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

This is the first time I bought such an expensive headset, I am always used to whatever my phone comes with but this headset is just fantastic. Here are just some highlights I would like to mention for others considering on buying this: - Build quality is just awesome, it feels very solid and premium. - I love the headband adjustment and the ear cushions they are very confortable. - The sound out of the box is great by its own. - The software allows you to customize a lot of stuff, I am currently using the default. - If you decide to use the SteelSeries software for the surround sound, you will be disappointed, it is terrible. As a work around I installed Dolby Atmos for Headphones and removed the surround option from SteelSeries. This makes the surround sound about perfect. - This headset may not fit all heads, for me it is just perfect, but I bet that slightly bigger heads will have a hard time since the headband adjustments are very limited. - The noise isolation with the default ear cushions are not the best, but they are good enought to listen all the details while gaming. According to others, you can partially overcome this by buying the leather ear cushions which are another $14.99. - The battery duration is also pretty good and you can setup the headset to turn off after a couple of minutes if it is not being used to save some battery. - It comes with three cables, charging (USB to Micro USB), wired sound (4pole 3.5mm to proprietary) and the transmitter (USB to non-detachable). I think it only lacks an addapter to have microphone and audio in separated 3.5mm jacks. - The transmitter comes with Audio In and Audio Out jacks but it will only work for audio and not for the microphone. - The microphone sound quality is actually amazing, it does cancel any noise in the surroundings and will capture your voice very clearly. - The microphone boom is adjustable and retractable which is pretty cool. I didnt have any issues keeping it in place unless I extend and collapse it, which kind of resets the configuration. -The microphone mute light will only work while using the wireless transmitter. When using it wired, the lights never turn on. Overall I think this is an awesome headset even with such a high price. I have been using it for a couple of days only but I am just loving it. I will keep you updated if I encounter any issues.

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.

Alright 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.

Comparing to the Hyperx cloud 2 (which i paid the same amount for) these are not as comfortable and do not have equivalent sound quality. If this headset were wired it would be around $60-$70 or so. So yeah you are paying for wireless, but nothing really amazing in terms of overall quality. Sound quality 7/10 If youre trying to listen to music it seems you have to leave the EQ untouched, otherwise your bass is going to be too loud and cause a very noticeable, very bothersome static/ vibrating noise. If youre looking to play games it depends on what you play. Things like car engines/ jet planes should be very loud, with deep bass for immersion and its the same issue as with music- this headset doesnt produce a ton of bass without making bad vibes. I recommend leaving the EQ Flat- with no bass boost. It seems that is the only way I can turn the headset up as loud as it can go and not have noticeable static/ vibrations. However, once youve found what works best for you the sound is pretty clear, and once you get used to the overall sound it does has enough depth to satisfy your ears. Comfortability is 8/10 I can wear it for hours and it never becomes noticeably uncomfortable/ painful, only after many many hours is it a little bothersome, but really just taking the headset off for 5 minutes is more than enough, really I cant think of anything I can do all day without being uncomfortable, so yeah they are fine, but still not nearly as comfortable as my Hyperx Cloud 2. (They have leather ear cups and headband, definitely nicer than the materials used on the Arctis 7) It isnt a bad headset overall, but lacks anything which makes it very good, other than being wireless. I would recommend it if you want less immersion than a wired headset of the same price- but with the freedom of Bluetooth.

So it clearly states 24h battery, but Ive never gotten more than 14 out of mine. And while granted, 14 hours is enough for all day, Id like to have known that up front. Also the fact that SteelSeries has their own proprietary connection is still kind of annoying, especially with how much they charge for a replacement. Also, I personally hate the Game Chat dial feature. On more than one occasion I have not realized it was dialed all the way to Game and not realized I couldnt hear anyone talking. One time it even happened in a meeting, very embarrassing. There is no indication or alert or anything about it. There could be zero activity and Game and maxed volume sounds in Chat, but if the dial is set to Game, you would never know. I have no problems with clamping or the ski fabric that other users have. But there is one feature that the Arctis 7 has that I really like. The transceiver includes Line In and Line Out ports. This is really great for me if I want to use my computers audio, but also want audio from my PS4 or Switch or phone. Gone are the days of my wearing headphones over earbuds.

