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

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!

I bought this headphones after long research on the net. Im not quite an audiophile but been using lots of headphones over the years, mainly for music. This was my first set for gaming, and i was aiming for the comfort and the sound quality of course. Ill be describing each aspect separately: Sound: Right out the box, i must say i was worried: these not sounded like i expected (considering what i paid). I had to play a little while with the software and the presets to get them to a sound quality i merely liked. But what really did the job was actually, time. After some burn-in they really started to bring some power over the mids and bass. Now Im using the regular preset and quite satisfied with the quality (considering these are for gaming mainly). You get a good sense of spacing and clarity of whats going on in-game, especially at regular volumes. One point I havent found good use to it yet is the DTS X v2.0 Surround: For me it was kind of messy the way it digitally distorted sound to make it more global, so after trying it for a few days, i decided to turn it off and havent looked back since. As a last comment, this headset sounds well locked from outside noises, but not even near passive noise cancelation levels. It should do more than ok in a quiet enviroment or a small room, but in bigger places youre gonna be in need of raising the volume too high, which isnt a good thing at all. Comfort: Probably the best thing about this set is how comfortable they are. They really feel all around well constructed, and havent felt any discomfort in my ears after several hours of use, something i was really aiming for. Microphone: Maybe the lowest point in this set is the microphone. Dont get me wrong, it isnt a bad microphone at all, it sounds clear and feels ok, but you would probably expect more for the money youre paying, in terms of the crystal clear quality theyre offering. So, wrapping up, this is good headset overall: good sound, great quality and design, ok microphone. It should totally fill your expectations in the gaming area (it did for me, at least), but if you want audiophile quality sound for music, editing and other stuff beside of gaming, maybe you should look somewhere else. UPDATE: After 3 weeks of using this set, i began to have some trouble with the signal: sudden interference with the sound and some static crackling. Even unpairing would happen for around 5 seconds. Did all the troubleshooting, contacted the TS and the conclusion was that i got a defective transmitter. Solution to that? Buy a new one! Not a single solution given by Steelseries, not even a discount on a new pair. Luckily the support from Amazon was flawless and they responded for it, for what im grateful. Consider this before buying from this brand, i wont be doing so in the future thats for sure.

I bought this headset in 2019. As of writing this review, I have had it for 2 years and it still works great for me. Really like the ability to hardware mute my microphone. Feels much more comfortable than relying on software mute on some programs. I have plugged the dongle into Mac, Linux and windows and it works fine on each of them without having to install extra drivers. (Though some minor features may be missing without the extra drivers) While the soft ear pieces lasted a long while, they started to not smell so great after a while (I probably should have been washing some more frequently). So I bought some spares online for around 6 bucks and have had no issues. One of the double edge sword aspects of it is it has two audio channels. One for gaming and one for chat. You can tell separate programs to use one of the other and adjust the volume balance on them using the right knob. Sometimes I accidentally bump it too far in one direction and will be playing a game and hear the game just fine, but wont be hearing friends on discord, not realizing this for a while.

I have owned this headset for two years. During this period, Ive used this headset for Chime calls, Discord calls, and PC gaming (primarily FPS games, such as Overwatch). Ive used this headset on Windows, macOS, and Xubuntu. I am far from an audiophile, but I will say that music / videos generally sound really good from these headphones. That being said, the noise cancellation doesnt hold a candle to my Bose QC35s; however, it does the job of cutting down on nearby distractions. The microphone does its job. Its not a studio microphone, so dont expect much out of it for recording high quality audio. I have had issues with it being overly sensitive in some applications by default, but I believe this can largely be addressed in the Steelseries software. I ended up using the headphones without the Steelseries Engine for a bit over a year out of the last two. The surround sound on these headphones works pretty well. Ive been picky about surround sound in gaming since the Halo 3 days, and these have been satisfactory since day 1 in that regard. I play in GM / T500 on Overwatch, and the headset has never been the cause of someone engaging me from an angle that I didnt expect. Based on my written review, you may be surprised that Ive rated the headset with three stars. Ultimately, this rating comes down to unreliable wireless connectivity. Since day 1, Ive had difficulties getting the transmitter to work on most of my PCs USB ports (USB 3.1 & USB 2.0 w/ up-to-date drivers). Eventually, I found one USB 2.0 port that it worked on while plugged directly into my ROG Maximus X Hero motherboard. The headset transmitter lived there for most of the last two years. For a long while, I had to unplug the USB cable and plug it back in in order to reset the transmitter on system reboot due to a bad firmware patch that was pushed by Steelseries (I uninstalled Steelseries Engine once they fixed the issue, hoping that it wouldnt happen again). Recently, though, Ive had a new set of issues with the wireless connectivity. The headset audio occasionally cuts out and back in (for ~2 seconds) every 20-30 minutes despite my transmitter being less than 3 feet away from the headset. Worst of all, after updating my BIOS and reinstalling my OSes from scratch, the transmitter refuses to power on anymore. The light just stays dark, meaning that I cant update any firmware or connect the headset to the computer at all. I have, of course, brought all of the drivers up-to-date and reinstalled Steelseries Engine. Unfortunately this was all in vain. Windows identifies the device as an Avnera AV6031. In summary, this headset lasted me two years. I was (generally) happy with its performance for those two years, but the transmitter has always been fairly unreliable. At this point, its not worth it. Im going to look for a device with a more reliable wireless connection.

