SteelSeries Arctis 7 Wireless Gaming Headset with DTS:X v2.0 Surround Sound - Noise Cancelling Over-Ear Headphones for PC, PS4, PS5 - Perfect for FPS Games, Streaming & Online Meetings (Black)

I want to preface this by saying I literally just got these, delivered 30 minutes ago, and these are my first impressions. I WILL update over time. I looked at reviews for these and were discouraged by the negative reviews. QC is obviously a little lackluster, and I sat on the decision to purchase these for months. Impulsively, I pulled the trigger for these and I hope I got the good stuff, not the defect.tl;dr (will also update this): They sound decent, would be excellent after EQ tinkering. Microphone's hot trash, super quiet to my friends, with a constant beeping (not sure why, but it is an occurrence). They're super comfortable. I don't feel them on my head, but when I do, they feel like clouds. Clamp force, "quiet." They don't clamp hard, just enough to stay on my head, and not enough to make my ears and head hurt from my glasses pressing into my head. Dials on headset are very sensitive.UPDATE: Upon tinkering, the microphone works! My friends said it sounded crisp, although a little fuzzy, too. It's very directional, which makes putting the mic in the right spot really difficult. The ski band, after proper adjustment, holds the headset on my head well, no changes there. EQ tuning made this thing sound amazing, with no harshness, and clear sound all around. All in all, my opinion hasn't changed, and the review still holds merit, and my recommendation of this set.Right out the gate, unboxing experience is really nice, but not "premium" feeling. I don't really care about this, just figured it should be known to some with pedantics about this kind of situation.Table of Contents (this is a much longer review than I expected)1. First impressions2. Clamp force and fit3. Comfort4. Materials, durability5. Sound Quality6. Microphone7. The Et CeteraFirst Impressions - These headphones are literal plug and play. Before opening the manual (I didn't even pull it out of the plastic wrapping), I plugged in the transmitter, and the drivers were downloaded and implemented right away. I simply clicked the power button on the headphones at first, but having no reaction, I simply held the button and right away, the headphones were connected. And in under 3 minutes, I was using these headphones. That's really impressive.Clamp force and fit - I have glasses, and headphones hurt me in the long run. And the super nice thing about these headphones right away, is the clamp force. Not too much, not too little. They come off if I violently shake my head (but who does that, anyways), but I can look down, look up, or whatever else without these coming off. They do shift a little, but I didn't adjust these to fit me perfectly, and I probably won't. They sit really nice. Back to the clamp force. It's really loose, in a good way. They have enough force to stay in place, but not enough to put pressure on my head with my glasses.Comfort - Right away, these are super comfortable. They're not light, but they're not heavy. I find myself already forgetting these are on my head, despite my excitement about these. The ear cups are really soft and porous, they literally feel like marshmallows or clouds. I don't feel much on or around my ears, but when I do, they're very very soft. If I could describe a physical contact interaction with an abstract adjective, "quiet" would be perfect.Materials, durability - I just got these, so I can't say much here. They feel solid, despite the plastic construct. The ear cups, as aforementioned earlier, are soft, and they feel like premium cloth(?). They feel great on my head and in my hands. A little concerned about the hinge connecting the cans to the headband, but we will see. Again, all speculation as of now, but I will be updating this review.Sound quality - Really good, but not great out of the box. They sound balanced, with highs, mids, and lows all in play. A little more bass could be nice, but I'm sure I can adjust that, I do read about EQ's a lot. Sometimes the highs feel a little harsh, which, again, probably adjustable. At 100% on both PC and these headphones, these are loud. Not extremely so, but loud enough for me to want to turn the headphones down before I lose more of my hearing. At max volume, everything sounds just as they do at 50%. At low, you start losing a lot of the sounds, and they start blending (but who cranks headphones super low). All in all, pretty grandeur. (Note in update with adjusted sound)The ETC.