SteelSeries Arctis 7 - Lossless Wireless Gaming Headset with DTS Headphone: X v2.0 Surround - for PC and PlayStation 4 - Black
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Victor Moreno
23-11-2024And ease of use . I am surprised, there is basically no lag that I can find, I play CSGO competitive usually and this thing still lets me find enemies with ttheir steps. A bit of a background: I Used to have a USB dac amp with a studio closed back headphones and a modmic, I wanted to move to a wireless headset and ended up buying this. So lets break down and compare: Sound: Amazingly similar, if not a bit bass boosted, it has some good audio stage and great quality, no lag for wireless. Microphone: is not a modmic, my voice is not that clear compared to it at least and there is a bit of compression but is neglibile, I dont pick up any more background noises with it which is awesome. Features: it has 2 volume sliders which I still dont understand, this headphone once connected to a PC shows up as 2 devices for windows: Arctis Game and Arctis Chat. The slider on the right allows me to set full volume to either one while the one on the left allows me set volume in general. This means I can mute the voice chat by simply moving the knob on the right or mute the game which I find it amazing. Of course on windows you should configure the default communication device to arctis chat and the keep the arctis game as the default one. Not only that but the microphone being retractable is really nice and if you mute it via button there is a red light on the left. Battery: Amazing , of course its been about 1 week and a half , but so far a week of using it (about 2 to 3 hours daily) and haven ot needed to plug it in back. yet. Comfort: it is nice, its not closed back so some sounds might leak but at least I dont get bothered by it , I am not big headed so cannot say much about the pressure but my other headphones are the CB 1 studio and this ones do a bit more pressure than those. They are light so I dont mind using them and walking and range is really good, about 5 mmeters away I was still hearing sounds from my pc. Conclusion: No regrets buying this, if you have a wired studio headphone with a FIIO e10k and a studio headphone with a modmic ( that is my old setup) and you want to move to wireless on a budget. This is it ,Volume might not be that high but the audio quality is there. Again I used to have my windows at 20% volume with the e10k and the cb1 headphones, with this one I must go a bit above to 30%. higher than that and I might damage my ears. I plan to update this should anything happen with the headphones.
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Maritza McLaughlin
> 3 dayI read quite a few negative reviews on these headphones and after using them for a couple days now (around 10 hours of gaming) they are by far the best headphones I have used. Comfort is excellent the pads are extremely soft and you can barely tell you have them on your head (reviews had said since the ear wasn’t deep enough that your ear mashed against the metal - this is incorrect as I have large ears and mine fit excellent) Sound quality is the best I have experienced and I have owned PlayStation gold, PlayStation platinum, various turtle beach headsets. Sound localization is excellent and variation of chat and game audio is easily adjustable. It was also brought up that they are “too heavy” in many reviews. For me, the longest I have worn them so far was a 6 hour stretch and I didn’t experience any discomfort and could barely tell they were on my head. They are very well build and I don’t see physical wear being an issue with these at all. Set up was very easy, basically plug and play with the usb for PS4 and my computer. They do work with my switch but need plugged in (no Bluetooth) The mic is fairly quiet for my friends to hear me. This just required adjusting mic volume on the PlayStation up to 75% and it took care of the problem! On PC volume was perfect out of the box. I have used them for 10 hours and have not had to charge them at all yet - the 24 hour battery life I expect is true as my Sony platinums would last me maybe 6-7 of these 10 hours of gameplay. Just a quick review as I saw so much negativity about these headphones prior to buying - I’m not really sure why everyone is so against them. But from me - I highly recommend these headphones to anyone that is looking for a comfortable, great sound quality, durable set of headphones at a decent price!
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Myra
> 3 dayConvenient for remote work and gaming. Highly recommend, quality sound.