I’ll start with the pros: The headset looks great, fits well, and has a long charge on the battery. The cons, however, are what turned me off to this headset. Trying to connect the headset to my PS4 and Xbox One X consoles gave me lower results than what I had hoped for. On the PlayStation the sounds wasn’t terrible. It was, however, a pretty major downgrade from my Turtle Beach PX5 as far as sound quality. My PX5 headset is 8+ years old by the way and gives better quality sound than this headset. I play games like PUBG and Fortnite where audio cues like footsteps, grenades, and enemy fire are important to coming out on top. With this headset, those audio cues were so low I couldn’t hear them, but sounds like close quarters fire fights were too loud. This is even after adjusting the settings through the program they tell you to download after you purchase the headset. Voice chat was okay when I used it. It was difficult to balance game sound and voice chat. I could never find the perfect balance. Either the game was too loud and voice chat was low, or game sound was too low and voice chat was okay. For the Xbox, this headset is just a glorified and very expensive headset. You couldn’t connect it to the Xbox any other way than through the controller or the adapter for the controller that Microsoft sells separately. Without the adapter, all sound to the headset was too low. Game sound and voice chat. With the adapter, it was much better, but again, it is just a glorified and expensive pair of headphones. To improve the sound quality, i purchased the SteelSeries GameDAC. The GameDAC did indeed improve the sound quality, but it wasn’t easy to figure out as far as the setup. On top of that, the GameDAC turned my wireless headset into a wired headset. That meant that I had to purchase extra audio cords just so my headset would reach from the TV stand all the way to my couch. Finally, using the GameDAC to improve the sound quality meant that voice chat quality plummeted. For the PlayStation, my voice through the microphone was much lower. I felt like I had to shout to be heard. For the Xbox, I had to have the headset actually turned on for me to hear voice chat. With the headset turned off, I got game sound and other players could hear me, but I couldn’t hear them. All in all, their were WAY too many hoops to jump through to get the headset to work the way I wanted them to with the PS4 and the Xbox. Setup was easy with just the headset, but EXTREMELY complicated when connected to the SteelSeries GameDAC. If you want a good headset for your PS4 or Xbox, I’d look somewhere else.

I want to preface this by saying I literally just got these, delivered 30 minutes ago, and these are my first impressions. I WILL update over time. I looked at reviews for these and were discouraged by the negative reviews. QC is obviously a little lackluster, and I sat on the decision to purchase these for months. Impulsively, I pulled the trigger for these and I hope I got the good stuff, not the defect. tl;dr (will also update this): They sound decent, would be excellent after EQ tinkering. Microphones hot trash, super quiet to my friends, with a constant beeping (not sure why, but it is an occurrence). Theyre super comfortable. I dont feel them on my head, but when I do, they feel like clouds. Clamp force, quiet. They dont clamp hard, just enough to stay on my head, and not enough to make my ears and head hurt from my glasses pressing into my head. Dials on headset are very sensitive. UPDATE: Upon tinkering, the microphone works! My friends said it sounded crisp, although a little fuzzy, too. Its very directional, which makes putting the mic in the right spot really difficult. The ski band, after proper adjustment, holds the headset on my head well, no changes there. EQ tuning made this thing sound amazing, with no harshness, and clear sound all around. All in all, my opinion hasnt changed, and the review still holds merit, and my recommendation of this set. Right out the gate, unboxing experience is really nice, but not premium feeling. I dont really care about this, just figured it should be known to some with pedantics about this kind of situation. Table of Contents (this is a much longer review than I expected) 1. First impressions 2. Clamp force and fit 3. Comfort 4. Materials, durability 5. Sound Quality 6. Microphone 7. The Et Cetera First Impressions - These headphones are literal plug and play. Before opening the manual (I didnt even pull it out of the plastic wrapping), I plugged in the transmitter, and the drivers were downloaded and implemented right away. I simply clicked the power button on the headphones at first, but having no reaction, I simply held the button and right away, the headphones were connected. And in under 3 minutes, I was using these headphones. Thats really impressive. Clamp force and fit - I have glasses, and headphones hurt me in the long run. And the super nice thing about these headphones right away, is the clamp force. Not too much, not too little. They come off if I violently shake my head (but who does that, anyways), but I can look down, look up, or whatever else without these coming off. They do shift a little, but I didnt adjust these to fit me perfectly, and I probably wont. They sit really nice. Back to the clamp force. Its really loose, in a good way. They have enough force to stay in place, but not enough to put pressure on my head with my glasses. Comfort - Right away, these are super comfortable. Theyre not light, but theyre not heavy. I find myself already forgetting these are on my head, despite my excitement about these. The ear cups are really soft and porous, they literally feel like marshmallows or clouds. I dont feel much on or around my ears, but when I do, theyre very very soft. If I could describe a physical contact interaction with an abstract adjective, quiet would be perfect. Materials, durability - I just got these, so I cant say much here. They feel solid, despite the plastic construct. The ear cups, as aforementioned earlier, are soft, and they feel like premium cloth(?). They feel great on my head and in my hands. A little concerned about the hinge connecting the cans to the headband, but we will see. Again, all speculation as of now, but I will be updating this review. Sound quality - Really good, but not great out of the box. They sound balanced, with highs, mids, and lows all in play. A little more bass could be nice, but Im sure I can adjust that, I do read about EQs a lot. Sometimes the highs feel a little harsh, which, again, probably adjustable. At 100% on both PC and these headphones, these are loud. Not extremely so, but loud enough for me to want to turn the headphones down before I lose more of my hearing. At max volume, everything sounds just as they do at 50%. At low, you start losing a lot of the sounds, and they start blending (but who cranks headphones super low). All in all, pretty grandeur. (Note in update with adjusted sound) The ETC. -The volume dials feel super sensitive, but theyre surprisingly not. Deliberate touch will move the dials and nothing else -Theres also a chat mix dial. Super awesome. To think theres a dial that can replace me tinkering with the volume mixer on pc, or adjusting everyones volumes in discord, is mindblowing, and very much a convenience I wholeheartedly accept.