-The volume dials feel super sensitive, but they're surprisingly not. Deliberate touch will move the dials and nothing else-There's also a "chat mix" dial. Super awesome. To think there's a dial that can replace me tinkering with the volume mixer on pc, or adjusting everyone's volumes in discord, is mindblowing, and very much a convenience I wholeheartedly accept.Wireless Headsets I went through before keeping this one: (problem from memory in parentheses)HyperX Cloud Flight - Bought/Returned (pressed ears slightly?)Corsair HS70 - Bought/Returned (pressed ears)Corsair Void Pro - Tried in-store (pressed ears)Logitech G533 - Tried in-store (clunky, harsh cups)Razer Nari - Bought/Returned (heavy)Astro A20 - Tried in-store (pressed ears)Sony Gold Wireless Headset (late 2018 updated version) - Tried in-store (pressed ears)Bluetooth aptX Headsets (we'll get into why later if you're interested):TaoTronics TT-BH036 - Bought/Returned (latency)Avantree HT4189 - Bought/Returned (latency, clamping force, pressed ears)Comfort:This is the most common reason I returned/did not purchase many of the previously mentioned headsets. I apparently have a very weird head. I'm super sensitive to shallow cups (ears stick out causing pain if pressed for a long time) and clamping force (big head causes headaches if squeezed for very long). Heavy headsets can still "squeeze" my head due to weight on top of my head even if they don't have much clamping force on the sides. Due to this, I feel confident that I am as critical as it gets as far as headset comfort goes. The Arctis 7 was kept because it did not cause discomfort when wearing for many hours. There is a caveat: As it comes in the box, it has too much clamping force for me. Luckily, the headband is made out of "sheet metal" and an adjustable strap. The strap can be loosened to let the headset contact as much of the top of your head as possible (distributing weight to remove pressure points). The metal band can be bent backwards to reduce how hard it squeezes your head. I found a forum post somewhere made by an acclaimed Steelseries employee who advised this, so that is what I did, and it worked great. Just be gentle, do it a little at a time, eventually it will be perfect! There is no padding on the interior of the cups which scared me as I usually need it, but these cups do not touch my ears somehow so it is not required.Latency:This is more of a side note for the bluetooth headsets. Most everyone knows that bluetooth headsets will have higher latency than headsets with proprietary wireless transmitters. What some don't know is that there is a variant of bluetooth protocol that aims to correct this, it is called "aptX". To use it, both your transmitting and receiving devices must be aptX enabled. I will admit, the latency was very low for the aptX bluetooth headphones. When watching videos it was unnoticeable, however when playing an FPS, it was very very soft but it was there. Switching over to my wired headset confirmed this. If you are going for a wireless headset for gaming, you currently must get one designed for it. The Arctis 7 does not have noticeable latency, nor did any of the other gaming headsets I tried.Speaker Quality:I'm definitely not an audiophile but I have higher than average taste in sound. This headset sounds nice. I have not played with the EQ, but I may try to turn up the lows a little bit.Mic Quality:It's wireless, and a gaming headset, so it is what it is. It seems to pick up more depth to the sound than other mics, your voice won't sound as flat, however I suppose this comes at a cost on background noise cancellation as it seems a little more prevalent in this headset than others.Construction:This is one of the more well-built units I've got my hands on. Time will tell how it holds up, but the build quality seems upper-tier.Battery:I can't comment on this, but I highly advise that you get some magnetic micro usb cables. Basically, the cable becomes two pieces. You plug a little micro usb dongle in your headset and then you can connect the corresponding cable any way around. The dongle and cable magnetically snap together. Makes plugging the headset in so easy that you won't ever be conflicted with "should I fumble with the connector or should I skip charging for now and just do it later". Any time I set the headset down, I charge it, because it's super easy to do so now. Therefore I will never be able to comment on batter life.If you too are plagued by comfort issues, and maybe do not want to go wireless just yet (cost being the only reason I can think of), I would highly recommend the HyperX Cloud Silver. They're not cheap but they are worth it. To this day they are the most comfortable headset I have ever worn, with good sound and great build quality.The ability to mix chat audio with regular audio using a physical dial on the headset is phenomenal. If you've ever been on a crazy boring t-con, this headset will change your life. You can mix the most life-draining phone call with epic background music. Soul-sucking meetings