My Favourite Gaming Headphones From SteelSeries Cured My Battery Anxiousness

Wireless PC gaming headsets are a necessity for me. Wired gaming headsets are simply too restrictive, tethering you to your desk and limiting your actions throughout intense gaming classes. However, there’s one large trade-off with wi-fi gaming headsets that I’ve at all times struggled with: battery life. Most gaming headsets merely do not final very lengthy and require charging day-after-day. 

Lovingly stolen from my spouse, the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite headset breaks that customary with basically infinite battery life. At $600, they’re the costliest pair of headphones I’ve ever used, however after months of use, I do not remorse the swap. 

Pros:

• Effective energetic noise cancellation
• Two hot-swappable batteries, so I by no means run out of juice
• Useful hub included for EQ, quantity management and battery charging
• Comfortable match and earcups for hours of use
• Works throughout PC, PS5, Xbox and cellular

Cons:

• SteelSeries software program may be overwhelming
• Spatial audio is gimmicky
• Expensive at $600

Battery anxiousness is actual with wi-fi gaming headphones. If they do not include a docking station (most reasonably priced and midrange fashions do not), then it’s worthwhile to actively bear in mind to cost them; in any other case, you get an disagreeable shock once you boot up a sport solely to search out your headset useless. 

That’s not an issue with the Nova Elite. It comes with a detachable, replaceable battery within the earcup, with a second battery out there that may be saved repeatedly charging within the included GameHub (which is principally a digital audio converter that doubles as a battery charging station). When the headset’s battery runs down, it is merely a matter of popping off the earcup’s magnetic cowl, ejecting the totally charged battery from the hub and swapping the contemporary pack in. Seamless and straightforward, which is precisely what I’m on the lookout for in gaming headphones. 

On paper, every battery lasts about 30 hours, supplying you with round a complete of 60 hours of fixed utilization — although in follow, it is basically infinite so long as you cost the spare battery. 

If, for some cause, you do not have entry to the bottom station, you can too use USB-C quick charging by popping off the opposite earcup’s cowl, letting you plug in instantly. I discovered that SteelSeries’ quick-charge function — quarter-hour of charging for as much as 4 hours of use — lives as much as its declare. 

With the opposite gaming headsets I’ve used, just like the Dell Alienware Pro Wireless, I often needed to cost them each different day. The battery life different considerably based mostly on my utilization. The HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless fared a lot better. They’re rated for 300 hours of use, and I do not know if I ever really hit that, however I often charged them as soon as a month. However, with the HyperX, I discovered that typically auto off did not work, and the battery would unexpectedly drain.  

Also price contemplating is that the batteries on each the Alienware and HyperX headsets are built-in, that means they may degrade over time; you will not get as a lot battery life as once they had been new. I anticipate the Nova Elite to final so much longer as a result of if the batteries cease totally charging, I can merely purchase new ones. 

Excellent audio capabilities and full of options

The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite options energetic noise cancellation, and it does a terrific job counteracting most distracting background noise, together with the rumble of a dryer we preserve in my workplace, to not point out the sound of air purifiers, followers and my three cats operating round. 

The Alienware Pro Wireless have barely higher noise cancellation, a minimum of for voices, but it surely’s not sufficient to maneuver the needle a technique or one other. Also, you may doubtless get higher noise-canceling tech on Bluetooth headphones just like the Bose QuietComfort Ultra, however for all my gaming wants, the Nova Elite is greater than sufficient to let me hear audio and voice chat.

 
SteelSeries says the Nova Elite are the world’s first gaming headphones with high-resolution audio, that includes 96kHz/24-bit audio processing and help for low-latency codecs. With the caveat that I’m not a hard-core audiophile, the sound high quality is spectacular.

To offer you some context, I briefly dabbled in a number of the higher wired headphones, just like the AKG K7XX and Sennheiser HD650, earlier than deciding it was too costly a interest. But for what it is price, the Nova Elite sound incredible with Spotify’s new lossless audio setting. 

I’m somebody who favors bass-heavy music, so that is what my EQ settings mirror. The headphones sound wonderful, deep and thunderous with my normal set of steel favorites (Sabaton, Hammerfall, Stormwarrior, Iron Maiden and Powerwolf). I  additionally play a number of RPGs, technique video games and a few co-op video games with my spouse. The audio throughout completely different sport genres is superb.

Since I like taking part in video games and listening to music at excessive quantity, it is also nice to make use of over-the-ear headphones to assist shield my listening to. My colleague Anna Gragert not too long ago wrote about her listening to loss and the advantages of utilizing over-the-ear headsets like this one. 

Something to notice is that, whereas the Nova Elite are extremely comfortably for me with its plush earcups and a snug clamping drive on the scarf, not all headphones are made equal and won’t work nicely for everyone. My colleague, Tyler Lacoma, has a number of suggestions for tweaking your headphones for all-day consolation.  

The GameHub, which additionally serves as a quantity management and battery charger, provides a pleasant central spot to view your audio decision, L/R stability, quantity, battery life and which USB-C enter is in use. It has three USB-C ports whole, with help for PC, PlayStation, Xbox, 2.4GHz wi-fi connectivity and Bluetooth. It’s a sturdy set of connectivity choices and spares you from having to purchase completely different headphones for various platforms. 

Software is very customizable, however has some issues

If there’s any draw back, it is the SteelSeries software program, which must run within the background more often than not for options to work, reminiscent of customized EQ settings for video games or music. However, the software program provides preset profiles for all kinds of video games you can decide from, although more often than not I stick to my most popular Deep Bass setting. 

I do not discover SteelSeries’ software program notably intuitive, with too many panels and too few settings and toggles. It’s a pleasant set of customization choices for those who’re actually into tweaking EQ settings, however 9 out of 10 occasions, a easy bass increase choice works nice for me. 

I’ll additionally add that I just about by no means use Sonar, the spatial audio that is meant to simulate a house theater expertise. It can be utilized in video games to listen to issues like footsteps behind you or to assist pinpoint an enemy’s location. 

Since I do not play a number of aggressive shooters the place this is able to be useful, and I dislike feeling like I’m solely listening to sound from one earcup, I discover it extra distracting than anything. Enabling it additionally tends to decrease the general audio high quality and readability. 

The costliest gaming headset I’ve ever used, however completely price it

The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite is undoubtedly costly at $600, but it surely has so much that makes it price it for me, together with the high-quality audio, sturdy ANC, swappable batteries and platform cross-compatibility. 

However, SteelSeries does provide a cheaper choice with the $380 Arctics Nova Pro Wireless. These headphones additionally include the GameHub and two units of swappable batteries, however they’ve a extra restricted set of platform connectivity choices and barely decrease construct high quality. You nonetheless get many of the different key options, together with ANC, although. 

You also can discover different, extra reasonably priced choices on our record of one of the best PC gaming headsets. I’ve nothing dangerous to say in regards to the Cloud Alpha Wireless — CNET named it the longest battery life on a single cost. Still, if value is not any object, I’m recommending the Nova Elite each time.