Readers, I believe I’ve discovered it. The excellent gaming headset. For me, anyway. Thanks to a easy strip of cloth, Steelseries’ Arctis 7 is palms down essentially the most snug gaming headset I’ve ever used. Instead of cushioning that damnable headband with reminiscence foam and different such gubbins you usually discover in on-line mattress adverts, Steelseries’ so-called ‘ski-goggle’ design places all the burden on a stretchy piece of fabric that wraps tightly, however snugly spherical your cranium, whereas the fundamental aluminium body sits suspended above your head. No pinching, no headache, nothing. It’s lovely.
You can alter the tautness of the material with its powerful velcro fastening on the facet ought to it show too small or massive out of the field, and you’ll even purchase further bands to boost its design do you have to really feel like a change. Combine that with two supremely mushy ear cups, nice wi-fi audio, a swathe of controls and the actual fact it prices simply £135 (or £100 over at Amazon at time of writing) – a relative discount in comparison with the Steelseries’ equally good however £200+ Siberia 800 – and the Arctis 7 makes a fantastic first impression.
Indeed, having spent many hours listening to each this and the Siberia 800 in fast succession, its audio high quality is nigh on equivalent. I actually couldn’t inform a lot of a distinction between them, as all the things from soundtracks to in-game audio sounded simply as clear and balanced as the opposite.
What the Arctis 7 lacks, after all, is the Siberia’s fancy-pants receiver field, opting as a substitute for a easy USB transmitter. The lengthy cable gives a little bit of flexibility, supplying you with the liberty to position it in your desk to enhance its vary quite than have it gathering mud behind your PC, but it surely’s nonetheless basically a USB dongle. You additionally get a three.5mm analogue cable for wired use, plus a micro USB cable for charging, however that’s just about it. No particular chat cables and positively no optical S/PDIF.
Not that that basically issues, because the Siberia 800 was, in all honesty, a little bit of a faff to arrange. The Arctis 7, then again, is far easier. You simply plug it in, and also you’re roughly off. Okay, I needed to obtain some drivers utilizing Steelseries’ Engine software program earlier than I might really begin utilizing them, however that’s a lot much less painful than fiddling about with the Siberia 800’s field menu and establishing every particular person supply one after the other.
Engine additionally helps you to allow the Arctis 7’s DTS X 7.1 encompass sound characteristic, however I wouldn’t advocate it. As mentioned in my Siberia 800 review, any form of encompass sound assist – particularly 7.1 – is all a little bit of a fudge on the subject of headphones, as you’ve nonetheless basically solely acquired two audio system as a substitute of seven and a subwoofer. Instead, it’s all achieved nearly through software program, which is usually a bit spotty relying on what sort of customary it’s utilizing.
In the Arctis 7’s case, I discovered turning on DTS X solely made music sound a bit faux and artificial, so I left it turned off. I additionally didn’t really feel the necessity to mess with Engine’s onboard equaliser nonsense, and its three preset modes (Game, Movie and Music) all sounded a lot of a muchness. As a end result, I left it within the default Game mode.
The retractable mic will also be adjusted through Engine. Here, you possibly can alter the amount and sidetone (how a lot you possibly can hear your personal voice when talking into the microphone), however when you’ve configured it to your liking, you shouldn’t need to open it once more. Indeed, I discovered the default settings to be a lot adequate, and the mic was a heck of so much clearer and fewer muffly than the one on the Siberia 800.
In reality, I’d even go so far as saying it was nearly as good as, if not higher, than the Sennheiser GSP 350‘s microphone, particularly as the Arctis 7’s mute button on the left ear cup turns the mic a cheeky shade of crimson to let you recognize it’s not in use – an enormous enchancment on merely lifting the mic arm up in direction of your head and consistently second-guessing whether or not you’ve achieved it proper or not.
Admittedly, the microphone’s background noise cancellation might use a little bit of enchancment, as I might nonetheless hear myself typing and clicking my mouse whereas I used to be testing it, however on the entire, it places in a good efficiency. You even get a music and chat combine slider on the precise ear cup, too, letting you dial down a sport’s background music so you possibly can focus completely on multiplayer chat, or filter out these screaming 12-year-olds completely for those who’d quite think about these thumping victory tunes.
Did I additionally point out simply how cozy it’s? For me, that’s what actually seals the deal on the Arctis 7. The reality it sounds nice and has a superb microphone is only a bonus at this level, as I’ve by no means discovered something I can put on for greater than an hour in all my years of headphone testing. I might simply put on these all day with out batting an eyelid, and its closed-back design means you too can use it round different folks with out grating on everybody’s nerves. As such, I’d heartily advocate the Arctis 7 to anybody who values consolation as a lot as I do.
Of course, for those who don’t fancy spending this a lot on a wi-fi headset, or simply desire a plain, outdated wired one, the excellent news is that the rest of the Arctis series has precisely the identical design and makes use of precisely the identical audio drivers as its flagship cousin, guaranteeing a near-identical listening expertise minus a couple of options. The wired £110 Arctis 5, for example, can be utilized over USB and three.5mm analogue and comes with RGB lighting on the ear cups, or you will get the entry-level Arctis 3, which simply has a daily three.5mm connection for £90. The latter can be out there as a £135 wireless Bluetooth headset, but it surely’s price taking into account that neither Arctis three mannequin comes with the chat combine characteristic.
Whatever mannequin you resolve to go together with, although, there’s no denying that Steelseries’ Arctis vary is a tricky act to observe. The Arctis 7 specifically is now my headset of alternative for general consolation, and future headsets must work very exhausting certainly to knock it off its throne.
