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).

I 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!

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.

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.

You know, I want so much to love this headset. In fact, I do, BUT.... This is my second round with this thing. I can say off the top that while the sound quality is great and the dual volume controls are great. Noon e complains that I cut in and out or they cant really hear me- NONE of that technical piece is missing. I have a friend that I game with who has the same headset and he sounds great and there is never any issue. I can even walk almost to the end of my driveway before really starting to cut out. I hate the charging port. I dont think it is sturdy on the inside. I try to be very cautious and deliberate about plugging in the cable, because with my first one, the port completely went into the head-set and I couldnt charge it. Thus the need for round two. I think there needs to be guidance about the multiple settings though that appear in the sound... Arctis chat v. Arctis game...because it is not as intuitive as it seems. This had never happened before, but this last week I got a loud mechanical buzz sound that was fixed when I switched to the other of the two. Whenever it happens, I figure I just picked the wrong one...then I switch to the other and its fine. So not sure what thats about. My friend and I both are starting to notice that and cant seem to figure out why. I like this headset primarily because it is light on my head. I like the dual volume controls, I like the sound quality especially, but not the charging port and this new recent-fixable- buzz noise.

I work in VR and spend 5 hours a day on a voice call in Discord communicating with coworkers about bugs found and tasks needing to be done. My previous headphones were Bluetooth and worked great for me to hear, but my outgoing audio was atrocious. I got these in 2021 and havent regretted the decision since. The difference in audio is night and day, even to my hearing-impaired ears, and the mic is comparable in quality to my USB condenser mic. Its held up well over this 1+ year span, with being used for over 24 hours a week. Mic still works great, and audio is still top-notch. The only drawback Ive found is when using this with my Quest 2. Plugged in with an AUX cable, it works, but audio from the Quest is much quieter than the audio coming from my PC. Since Im hearing-impaired, I need the audio from the Quest to be as loud as or louder than the PC audio. I normally use a different pair of headphones with my Quest for that reason (Aftershokz bone conduction), but when I go to stream gameplay in my off time on Twitch or YouTube, I need a way to hear Text to Speech reading out my chat; hence needing the dual function of the Arctis 7. Which means I sacrifice being able to hear the game well in favor of being able to hear chat. My situation is not that common, I know; thats why I rated 5 stars and just put 4 stars in Sound Quality beneath that. Overall, these are 5 star headphones.

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.

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.

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.

I really wanted to like this headset and have it be the one I relied on for many years. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. Ive recently switched to a Logi PRO X set and like it much better. Out of the box, they worked great. I am on a Win 10 machine, updated, nothing goofy about the setup or anything. Then, they started disconnecting randomly mid-game. This became predictable and happened 1-3 times per session, and I only game for a few hours at a time tops. I dealt for a while, relocated the adapter, checked for interference in my home to the best of my ability. It ended up just stopping one day randomly, kind of like how it started. Fast forward a couple of months of it working without issue. Suddenly disconnects again AND with the update to SSGG 22.0, the EQ broke. I tried every fix I could find online. Reinstalled, reset button on the unit, etc... I can only get the EQ and Sidetone (which I rely on) working if I do this goofy dance of powering it off/on/off/saving an EQ change/reverting the change. But, when they inevitably disconnect shortly after that - it undoes all that and EQ/Sidetone is broken again. Sigh.... Dont bother. I lament not having gone Logi initially, since thats my usual go-to brand for stuff like this.