Drawring Simon—June 17, 2019✓ Verified purchase
I've had this for a couple months now on my PS4 and am quite satisfied. I'm coming from a Gen 1 A50 that I've used for a very long time. The main reason I purchased is for the battery life and swapping feature. I typically go days without swapping, but if for some reason I forgot to swap, I can do so quickly and continue gaming. With A50's you need to plug in to charge. My old A50's battery life was a couple hours at most even after a new battery replacement. Granted, I know the new A50's get much better battery life, on par with the Arctis, but it's a plus nevertheless. I really appreciate never having to be tethered. BTW, swapping batteries on Astros are not easy, so that's another benefit of swappable batteries - you can just buy new ones if they eventually run out of charges. The sound quality is different than the Astros. Astros were definitely more bass heavy, but I quickly got used to the tighter sound on the Arctis. They definitely sound more crisp. Another difference is that the earcups on the Arctis are much more isolating. Again, it's different, not better or worse. However, while talking, you can still hear your own voice with the Sidetone feature that let's you set how much of your own voice you want to hear through your headset. I set mine very low, but you can turn off altogether if you want. Supposedly the mic quality on the Arctis is better than the Astros from what I read, but I don't really care since I don't listen to myself. Everyone heard me fine with both. One feature I really do miss is the flip up mic on the A50's. This is a tactile, binary mute indicator. I always knew I was muted with it flipped up. On the Arctis, there is a red light on the mic that indicates mute, but I have to actually look at a reflection to visually confirm its muted. On the plus side, it's nice to completely retract the mic so it's not even there on the Arctis. Not as crisp a design as the flip up/mute mic though. As far as comfort, they both felt good, neither stood out more than the other. For build quality, I prefer the Arctis surprisingly. The buttons and wheels just feel crisper. It seems like a more durable design at the key weak points as well. The two headsets are pretty close in all ways, just different. Aside from the battery swap which I think is the best, most practical feature for a wireless headset, there are a couple other things that made me choose this one over the A50 gen 3. The customizability of sound in the easy to reach mixer is nice but I don't change settings much myself. I heard the charging stand for the A50 is inconsistent and fussy, which makes total sense if you are trying to line up charging points. Also, it's a 3 year old headset at this point. Maybe gen 4 will blow us all away, but I needed a new one now. Another thing that's a plus on the Arctis is the bluetooth capability. I thought I would use it more, but haven't had the need yet in my setup. I have a dedicated BT headset and I just swap when I need to make a call. It could be useful if you don't have multiple headsets though. Overall, I am very satisfied with the headset. Sounds great, comfortable, and battery for days (recreational gamer), and quick swapping if you run out. But I would probably also be almost as satisfied with an updated A50. Read more
Brad K.—June 5, 2020✓ Verified purchase
After my absolutely horrid experience with Razer during an RMA (Razer took SIX MONTHS to RMA the headset...), I was looking at contenders for my business, I ended up going for the SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless, after reviews for the Arctis 7's reviews highly suggested the headsets. I was NOT disappointed! The headset IMHO is probably THE BEST headset you could get with the feature-set it offers! If you're looking for a gaming-centric headset that checks the most boxes, this is it. The unboxing experience is nothing but premium, and you can proudly, if you wish, display the box. Everything is well-packed, and they use solid packing protection. The headset itself needs very little setup, simply either pair it via Bluetooth, or get the base station wired up, and connect it to your device respectively. DO NOTE, that the Optical In jack is labeled as PS4, as I guess they intend the optical to only be used for the PS4. You CANNOT rename the label, but obviously you can plug in nearly any Opt Output into that input, just know it's labeled PS4. I do wish SteelSeries would just label the inputs as the type of input it is rather than what they envision you using it for; however, this is just an insignificant gripe. You will find the base station to be rather light, but honestly, it stays in place on the desk rather well, I've never had an issue with it sliding around. Setting the base station up is as simple as plugging in your inputs, optionally plugging it into power (I believe it can pull power needed from USB, but I find the wall-based power to be the better solution), and then configuring preferences like EQ and things. I do suggest keeping Auto-Off on Off because it will shut off the headset after that time elapses, regardless of what is going on. Lastly, the base station includes a slot to charge one of the two included batteries for the headset, which last a solid 6ish hours without needing to be charged. (Which charging one of these batteries I swear only takes like 30mins to an hour, and you can swap 'em when one gets low. There is a warning when it reaches like super-low power) You can also charge the headset via MicroUSB directly if you need it. The headset itself matches the near-zero latency that they advertize with the 2.4g WiFi from the base station (which is probably the way you connect to your devices if you are using the base station anyways.) The headset itself sounds VERY GOOD, not quite Audiophile, but VERY good all the same, and unless you need that audiophile level of sound, you can't really do better IMHO. It handles everything rather well that I throw at it, even decently in the high-volume range where most headsets start to have some issues. They are not as noise-canceling as something like the Bose Quietcomfort II's, so if you absolutely need isolated sound, you might not find the SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless to fit your needs; although it does block out most sub-ambient noise. I do have ONE semi-major complaint, and that is the "Game/Chat Balance" feature on my headset seems to drop out the secondary channel. To clarify, when I assign an app/game to that channel, it works fine for a while, but eventually, it fades the channel and cuts the audio entirely, unless I go into that app, and fiddle with the volume to fix it, only for it to fade again. This is likely a driver problem on my end, but also I am running on Linux on my PC, and I haven't yet found a driver that addresses that problem. If SteelSeries sees this, please reach out if you can! On the other side though, these truly are multi-purpose! I can effortlessly go from gaming on my PC, to watching a movie in bed with these and achieve a pretty cinematic sound (The Game of Thrones intro is BREATHTAKING with this headset!). You can reliably watch at full-volume and no-one is none the wiser, which really transports you away from the rest of the environment and isolates you in whatever you are watching. It's quite something! In another note, you only get Bluetooth 4.1, instead of the (at the time) new Bluetooth 5, but I hardly notice a major downside without it, although I hope they update the headset soon with things like BT5 and maybe stronger WiFi. To be clear, I can get great range from the headset, and it only cuts out after I get to the other side of my house, which is all I really need. The microphone stands pretty much toe-to-toe with my Blue Snowball, which is a relief, although for constant use I STRONGLY recommend using the popfilter attachment that they include with it, although you might run into issues when you go about retracting the mic boom into the headset when you are done using it. Also I believe it covers up the mute LED on the mic itself, but you can outright turn off the LED if you need. They are pretty comfy, and I don't really ever feel uncomfortable wearing them, or after taking them off, yet they are durable, and built to last. You get all the support of a metal skeleton, with none of the discomforts, and I find the "Airweave Fabric" band, which doubles as size adjust, to be suitable for even 10 to 12-hour gaming seshes Overall, I'd take these everywhere if my job wasn't so... Potentially abusive to the headset, with different oils and powders. I'd recommend them while traveling as well, although I am not particularly sure if the extra batteries are TSA-Compliant, but I think they are fine. Overall, there is VERY LITTLE this headset does wrong. I am very satisfied I got this headset, and probably will buy again! Edit: Over the years, the headset still preforms well. The issue I eluded to regarding the second chat channel fading, is NOT a driver problem but a hardware one. There is a capacitor on the internals that shuts off the channel if below the threshold, which is rather unfortunate. One other thing worth noting, where each side of the headset attaches to the frame, they are only secured via plastic, and are susceptible to fatigue if care isn't taken, they are pretty durable, but they would've done better by securing the headset modules via metal that isn't likely to break and effectively break the headset. Read more
