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

Arctis 7 wireless headset. First off, I am playing on a PS4 for a month now. It seems those with software issues must be on PC as there is no software anywhere in sight for my setup. Ease of use 5 stars. Plug in the dongle and turn on the headset. Boom, it works. Take a break, walk to the kitchen 40 feet away and still hear your team talking and game sound the same as being in the game room. Audio 5 stars. I have had no issues with audio quality. It has rich sound and is very directional. Microphone 3 stars. It works, but clan mates say its quiet. Had to turn up dialogue volume to max on the PS4. Mic has to stay close to my mouth. Pull on the retractable mic too much and it makes a beep. No microphone monitor, which means you cant hear yourself talk (which leads to others not being able to hear you talk and you wont know it until they tell you). Comfort 4 stars. I have a 7 5/8 hat size which is large. I adjusted the material about as big as I could make it and while its not the most comfy, I can wear it for an hours-long raid in Destiny 2 without pain. Charging - 2 stars. USB-2 charging, but its iffy at best. Plug it in and hope its charging. The mic red light comes on but after an overnight charge it still shows yellow on the power button. Turn it off again, then on again, and sometimes the light will be green. Charging port does seem to be finicky, which is suboptimal. Battery life - 5 stars. When its fully charged it lasts for multiple long afternoon/evening play time. Overall I can put up with the above issues. But next time Ill probably go with something else. Update 12-27-2021 Now using with a PS5. Plugged in the dongle and the console found it immediately. Still not the most comfy headset on the planet but it works. If you charge it overnight and turn it off before unplugging it, the charge light turns green. If you unplug it then turn it on, the charge light is yellow like the day before. Odd. Durability is good but I dont throw things... The mic is still not great for me, but again, turning up the dialogue volume on the PS5 addresses that. Probably about 70% volume so people can Hera me. Now they hear me breathing though. Balance is not easy to find in this area. Sound is still good. Im not sure the PS4 or 5 support 7.1 sound, but it is directional and in the few occasions Ive put it on backwards, I noticed right away I did something dumb lol... I still wouldnt buy it again because of the oddities it has. It works, but I think for the money you should be able to get a much better headset in terms of comfort and usability.

I love everything about this headset except for the headband. Sound: fantastic, plus being able to balance desktop sounds and Discord audio on the fly is tops. Function: great, muting is tactile and you always know when youve done it, mic position is always correct thanks to the flex mic, you can use them while charging, and theres a manual connection option. Minor quibble here: the engravings on the base station are nearly impossible to see, easily fixed with a minute of liquid paper whiteout, pictured. Microphone: Clarity is really good for a headset mic, I only need to switch to the desktop mic when doing a recording, headset mic works great for chatting, phone calls, streaming, etc. Feel: This is where I drop a star. While the overall comfort is great, I wear this almost 12 hours a day and the headband stretched out after only 6 months requiring me to get a replacement from the SS website for $15. Also, the ear cups dont have an obvious way to be removed/cleaned, and if you use these all day like I do they will get gross. All in all a good headset but I wish I didnt have to spend $30 a year on maintenance via replacing the headband, so 4 stars.

I REALLY enjoyed this product for the first couple of weeks I used it, save one or two small complaints, but as time has progressed it has become more of a hassle. They aren’t bad headphones and they work flawlessly with my PS4, but have given me persistent issues with my PC. The good: -The software on PC allows you to customize profiles for different listening applications which is nice (and necessary). -These headphones worked super well with my PS4, which has been super cool. -when they work on my PC I love being wireless and the battery life is pretty good and the headphones are super comfy. The Bad (long because I want to be fair and specific): -out of the box, the sound quality is ROUGH. I mean, sound profiles for headphones are definitely a matter of taste but out of the box I found the high frequencies to be PAINFUL, and there was a severe lack of bass. Any budget Bluetooth headphones is going to struggle to achieve wired levels of sound quality but the shrill and piercing highs almost made me immediately return them. (Definitely had to alter the sound profile with the software in order for them to be usable) -for PC, these headphones have so much happening in the audio drivers/devices side of things that your computer will become confused and stop delivering audio correctly. Sometimes these headphones work perfectly but for me it’s been a coin flip. It creates a proxy “discord” audio device for the discord volume dial feature which is fine if you are only running game audio and discord. I had to disable this feature because I would often listen to music while I listen to discord and game, the discord dial can sometime start effecting volumes of programs you don’t want it to, or may not work at all. Aside from The discord features, of these headphones die while your playing a game, sometimes you have to restart the game for it to re-register the headphones as the appropriate audio device, but sometimes it works fine. Sometimes, my Spotify won’t recognize the Arctic 7 audio device as a valid output and won’t play music through them unless the headphones were on when booting Spotify. Sometimes game sounds just stop and for seemingly no reason. Sometimes your computer wont recognize the Arctic’s 7 at all and aside from restarting your computer there’s not much you can do. There’s all sorts of fixes online for stuff like this online, but unless you enjoy uninstalling and reinstalling drivers and making sure weird caches are cleared it’s been easier in my experience to just restart my computer. Maybe it’s from windows updates, or bad software updates, my own personal setup, or whatever, but I’ve checked most of those things and sometimes there’s no clear reason for a glitch. All that being said, if it is working, it will work great for, usually, an entire session (keep in mind, never had ANY issues on PS4). If your audio setup on your PC is super basic (no speakers, no alternate outputs, just running game sound and discord through these phones) then maybe this is perfect for you. Overall: - I use these headphones all the time, but the 3/5 star rating is ultimately because I still have to keep my wired headset around for when these start to glitch out. The sound quality is rough at first but can be evened out, and I bought these headphones to try out a different sound profile then normal. I knew they would be kind of shrill with less bass, and I don’t ultimately fault them for that but with that in mind, if you like bass heavy profiles, look elsewhere. The directionality is spot on and the mids and highs are so sharp it makes in game sound cues like footsteps or gunshots stand out like crazy. However the highs are so powerful that gunshots are so loud you have to active the sound compression algorithm on the headphones in order to keep your ears from (bleeding?) ONLY hearing explosions or gunshots. These headphones have been a joy at times and a source of frustration as well. For 110$, your expectations can’t be too crazy, if you were to buy a high end mic and high end headphones, all with with a built in high quality Bluetooth DACs with software support for listening profiles you would expect to spend 10x that amount. So it’s a solid deal, but what your buying is wireless-ness not audio quality or reliability. If I had to buy another Bluetooth headset I’d probably spend a bit more money and try a different brand, with less features, more reliability, and better ootb sound quality but that’s my personal preference. TLDR: 3/5

