SteelSeries Arctis 7 review: This wireless headset provides incredible comfort - raglandhavocapiente

Ski goggles. That's the inspiration for SteelSeries's new Arctis line of headsets, including the wireless Arctis 7 I've been using for the past few weeks. Lead the floating headband that SteelSeries popularized on its old Siberia line, supplant it with the rubber band you'd use to strap on ski goggles (operating theater maybe a VR headset) and you've got the Arctis.

Sounds weird, right? But it's one of the almost comfortable headsets I've ever worn.

This review is part of our roundupof best gaming headsets . Go there for details connected competing products and how we tested them.

Surprising aim

It's amazing nobody else has done this. I've praised floating headbands in the past, especially those from SteelSeries, but there was about caution. Maybe the headset had a tendency to slip around, or the headband matte up like it would wear out too quickly, or it seemed unreasonably bulky (see: G.Skill's SR910). A great idea maybe, but nonpareil that needed refining.

IDG / Hayden Dingman

The Arctis 7 ($150 on Amazon)  is that refinement. The band is hush up soft and flexible, as you'd expect from ski gape-style textile, strengthened with a unbroken metal set up connecting the two ears. You get entirely the benefits of a drifting headband—namely, equalized weight distribution across the top of your foreland, helping the headset feel for a trifle light-weight. That's specially important for the Arctis 7, disposed that wireless headsets are often heavier than their wired counterparts.

Tension is better, though. Where early floating headbands have felt a trifle insubstantial, the Arctis 7 gives your head a reassuring thrust when worn. Non an uncomfortable hug, mind you. Just a concrete, "Hey, I'm present and I'm non leaving to slip unsatisfactory your head" press.

The headset runs a bit small, so if you have what some might call an "tremendous" melon (my poor father) and so the Arctis 7 power not comprise for you. At that place's no more mode to adjust it. But I'd bet on the Arctis 7 volition fit probably 98 per centum of the population just fine. Better than fine, actually. Information technology is truly, really comfortable.

IDG / Hayden Dingman

It looks damn skillful besides. SteelSeries seems to have taken some cues from more than mainstream audio companies like Polk, with the Arctis 7 looking for most like streetwear or else of a gaming headset. The ears are plain black ovals with the SteelSeries logo and name flawlessly emblazoned towards the bottom, and the single contrive frills are found happening the headband itself. Ours was a gray-and-negro triangle practice, though you can buy other designs and swop them out for a Thomas More personal spot.

Controls are built into the rear of apiece earcup, as per familiar. The left features a nonspeaking button, volume roulette wheel, Little USB charging left, as well as audio-out for phones and other devices, spell the right capitulum sports the power button and a wheel for adjusting game/chat balance.

IT may take a bit getting wont to—the three-fold wheels are class of unclear at first, and I thought I was adjusting loudness at one point when I in reality had just turned the game merge down to zero and the chat to level bes. I was fine after a hardly a days though, and the controls themselves are satiny. Much easier to use than the $300-plus SteelSeries Siberia 800, actually.

My only complaint is that the microphone doesn't in full retract. Even pushed clear in, you're still left-handed with a small protruding essence that makes the Arctis 7 seem clearly headset-esque, which is a shame inclined how close it comes to a street-willing pair of headphones. That's a slim complaint though, and it's certainly subtler and more attractive than any bolted-on headset mic.

IDG / Hayden Dingman

It's as wel ready altogether the fourth dimension. The Arctis 7 already had great 12-15 hour electric battery life when we early received IT, but a recent update has supposedly refined business leader usage thus that the Arctis 7 now lasts adequate 24 hours on a single turn on—the first gaming headset at this price, as far as I can remember, to make that lofty exact. Is the difference between 16 and 24 hours Brobdingnagian? Not in principle, since either should last you through a looooong day of gaming, but it's yet quite an acquisition on SteelSeries's part.

Performance: Hear those trammel hits

If only the audio were just a hair improve.

The Arctis 7 doesn't levelheaded negative, mind you. Information technology sounds better than the Siberia line ever did—flat the higher-end Siberia Elite.

Play headsets have arrive a long way in the last five years, with Logitech and Razer putting a lot of work into their sound quality, companies the likes of HyperX arriving on the conniption with amazing audio at inexpensive prices, and mainstream audio companies the likes of Sennheiser, Polk, and Audio-Technica fashioning a bigger play for the gaming commercialize.

IDG / Hayden Dingman

That in mind, the Arctis 7 waterfall solidly in the eye of the pack. There's not much bass front to the Arctis 7, the solution existence a multiple-heavy mix that sounds a bit pipe or radio-esque after a spell. With music especially, I've noticed that snare and cymbal hits seem a lot more pronounced than in other headsets, while the bass and guitars fix a bit lost. Even boosting the bass doesn't make a huge difference, tracks hearable muddier alternatively of more powerful.

Directly, a treble-heavy mix arse in reality beryllium a boon in some games—the tornado of a gunshot is selfsame pronounced, which some might favour for competitive playing period. Bass is besides to a greater extent textured in games, to a lesser extent precise than you'd get from a drum, which means the muddied mix ISN't as obvious.

You can get fitter for the price, though.

Again, I want to reiterate that the Arctis 7 doesn't sound bad. We've reviewed some truly awful headsets in my tenure at PCWorld, and the Arctis 7 is not one of them. It's just solidly average, as far-off as audio faithfulness is concerned. Bang-up for 2012 maybe, only just one among many in 2017.

IDG / Hayden Dingman

The microphone fares amended though. Easily positioned and past just as easily adjusted through SteelSeries's software entourage, the mic focuses a moment a good deal happening the mid-range but has decent precision and a startling amount of money of ambient noise cancellation—seriously, I was blasting music during my freshman quiz and patc it picked up some stable it was far from the ear-splitting cacophony I unsurprising. Bad news for citizenry World Health Organization comparable to pipe music through their mic in PLAYERUNKNOWN's Battlegrounds lobbies, good intelligence for everyone else.

Rump crinkle

In the end I guess it comes down to how much you care about comfort. Logitech's likewise priced G933 headset has an edge in audio quality, but its small size and standard padded headband aren't an astonishing fit. SteelSeries has a supremely cozy and stylish headset in the Arctis 7, only the audio definitely isn't best-in-class. Serviceable, more like.

Careless, both are an first-class deal. Wireless gaming headsets have come a long path from the days of the $300-positive investing—in style, in reasoned, in stamp battery life, and most of whol in price. The Arctis 7 is the start of an excellent new SteelSeries wireless line, and I toilet't wait to see what the future iteration brings.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/406970/steelseries-arctis-7-review-this-wireless-headset-provides-incredible-comfort.html

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