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Joseph Suizzo
> 3 dayI was initially deterred by a couple of the negative reviews about the Arctis 7 headphones, but decided to take the risk and try them out. I have had mine now for about half a month and absolutely love them! Pros: - Very comfortable. I can wear these for 6+ hours at a time, through work and games, without issue. - Good battery life - Granular surround and equalizer configuration options using SteelSeries Engine - There is a dial on the back right earcup that allows you to change the volume balance of a voice chat (e.g. Discord) and the rest of your computers audio output. I love this feature and use it a lot in situations such as when Im playing a multiplayer game and need to hear the voice chat better or vice versa. - Great sound. I own a pair of AirPods Pro and Bose QuietComforts and find that the sound from the Arctis holds up well against those. Im no audiophile but can appreciate a good soundstage and balance. Cons: - The mic extension feels flimsy and Im worried Ill accidentally break it if I tug on it too hard. I definitely try to be extra careful handling that. - Like some other reviews mention, the volume dials are easy to accidentally move if you are putting the headphones on or taking them off. - Like most wireless headsets, the mic isnt going to be absolutely stunning, and Ive had a couple of people comment on my loss of voice quality since switching from a wired headset. This isnt a huge deal by any means, but Id suggest pairing these with a more serious condenser mic if you care about that sort of thing. Overall, I love the freedom afforded to me by wireless headphones, and the Arctis 7 more than satisfy my wants for a gaming headset.
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Dr. Alanna Blanda
> 3 dayAlright so this review will be a little bit lengthy as I try to detail as much as I can. Just to be clear, this review is based on my experience with PC ONLY. I dont use this for my PS4 but because it uses its own wireless connector, I would imagine the quality is almost no different than that of the PC. So for starters, the packaging was alright. Nothing extraordinary and it had everything you need for it. The software available for the headset is a MUST, in my opinion. Its not actually needed but its sure as heck a huge boost to audio quality since you can modify it to your hearts content. It has different presets to choose from or you can mess with the equalizer yourself. You also have a wheel on each cup. One is to control the volume and the other to adjust the audio between chat and the game, so the chat volume is louder than the game or vice versa. This has NO LED lights, so if you thought it did, for some reason, youd be dissapointed. I bought this on December 1st and at the time of typing this review, it is December 6th and I have only needed to charge the headset 1 time. I have used it quite extensively. Livestreamed 3 times for 6 hours each and listened to music for another couple more hours and while it still didnt need recharging, it had finally gotten to the lower side. So I recharged it and its quite high in battery life still. Second is the clasp and the ability to adjust the size. The cups are SO soft and are made of this really comfortable fabric; its like a cloud. The clasp isnt so hard and with soft cups, you wont even want to take them off anyway. Now to adjust the size of the headset, you use this ski goggle band...thing. Its basically a strap and im still not too sure how to feel about it since it is my first time using something like this. Im used to simply extending the cups down, but I think im liking the strap a bit since it feels a little more comfortable and its one less component that can break on the headset. Just dont be trying to take it off or youll lose it. Next is the microphone. The microphone extends and retracts into and out the headset, which I always felt is the coolest way to have a mic on the headset. You can press a button on the back of the cup to mute/unmute the mic and you can change its volume on the software. The mic quality is...audible. You can understand what a person is saying clearly, but its sounds closer to potato quality, kinda like a webcam mic but slightly better. Personally I use my Blue Snowball, enhanced with VB Audio software. Finally is the bass. In the software you can increase the amount of bass in the headset. I increased it to the max and you can indeed hear the bass very nicely. Some would say the bass is great. But if you are like me and you know that bass isnt so much about sound, but feeling, then this headset is lacking. You can hear the bass in the music but you cant FEEL it vibrate the cups nor your head. I have an old PlayStation Pulse headset and THAT has bass. I increase the slider to the max on the cup for the bass volume and the headset begins to massage my brain. This headset does not do that in the slightest. Dont get me wrong though, the overall sound quality is exquisite as I can hear things in games in such detail, I never even knew those sounds were ever in there to begin with. The directional audio is very good too as it gives a pretty good idea how far something is as well as the direction its coming from. Final verdict 4/5 stars. Just missing the brain massaging bass for a 5 stars. Oh also this thing uses micro usb as a charger, which we all know is a poop version of the usb, so be gentle when charging.