will cease to drain your life-force. People you wish were dead will become tolerable. It's that good.The quality of the wireless mic is as good as the best wired mics I've heard. Even in an environment dense with devices on 2.4GHz, I get great range.The quality of the speakers is good, but with some tweaking with PEACE (equalizer) the speakers are EXCELLENT. Do a quick search for Arctis 7 eq curves.Comfort-wise, the headset is very easy to wear for long periods. My ears get a little warm, but not sweaty.Battery life is good. I charge it once a week.Honestly.... there's nothing I can be critical of.I've been looking at this headset for a long time due to the fact that I really hated the battery life on my 2015 Astro A50s. When they came on sale for $150 I figured, what the heck. After I received them, I really liked the look and feel of them, sound quality is good, the fact that I can listen to music on my phone is also fun, the wireless range is great; but I must say the mic is not as good as my Astro's (or at least so I am told). The listening experience is fun, but I noticed that the ear cushions were not deep enough as my ears were touching the speakers. At first I thought, no big deal, but after 8 hours... OMG get off my head! These are not comfortable for long periods of wear. I can sometimes have my headset on my head for 15 hours straight, but you have another thing coming if you think I will do it with this level of discomfort.Does this headset deserve a 1 star: No. It's not that bad, but for the money and drawbacks, you can do a lot better; and so I find they are completely not worth your time and money. I hate it when people review a product and say that there is better out there, but then leave it to you to find said product, so I will also say, I bought Razer Naris instead. Wireless range isn't as good, but is very comfortable.I read so many reviews, from Amazon, Eurogamer, and IGN and I was convinced that this would be a good headset... Not the case.Comfort: I thought the "ski band" style would be super comfortable, not the case. It's decent, but slides off your head and really applies alot of the headset pressure to one small area. Even with the 2019 edition your ears will touch the inside of the headset..Sound: worst part about them. Sounds suuuuper flat. I use hyper x clouds and i thought they sounded flat, but nothing compared to how flat these sound. Plus, max volume with these is not very loud.Mic: no complaints, picks up a fair amount of background noise.Wireless: works great. Wireless adapter seamlessly changes between outputs depending if the headset is on or off. My adapter had an issue and only played left audio.. which led to me returning them.Great headphones, originally bought the aniversary? or whatever edition which were refurbished back 4 years ago for £80, did great, served me (a very non caring owner) for those 4 years and I decided it is time for them to go.With these new ones not much changed, one downside of them is that sometimes, when you turn your PC back on the computer does not see them, so you have to kneel down and unplug-replug them so your PC can see them, happened with both of them and not really sure what is causing it but it is more of a nuisance than a real issue.What I love the most about these, is that you can plug in your musical instrument into these, or plug in an amp into them with the aux cable, and what will happen is that you will hear your musical instrument be it bass/guitar/elec chello/double bass and what is happening on your computer... why is it so great? well they have really good bass, like really good! I have to crank my bass almost up to max for them to start to distort the sound, and I have an active bass, you can listen to a song and play back to it, all quietly not disturbing anyone, and at the same time have great gaming headphones.Amazing sound quality and long battery life, I use them a lot, no speakers means they are on every time I use the PC for watching/listening/playing games or my bass, they last a good few days before glowing red, and even then it gives you another 30 min/hour or so of usage.All in all, amazing sound quality, good battery life and very comfortable, noise cancelling isn't the best but you can barely hear someone talking normally a few meters away with them on.I read at least 5 professional reviews before buying this headset. I was really excited and eager to test them out! What at disappointment! First of all, sound quality is just bad. I tried working with the equalizer and other sound options, there's nothing I could do to get a decent music profile. I bought these for PC gaming, again, there was no way to get the 7.1 to work, no way to identify sound direction! I'm sorry to say that I will be returning this headset and going back to my HyperX CloudII