a minute, then looked at the instructions that tell you to position the mic away from your mouth and suddenly it worked great. No one has complained about how I sound in game or in discord. Mic is also retractable which is great so my cats dont chew on it. These are not 100% noise cancelling headphones, which I prefer because I still like to be aware of things going on outside of the game but some people dont like that. So take that into consideration if that is a big concern for you. I am not an audiophile so they sound great to me. I havent even felt the need to really adjust sound settings. I can wear them for hours with no issue but it is worth mentioning your ears will go inside the earcups or whatever which is better for me since ones that put pressure directly on my ears usually cause my ears to hurt after a bit. The biggest con (not really even an issue) for me is I wanted wireless headset so I can move around more freely on my laptop but the adapter has a lengthy cable which I just leave bundled up so it doesnt get in the way.