Turtle Beach has given us a lot of great headphones over the years, but they’ve struggled to keep up with the top models from Astro and SteelSeries. But, with the Stealth Pro, they can take the next step.
When I unpacked and got my hands on the headphones, the first thing that struck me was that the build quality seemed to be great. With their 50mm Nanoclear drivers, the headset weighs a bit more than the Astro A50s, but after a few sessions lasting 7-10 hours, I haven’t seen this to be an issue. The only thing it does is make me feel like this is a product that can “take the hit” when needed.
Included in the package are the headphones themselves, a battery charging station that also doubles as a wireless receiver, a microphone boom arm, two batteries, two USB-C cables, and a small carrying bag in case you’re on the go. The fact that this headset has two batteries is probably my favorite feature. Each battery has a capacity of 12 hours, which allows me to always have power as long as I remember to replace the batteries after extended use. If you for some reason forget to replace them, it’s easy to store the battery behind a magnetic cover on the left earcup when you’re on the go. If you’re really unlucky and both batteries die, a few short minutes of 15 minutes will give you 2-3 hours of extra battery time, but I don’t think that’s a likely scenario unless you’re out and about. As an added feature, the charging station has a USB port to charge other devices such as mobile phones when needed.
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Turtle Beach has always focused on gaming with headphones, but with the Stealth Pro, they wanted to go one step further, with music and movies sounding better than ever. We’ve been spoiled by the sound of the A50s and SteelSeries’ Arctis Nova Pro, but the Stealth Pro is ready to keep up with those two, and then some. The sound is clear, and with all the various settings available in the impressive software (also available as an app on your mobile device), you can really customize the sound to your needs.
At the end of the day, though, it’s game audio. I played Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 with some friends one night and, as usual, I was the first to play as a spectator. On a few occasions, I had to tell my teammates that oddly enough he was alive and there was an enemy nearby, and I was able to determine if he was above him, below him, or next to him. My friend didn’t get a chance to hear this in person. This is a testament to me how good the sound quality of this headset is.
Additionally, Turtle Beach added active noise cancellation (ANC) for the first time in its lineup, and they debuted in style with a speaker and a microphone. When my neighbor mowed his lawn for the first time this year, neither my friend nor I could hear the lawnmower outside the window, even though it was open. It scares me when we take our headphones off and suddenly hear all the noise, but we’ll live with that.
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In general, the quality of the microphones is well above average and can be compared to several individual microphones. During the recording, we could hear a noticeable difference between this and the Logitech Blue Sona, but in live chat on Discord, my comrades assured me the difference was minimal.
One thing that’s really missing in the features department is the ability to adjust between chat and game sounds while on the go. It’s a feature I’ve used a lot on other headsets, and I was really disappointed when I couldn’t find this option here, except on the Xbox version of the headset. After talking to Turtle Beach, I’m sure there will be an update soon that will make it available on PC as well.
Headphones can get a bit warm over extended periods of time, on the first day of spring it feels much hotter than other headphones but also feels the same when it’s cold so that makes me think it might have some sort of limit to it actual temperature. My colleague in a fairly warm climate can attest that he feels the same way in much warmer weather than we experience.
Like most other headphones these days, you can connect to two sources at once, as long as one of them is connected via Bluetooth. This allows you to avoid missing important calls during intense gaming sessions, for example.
All in all, the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro is a good premium headset for a price. With an MSRP of £329.99, it’s on the expensive end of the spectrum for gaming headsets, but worth every penny in my opinion. This is my main headphone from now on and it will take a lot to get it off that throne. One thing that could make it better is if it came with a headphone stand, but that’s finicky. If you’re looking for the best gaming headset on the market, and price doesn’t matter, you can stop your search now. You have found it.
We’ve got a pretty solid 9 because of where the headset is today but with tweaks to the chat/gaming combo we promise that’s coming and hopefully by the time the headset launches on April 23rd it’s a definite 10 and that’s us Set it as the reason for scoring this review.