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.

This headset good for gaming. The audio is clear and I never had any connections drops using this. Battery life is great, usually lasting me 2 days before it needs a charge. Software is fairly customizable using the steelseries engine and dts can be unlocked via their separate software as well. Wireless is achieved through their receiver which uses usb. It even has an option to make a wired connection wireless through a Line In and Line Out connection. If you lose connection theres a pairing button on the side. You can even run your speakers through the Line Out for a seamless headset to speakers transition. The Build design is minimal with a mostly plastic body. You cannot adjust the ear piece length as it is designed much like a ski mask. It will have a little weight to it. I didnt find any issues with comfort or any signs of wear over 3 months. Your options on the headset range from your usual power, volume, charging port and even an option to use the headset wired. Battery life is also indicated by leds as well. Now this is where it became a hit or miss. Using this wired for Xbox would only work with their proprietary jack, the 3.5 option wouldnt pickup the microphone. It still worked fine as long as you used their proprietary connection limiting its versatility. Otherwise Volume controls are easy to adjust such as game and chat. Last is microphone mute button, no problems their. With that said the microphone is okay for chat. Its not the best in quality, but it is very easy to adjust both physically and through the software. Mute works as intended, even has a red led indicator when your muted. Its not in the way and picks ups with no problem. The software is fairly customizable. Nice features like a Equalizer, profiles, Microphone monitor levels, dynamic range levels, and this is where you can enable the 7.1 Surround. Dts surround will have it separate app, I founds this on the Windows app Store, and it automatically picks up as Dts enabled device. With the Dts Surround, it was another hit or miss scenario at least in gaming. It was noticeably more spacious than windows sonic, but it would also sometimes completely mute directional sound in games but this wasnt consistent between games. This also took me 2 months to realize I wasnt using Dts surround because I didnt have the app. After a month of Dts use, it sound okay Ive been using turtle beach headphones for so long, that its a adjustment for me. Overall this headset is feature rich if you can get it on sale. Build quality nice, sound is solid, and its quite versatile for a wireless set. Its does seem better suited for Windows 10 in my case, but a solid choice for decent audio quality.

I bought these because I was tired of headsets the cheaper headsets always breaking down on me. I figured that if I got a quality headset that wouldnt happen so I conducted a lot of research and ended up with these. They are incredible for gaming. The sound quality is really nice which lets you pinpoint exactly where the noise if coming for. I use it mostly for Apex Legends and can definitely tell a difference in my performance when I have them on. The weight of the headset had me hesitant initially because many reviews I read were saying they were too heavy on your head. I wholeheartedly disagree. They are light enough to not notice them when gaming and heavy enough to feel like the quality you paid for. I think that the reason they feel so light when you wear them is the ski mask head band is incredibly comfortable. These headphone are loud. so loud actually that I do not keep them turned up even close to all the way. When it is turned up it sounds like you are at a loud concert. Even with my volume reduced I have missed my phone ringing right in front of me multiple times. These are perfect if you want to zone out and avoid outside noise. My one contention with these bad boys is that there is no Sidetone. Sidetone is where you can speak into your mic and hear your own voice through the headset. This may not sound like a big deal because you should be able to head yourself just by talking. However, the noise cancellation is so good that its hard to hear myself. Initially it is a very weird experience and I did not like it. I started playing with one ear cup off which was not ideal. Eventually I just lowered my game volume enough to hear my voice. Not having Sidetone is a really annoying feature that I did not think would upset me as much as it did. In the future I would probably not get these again but only in favor of a headset that has sidetone. Other than that these are phenomenal

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 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.

I 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.

Comfort: This headset is the most comfortable headset I have ever owned! I often forget Im wearing them as I walk away from my PC because I hardly notice them. Which is by far the best quality this headset possesses in my opinion. Sound: The sound quality is pretty good as well. Im not an audiophile, but this headset definitely has better sound quality than the Corsairs I had before (and I LOVED that headset). Features: The surround sound is pretty good, just like any other headset Ive used. There is a 2 channel volume system which ROCKS. So you have the ability to adjust between chat or your game being louder with a dial on the headset itself, I absolutely love this feature. The sound profiles on the headset are cool and all, but I honestly dont notice much of a difference between the options. The sidetone... is really quiet. I can barely hear myself talk, because the side tone is so bad and the noise cancellation is so good! This is one of the 2 reasons I did not give 5 stars. The other reason I did not give 5 stars, is the software you use to make changes to settings. Its TERRIBLE half the time the changes I make dont apply (yes its plugged in), the other half of the time so much as opening the software causes a high pitch beep that doesnt go away unless I reboot the headset. So overall, this is a really nice headset and its definitely worth the money. But the devils in the details, and I just wish those 2 previously mentioned things were implemented better, because theyd make this headset perfect in my opinion.