I 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.

I use this for cubicle conference calls and listening to music. No game interaction to comment on. Works great, love the red light on the mic when you mute it. Sound quality is awesome, former colleague turned me on to SteelSeries years ago as we used them for music and conference calls at our SEM tools, but those were wired. I can now take this headset and my laptop into our lab and hold troubleshooting calls with vendors and have both hands to do my tasks. I know others like Bluetooth ear buds, but I purchased these primarily for same thing a gamer needs, good sound and microphone. I havent used them in the cleanroom yet to comment on background noise, which is substantial in a fab environment. I had them on nearly all day at my cubicle and they never got uncomfortable or too warm like some of the leather ear cups can. I like SteelSeries microphones and how this one pushes into the headset. Actually that is one of my favorite features. The fit for me was great out of the box, I have a fairly large noggin, so no adjustment was needed. I also like how the size adjust is the band and not slip style as is typical of most headphones. So it has less parts to end up compromised long term. The headset I replaced, a on ear Jabra, failed due to the size adjust feature that took out the right speaker wire. This is a better design for long term wear. The Jabra set lasted me about 5 years. The only con for me is that Id like more friction on the volume and chat level dials like aviation stuff. I got about 50 away outside before the sound started cutting and having issues when testing tje wireless last night. I get even less trying to wander around at work, but wire free at the cube, even during conference calls, is a really nice feature when looking for bits. These are rated as PC Gamer product of the year, they earned it. SteelSeries speakers dont have the marketing of the nose in the air brands do, but they sure nail the sound quality and beat those price points. Very impressed. Im a 50 y/o engineer, so these will see much more conference time than gaming, but still a very well executed headset. Im more impressed than expected, and I tend to expect a lot at this price point.

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.

Sound: Lets get this out of the way first: These arent audiophile headphones. However, what you are getting is a good depth and smoothness of sound with just enough bass that you can feel the rattle when things get crazy. What you get here is a headset thats great for music, but damn near life-changing for games - especially if youre coming from the budget class. I highly recommend setting the equalizer software to Immersive and loading your favorite shooter. Its worth noting that bass levels have been improved in this 2019 version over the legacy model. Comfort: As compared to the 2018 model, the 2019 release enjoys a greater standard of comfort with deep, comfortable earcups and a light profile. Its actually pretty easy to forget that youre wearing these, even for someone with an exceptionally large head (sorry mom) like mine. Software, driver support and functionality: In terms of the wireless capabilities, build quality and so on, these feel just as premium as the price would suggest. The driver suite (which is rather mandatory, so go get it) is lightweight and adds some decent equalizer functionality - Nothing exceptional, but its still a solid value add. Additionally, 7.1 surround support has been improved over last year - Setting the surround profile to Large Room produces a good depth of sound that doesnt feel flat, making for an enjoyable music-listening experience in addition to the obvious gaming benefits. Conclusion: Youll probably note that most of the middling reviews for this headset are for the Legacy model. As those complaints have been addressed to varying degrees, I now feel safe in calling this one of the most well-rounded wireless headsets available today - with the caveat that Bass junkies might want to look elsewhere. The bass here is just good enough to rattle your brains just a little bit, but you can tell that its intentionally subdued to bring it more in-line with the rest of the soundscape as compared to many other gaming headsets.

I originally bought these in mid-2019. 3+ years and 2 moves later, these still look and perform like new (all though I did buy replacement pads to freshen it up last xmas). Sound customization in the Steel Series app works great and lets you make very precise changes to your sound profile. The surround feature is software driven, of course, and allows you to expand or contract your the sound stage to your liking. My single complaint is the lack of THUNDERING bass. Dont get me wrong, it does a good job, but when shells are falling around me I want to feel the boom, ya know? Anyway, Id definitely buy again. For the money, this headset beats out my Corsair and HyperX stuff no prob.