These worked great for a little over 2 years before they started getting a lot of static when adjusting volume and having overall sound issues. Id expect something with this price to last longer. But while they worked they were fantastic headphones.

But I cant. In fact, I usually dont write 3 star reviews, but in some ways, I feel like Im being generous. I actually have two of these headsets. I personally found them so comfortable, that when I had to stop b/c of running out of power (and FYI, the 24 hour estimate is hogwash!) I wanted a second pair to put on, despite the annoyance of having to go into Windows to reset my audio every whatever. Heres the thing though. This set has a TON of quirks that Ive just never seen in another set. And, TL;DR - its enough for me to finally give up on the most comfortable headset ever. 1. Beeping. Go google it. Youll find TONS of people saying the thing beeps, and there are just as many solutions, but in my case, none of them work. Get this: even muting system sounds doesnt make it stop. Somehow, this has a receiver thats sitting not three feet from the headset itself, yet, it still makes disconnection sounds, sometimes, about ten in 5 seconds. Yes, that fast. Its insane. 2. As mentioned by others, distortion. Dropping $150 on a headset, you figure you can crank this puppy up, but nope. Particularly with voices (like watching 90% of youtube or twitch), when a person is talking, its very easy to pick up a lot of cracking and distortion. 3. The aforementioned time. Good grief, Im lucky if I get ten hours out of this thing after a year. Its certainly not 20+. 4. is related to 3 so...I did figure out this one issue - I had thought it wouldnt take a charge, but in actuality, theres a bug in the software where the green light on the power button (which is where you know its charged) turns red.. and STAYS RED. It was out of the warranty period, so I bought another headset, but turns out, that if you leave it plugged in while its charging, and then turn it on, while plugged in, the light turns back to green. ...? WTF! Yes, its a known bug, they havent fixed it (and face it, they wont now) but, if you have this headset - youre welcome. /eyeroll 5. Volume. As others have noted, at MAX setting there are times when I can barely hear whats being played, which is kind of insane. I have a Razer Synapse that performs WAY better. I just have to assume their governor in the Arctis 7 is set to protect the user, but in fact, its really disappointing. Im all for not blaring music, but this is ridiculous. 6. Did I mention the beeping? Ive tried so many things - moving the receiver (it comes with one that is already 3 feet long - it sits on my desk). I also learned that plugging a headset into a USB hub can cause issues (and it did seem to get a little better when I took out that thing from the loop) but it didnt fix the problem. And, when its fully charged, it seems like it works a bit better. Sometimes I can get a few hours without any beeps. But then, another time, Ill pull it off the shelf (I have three headsets hanging on the wall behind me) and BAM.. fresh off a charger, it beeps at me about 30 times in a minute, and I just give up and go back to a Razer I have. I definitely cannot recommend this headset to anyone else. I read on many websites a few years ago how this one went back and forth with a few other brands for being the best available at the time, but I just dont see it. When they have several common errors that they refuse to fix, one just has to assume its the company not willing to go the distance. Am now in search of another wireless headset that

I love my Arctis 7s, theyre incredibly comfortable and the sound quality is very good (from a non-audiophile). I wear them almost every workday for the whole day while Im on meetings, in addition to using them for PC gaming. It was plug-and-play on both Windows and Linux, and they have become my go-to headphones for being on airplanes (using the included wire to connect to my phone). The charge lasts for a long time, though I typically charge them whenever Im not using them anyway. They arent noise cancelling, but they muffle it pretty well (I often get snuck up on by my family when I am wearing them). I dont really use the included mic, since I have a better usb mic, but when Linux resets to using the headset mic my coworkers can immediately tell because of the decrease in sound quality. The adjustable ski goggles strap is nice, it makes the headset feel lighter and helps it sit at exactly the right height. That said, the headphones are a bit lose and will fall off if I lean too far forward or backward.