SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wired Gaming Headset for Xbox X|S, Xbox One, PC, PS4|5 and Nintendo SwitchTCO CertifiedTCO CertifiedTCO CertifiedTCO Certified

I am writing this review after an initial 2 weeks. I will come back and update if I have insightful longer term updates to provide.Before jumping into my $.02 I think it's useful to prefix review input with past experiences and what I'm comparing my product against.When thinking about music and overall sound quality, I have Apple AirPod Max's that blow these things out of the water. These can't touch the Max's bass, nor do they sound as smooth and natural out of the box (as everyone has said, these are quite flat out of the box). I also have SennHeiser MB660s that have been my work conference/music-at-the-desk and occasionally my gaming headphones w/o a mic and even they sound far, far better for music and even in some games (assuming OOB setup, not fully configured with Sonar).I am also going to address the lack of ANC outside of the pros/cons list, because I think the use cases of this headset are unique compared to general over the hear headphones. Despite my opinion, I do think it's odd the wireless version of these have ANC and these don't. However, I think if you want pure, fairly competitive or natural and detailed game sound quality above all else, you do not want ANC hissing and adding pressure to your ear. If you haven't owned in or over ear headphones with ANC you might not realize that the constant pressure they create on your ears cancelling out noise will fatigue your ears for long gaming sessions. I also don't think when I need to hear footsteps exactly where they are around me and where they're going in Warzone that I want to try to separate ANC hiss from game noise. I guess this could be easily addressed by putting the feature in the headphones and letting the game profile turn it on off.PROS:- the sound profile is very flat out of the box. I think that opens the most options wit the Sonar EQ software to adjust them to more peoples preferences.- if you read this and are a gamer who plays games that has voice chat, I totally under-estimated and under-valued what the GameDac can do. The GG software splits up game sound, your game mic, and your game chat mix into 3 individual audio streams. The best part of this, is games like Warzone let you split which audio device the game uses for those audio outputs. You can then press the dial on the dac once and adjust the output between chat and game sound. This means I can dynamically adjust hearing my team or the game - if people have low mics, are mumbling, or are obnoxious children blaring music into their mic during the game I can curtail that instantaneously.- despite no ANC the ear cushions do a really good job of blocking out most sound- I think the ear muffs and head band could be more comfortable than my Sennheisers and AirPod Maxes. These things just disappear on my head. I have never gamed more than an hour and a half straight without taking them off, but I thought nothing of them being on my head for that long.- the mic is excellent, especially with the ClearVoice "AI" filter- the game presets are pretty good out of the box. the sound quality and clarity are excellent. despite lacking in music impact, I have to admit these are probably are setup as they should to give the most accurate, clear in game sound. the sound imaging to pinpoint players is spot on, the volume levels are good. I cannot take these more than 75% in war zone without hurting my ears.CONS:- the Sonar software component of the GG suite requires a SteelSeries account to enable. This is totally unacceptable and just shows where SteelSeries is trying to monetize by getting your e-mail address. I have never found an aspect of Sonar that requires SteelSeries knowing who I am or utilizing an account to manage or enable my product.- I don't think if you're an audio snob you'll have a jack of all trades headset. as I mentioned above I have at least 2 over ear headphones that aren't even in the same solar system for music- stop buying the hype about the marginal better sound quality from the DAC. 99/100 normal people with untrained ears with average hearing can't tell the difference between compressed bluetooth audio and lossless wired headphones, all else equal. I bought the wired because I have so many bluetooth or wireless devices in my headset that when I want to game, I do not want interruptions, drop outs, hitches or blips.

These headphones sound so incredible and has way more options than I thought I needed. Firstly these fit very comfortable and it is a snug fit to the sides of the head but the strap feels like it is floating above your head. I thought the strap would be weird or uncomfortable but it is not and I am happy with it. I just came from the Corsair Virtuoso Wireless and these are much more comfortable. The head strap on the Corasir was painful after extended use of a few hours so I had to buy a cushion that clips on the band. Back to the Arctis Nova Pro I love the dac and steelseries.gg app. The dac is very high quality and pushes these drivers way farther than I have heard a headset go. If your motherboard is not powerful enough to push high end headphones then this will fix that and push plenty of power to these. The sound quality is crazy and I have been listening to music that I listened to for decades and hear new sounds that I had no idea were there. It separates the l very well even for a closed back headset. I play plenty of Pubg so the footsteps are a must and every other headphones I used were never enough so I had to turn it way too high and add a separate app to push it even further. The clarity of foot steps even in smoke grenades is awesome. You need all sound awareness and direction and I can pin point directional audio with more clarity with these. I have only had them for a few days so I will update after a year or so with further details.

I've bought many headsets, but these are the best I've ever owned. Lightweight super comfortable you don’t even doesn’t even feel like you’re wearing them. I opted for a used pair with warranty to save money, and I'm glad I did. That being said, my mic gets rave reviews for its clarity and crispness. For the first time, I've been able to pick up on subtle game sounds like enemy footsteps in the background. The only drawback is that they're not wireless, but I'm not sure if wireless versions would match the same sound quality. I highly recommend these headsets, which is why I'm giving them 4 stars instead of 5. Buying used is a great way to save some cash

I upgraded from a SteelSeries high end headset from 4 or 5 years ago. This new headset blows it away. The old headset was their high end model, but this new one sounds so much better. The bass is deep. The highs are precise and crisp. Even at the highest volume it's much louder than the old set, and it has zero distortion at the highest sound level. I can't believe music sounds so good on a gaming headset. As for gaming the mic sounds good and clear. Hearing footsteps while gaming is great. Easy to tell where noise is coming from direction wise in game. I couldn't be happier with this headset. I highly recommend it.

Its a good headset overall, but there is one issue I have had that makes me regret buying it. Trying to use this thing as a headset and mic feels like I am rolling on an rng table. Plugging it into the headset_mic jack has what feels like a 20% chance of working properly, I either get the mic with no sound, or on rare occasion get the mic and sound. More often than not I find myself having to just lay the headset on my desk and use it as a mic while wearing a different set of headphones for sound. Looking for solutions online got me nowhere, so I have just accepted that I will need to buy another brand soon.