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Jen N.
> 3 dayI really like this headset. I wear it for 10+ hours a day and it stays super comfy. The sound quality is great and I love the game/voice dial, its super useful. Plus the wireless is perfect, it has great range (about 40-50 ft) and they arent too heavy. However, the mic audio could be a tad better, according to people listening. Its not a deal-breaker though; the mic input audio is still miles ahead of airpods and other built-in mics, and only a couple steps behind a standalone mic, like the Blue Yeti. The biggest drawback is the confusing battery indicator. Its got three levels -red, yellow, green- but how much time is left on each of the levels is always inconsistent. Could be hours or minutes left on yellow, even if they were green a second ago. You can wear and use them while theyre charging, but you hear a faint buzzing noise that gets pretty annoying. Also, if the battery is red (bad, apparently) and then I charge them for 5 minutes, theyll turn green again even though there is no way theyre even close to that level of charge. Theres even more battery nuances than that, but those are the biggest issues. Overall, I think the utility of the headphones outweighs the cons, so Im happy with my purchase.
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Jonathan
> 3 dayMy 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.
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Max Mendieta
> 3 dayI was a bit hesitant to spend the money on these as in my experience a lot of gaming headsets are over priced and low quality hardware/software. I really like the software has so many options to tune your sound and create different profiles which I used for testing what worked best for each use (Gaming, Cinema, Music and chat). The quality is great as far as im concerned, even though I was hesitant that Ive seen some pictures of broken parts but after owning these for a few months, Im starting to think it is the user that is mistreating the headphones. I dont treat them like glass but I definitely dont throw mine around in anger or carelessness, mine are on my head or hanging from a stand when not in use. All in all I wouldnt hesitate recommending these to friends and there are so many options out there id say this is definitely worth the money and up there with higher priced headphones. Now for downsides of what ive found so far. There is no documentation on recommended tips for fine tuning your headset, it would be nice to have an explanation of how the features in the software benefit certain sound. For example when gaming in Warzone it is nice to hear footsteps but not have it so loud that when youre in a car or gunfight you cant hear your team mates cause the chat is so low. It took some testing to get this ironed out. There needs to be better documentation on how to optimally configure your headset on different platforms whether it is PC or a consol. Secondly Ive noticed my battery life isnt measure correctly in the app, although I havent tried to uninstall/reinstall or much troubleshooting, It is something Ive seen others mentioned. I have a feeling I could fix it, just havent put time to it but thought it was worth mentioning. (Battery life is great btw)
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Eric
19-11-2024I was in the market looking for a new gaming headset that wasnt going to break the bank. I was able to snag these for around low 100s and pulled the trigger on them! I have heard many great things about this headset, but I wanted to really try them for myself and see if I liked them. After a year of using these bad boys, I can definitely say it was worth all $100! I think the sound quality is good enough, especially for the price of $100. My favorite thing about this headset is the simple/easy bluetooth connection. I leave the dongle connected to my PC and anytime I want to use my headset I just turn them on and theyre prepared to go! The headset is built pretty nicely, very sturdy & strong build. The ear cushion is pretty cozy, I have definitely worn this headset for 4 hours straight gaming. Absolutely no complaints, its really well-built and nice! The only issue I would have with this headset is that sometimes it loses connection on initial set up & the battery life is aite... I use this headset pretty often so I can see why the battery life has been diminished. I charge mine after every use because I like the portability aspect of it being wireless. If this is a deal breaker for you, the Arctic 7 pros comes with an additional battery for you to swap while the other one is charging. Only regret I have on this headset is that I didnt wait long enough to get the white ones :(. Other than that! Absolutely A1 headset for gaming!