A succesful, strong wi-fi headset with some good, easy-to-use options – however console-only avid gamers would do effectively to take a look at equally priced rivals.
Pros
Easy pairing and setup
Good microphone readability
Capable and reasonably priced
Cons
Finish attracts fingerprints
Connection reliability points
Dubious noise-cancelling claims
Key Specifications
Review Price: £129.99
Up to 10 hours’ battery life
50mm audio drivers
Faux-leather ear cups with foam cushioning
Active noise cancellation
What is the Turtle Beach Stealth 700?
Launched alongside its extra reasonably priced sibling, the Stealth 600, Turtle Beach has produced a brand new wi-fi gaming headset for each Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Despite its respectable characteristic set, it nonetheless is available in at underneath £130.
The greatest hook is the Stealth 700’s promise of encompass sound, energetic noise cancellation and the inclusion of Turtle Beach’s personal Superhuman Hearing know-how. However, it additionally boasts a wealth of further EQ presets with assist for PC, cell and VR methods alongside.
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Turtle Beach Stealth 700 – Design, construct and options
The Stealth 700 provides a sturdy construct that’s primarily hewn from sturdy, versatile black plastic. It options a mixture of textures and finishes that may look a bit of messy in locations. On the graceful, polished diagonal banding throughout the outer face of every ear cup, specifically, fingerprints adhere all too simply.
There’s a contact of color at play on each the sides and insignias of every ear cup. Despite gaming {hardware}’s typical propensity for flare, the Stealth 700 demonstrates stunning restraint in relation to aesthetics, making certain you received’t be mistaken for an additional in a Shinjuku robotic café.
As for consolation, each the highest of the headscarf and every ear cup pack in loads of foam padding, all of which is clad in faux-leather. Paired with the 700’s surprisingly light-weight body, they render prolonged gaming classes a cushty affair. The headband can develop to regulate even the most important of heads, whereas each ear cups rotate to permit simpler adjustment and repositioning when in use.
Turtle Beach has additionally employed its patented ProSpecs™ Glasses Relief System. This is actually a portion of softer foam within the upper-third of every ear pad, which flexes extra readily to permit for snug long-term use by those that put on glasses. It’s a welcome inclusion that extra competing headsets, significantly these within the console house, ought to take into account adopting.
The left ear cup is the Stealth 700’s enterprise finish. It options the entire {hardware} controls essential to entry the headset’s important features, and all of its key ports too. Run your eyes alongside its underside and also you’ll spot a micro-USB port, used for each charging and firmware updates (a sticker connected to the headset suggests that you simply verify for firmware updates by way of Turtle Beach’s desktop consumer earlier than first use).
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There’s additionally a typical 3.5mm headphone jack enter to accommodate wired connections to units akin to smartphones, however its inclusion can also be important to be used with the PlayStation VR’s 3D Audio capabilities, for instance, which merely received’t work over a wi-fi connection. The solely drawback is that Turtle Beach doesn’t embrace a appropriate 3.5mm cable within the field, so that you’ll must supply one your self if you happen to plan on utilizing the Stealth 700 wired.
Further up on the rear of the ear cup are two knurled quantity knobs: one for chat audio, and the opposite for sport audio. Like the remainder of the Stealth 700’s {hardware} controls, each are tactile sufficient that you would be able to find and function them reliably by way of contact alone.
The decrease half of the ear cup’s outer face options a big rubberised panel with three {hardware} buttons on it. The first is the Stealth 700’s energy key; the center button permits for pairing over Bluetooth; whereas the foremost button toggles the headset’s aforementioned Superhuman Hearing™ capacity. Like the amount knobs, these too are straightforward sufficient to function by way of contact alone. However, the aid within the rubber is a bit of too shallow and would have benefitted from bolder kinds with heavier embossing for higher tactility.
Turtle Beach has built-in a slightly ingenious mechanism into the Stealth 700’s omnidirectional microphone. It locks into three distinct positions, with the back-most cease disabling the microphone altogether. The center place briefly locations the microphone in a muted state, and the forward-most place prompts the microphone for in-game chat. Knocking between these varied factors is intuitive and easy, negating the necessity to hunt for a mute key in your PC, console or the headset itself.
