If you’re an avid player, you know how important it is to have the proper gear to improve your experience. Among your essential equipment are gaming headphones. In addition to offering immersive audio, they facilitate efficient team communication. Selecting the ideal pair for your needs can be overwhelming with so many options available. This guide will assist you in choosing the right gaming headset for you and in understanding what makes a great headset.
Gaming Headphones: SteelSeries Arctis 7+
We’ve been impressed by a lot of the SteelSeries Arctis Gaming Headphones, and our top pick is the Arctis 7+ (8/10, WIRED Recommends). It is comfortable and has an amazing 30-hour battery life. Its compact, low-profile USB-C adapter, which enables it to pair with everything from Android phones to the Nintendo Switch, is its best feature, though. Even though the Switch has Bluetooth audio support, this headset has less latency and produces better sound.
SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7X
The Arctis Nova 7X stands out as a versatile console headset, offering compatibility across various gaming platforms. Unlike many other gaming headsets that are limited to specific consoles, this headset can connect seamlessly to multiple systems. Utilizing a convenient switch on its USB-C dongle, it can link up with the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (or Xbox One), as well as PCs, Macs, or smartphones. Moreover, it features a separate Bluetooth connection, allowing simultaneous gameplay audio from one source while enjoying music, podcasts, or videos from another. Although the Arctis Nova 9X, our previous top pick for Xbox, offers a slight upgrade, it may experience availability fluctuations.
SteelSeries Arctis 7P+
The Arctis 7P+ (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is almost identical to the Arctis 7+ mentioned earlier. The 7+ differs slightly in that it has a dial for controlling ChatMix, a PC feature that balances team chat and game audio. The PlayStation does not support that feature, so the 7P+ repurposes this dial to control sidetone. Despite this change, it still has a 30-hour battery life and comes with a wireless USB-C dongle, making it compatible with the majority of systems.
SteelSeries Arctis Nova 1
SteelSeries appears frequently on this list, and for good reason. The Arctis Nova 1 is a low-cost option at $60 (MSRP), but it is surprisingly durable. It feels just as solid as SteelSeries’ more expensive offerings and sounds nearly as good. It’s less immersive and directional than the Nova Pro, but the sound is crisp, detailed, and surprisingly rich. It’s just difficult to beat the build quality at this price.
Beyerdynamic DT 700 Pro X
The DT 700 Pro X (8/10, WIRED Recommends) may not be your first choice for a wired gaming headset unless you play in a professional audio editing environment. These studio headphones use a mini-XLR to audio jack cable and lack internal processing to deliver the precise sound that professional sound designers require. However, we’ve discovered that this often results in movies and games sounding clearer because you’re hearing the highly engineered sound they were designed to produce. These headsets lack many features that you would expect at this price point, such as a gaming microphone. However, if you value clear, accurate sound quality, this one is difficult to beat.
Røde NTH-100
Above all, the Rode NTH-100 wired headphones are made with audio accuracy in mind. These are the headphones you get if you need to hear the exact audio quality while editing a video or piece of music. Here, you won’t get any artificial bass boost or EQ adjustments. That is exactly what some of you desire. My ears fit over the distinctive, somewhat triangle-shaped earcups with ease, and the headband is nicely cushioned. You can insert the 3.5-mm cable into either earcup of the NTH-100, which sets it apart from many other professional studio headsets. Make sure you’re inserting the correct end of the included cable into the headset because it features an interlocking mechanism to keep it in place.
Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 600 Gen 2 for PlayStation
The Stealth 600 Gen 2 is an excellent low-cost option for the PlayStation ecosystem if you’re trying to cut costs. Although it’s not by far the best wireless gaming headset out there, it does, like its predecessor, provide a good mix of features for the money, including great sound, a flip-to-mute microphone, extra audio modes, vocal cues, a solid range, and 15 hours of battery life. Sadly, there isn’t a wired 3.5 mm option.
Logitech G333 In-Ear Gaming Monitors
Generally speaking, I believe that unless they are wireless, earbuds are just earbuds. They seldom wow with deep, full-bodied tones, but they usually sound passable. Until I gave the Logitech G333 a try. These tiny buds have a large, bassy sound inside of their tiny body. Additionally, they support USB-C straight out of the box and include a dongle and a tangle-free cable (yes, please). They are the ideal option for Switch or mobile gamers because of all of this.
Conclusion
When choosing the best gaming headphones, it’s important to take budget, comfort, microphone performance, and sound quality into account. Give it some thought and investigate all of your options before deciding. You can increase the immersion and pleasure of your gaming to entirely new heights by selecting the ideal set of gaming headphones.