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Depending on what you’re connecting it to, establishing the Stealth 700 is a comparatively painless affair. It comes pre-paired to the USB wi-fi adapter with which it’s bundled (that is absent from the Xbox One model, which makes use of Microsoft’s Xbox Wireless protocol to pair with Xbox One consoles and appropriate PCs instantly). You might need to manually swap over the audio supply in your PC or PlayStation, however that’s about all that needs to be required to rise up and working.
Turtle Beach’s Audio Hub cell app is out there to obtain to permit fine-grain management over the Stealth 700’s settings and EQ. This features a vary of eight presets that you simply wouldn’t readily know can be found in any other case. It isn’t probably the most dependable app expertise, and the truth that that you must pair the Stealth 700 to your cellphone to vary sure settings is a bit of convoluted. Nevertheless, it’s good to know that it’s out there to customers.
After some prolonged gaming classes and a little bit of music and media playback thrown in for good measure, the Stealth 700’s promise of as much as 10 hours of battery life holds true. Charging up from empty takes round two to a few hours, and for comfort there’s a pulsing LED subsequent to the micro-USB port to let you understand once you’ve topped the battery again up utterly.
Turtle Beach Stealth 700 – Audio high quality
Stick the Stealth 700 on and also you’re in for a deal with. The 50mm drivers push out heat tones, with spectacular element and readability contemplating the headset’s mid-range standing. They produce a large sound, with an emphasis on the bass and treble. However, this does end in some particulars throughout the mids turning into misplaced if utilizing the default sport audio preset. Thankfully, there are different EQ modes on-hand to rebalance the sound as wanted.
As for the microphone, it produced combined outcomes. Whilst testing on PC (taking part in PUBG), there was no less than one criticism from somebody on the receiving finish claiming that it sounded too quiet, whereas at different occasions the readability of the audio captured was counseled by strangers unprompted.
Thankfully, the compliments and normal reward considerably outweighed any damaging responses. As such, it could seem that Turtle Beach has, for probably the most half, completed its homework close to tuning the 700’s microphone know-how.
Jumping from PC to console (a PlayStation 4-compatible variant of the Stealth 700 was used for this overview), there have been a number of extra hiccups. For probably the most half, the plug-and-play comfort discovered on the PC expertise transfers throughout to console, however the lag between the microphone monitoring that takes place when utilizing the optical connection is distracting sufficient that you simply’ll wish to roll the chat quantity knob all the way in which down.
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Another concern is the Stealth 700’s waning reliability when you hear the “low battery” audio cue. At this level, the wi-fi connection breaks down nearly instantly, with the one resolution to plug the headset again in, even earlier than energy is totally exhausted.
You shouldn’t expertise any points with the 700’s DTS Headphone:X 7.1 encompass assist, which provides actual depth to quite a few gaming eventualities, while the Superhuman Hearing characteristic is beneficial in video games akin to PUBG and Fortnite, the place sound cues are key. This is as long as you perceive that it destroys audio constancy by dropping out bass utterly whereas pushing the mids and highs to the acute.
As for the Stealth 700’s claims of energetic noise cancellation, it does technically ship however the circumstances underneath which the characteristic operates are a bit of… doubtful. Rather than extra typical headphones with noise cancellation – such because the Bose QC35 IIs – that use built-in microphones to suppress ambient noise by pushing an inverse waveform into your ears, Turtle Beach’s headset provides mic monitoring by default.
It’s a characteristic that’s very best for gaming, making certain you possibly can hear what you’re saying clearly by the headphones, simply as your teammates can. However, switching on ANC on the Stealth 700 is actually disabling this monitoring characteristic, reducing out any ambient noise that may in any other case be picked up by the microphone, whereas on the similar time eradicating the flexibility to listen to your personal voice.
Why purchase the Turtle Beach Stealth 700?
There’s lots to love concerning the Stealth 700’s characteristic set, to not point out the truth that it prioritises substance over model with out wanting too low cost or nasty. However, whether or not or not it stands as a worthwhile buy will rely upon the platforms you sport on.
If you’re on the lookout for an honest wi-fi headset for console gaming solely, then regardless of the wealthy sound and EQ choices the 700 provides, its reliability must be referred to as into query.
For VR, cell and/or PC gaming it turns into a extra engaging proposition, because it’s basically extra snug and dependable on these platforms than the one for which it’s being touted.