The Wireless Headset of my DREAMS?! - SteelSeries Arctis 7 Review

Honestly, I’m a little tired of reviewing gaming headsets.
I’ve reviewed a lot, and tried even more.
I really feel like the gaming peripheral market has turned into annual recycle-fest, with
very little innovation anymore.
So it’s almost ironic that the first headset I’ve been genuinely excited for to review
in a long time is such because of a wish I had following my SteelSeries H Wireless review
three years ago.
Does the Arctis 7 hold any ground to what I still consider to be the best gaming headset
I’ve ever reviewed?
Let’s take a look.
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SteelSeries advertises their new Arctis 7 as “the best overall gaming headset 2017.”
Is this true?
The Arctis 7 is a wireless gaming headset with a suspension style headband.
This is the most comfortable style of band for my head - and back when I reviewed the
H Wireless in 2014, I personally requested something like that but in the form factor
of the Siberia headsets.
3 years later, they’ve delivered, and for half the price!
Only 150 dollars for a good wireless headset is a pretty rockin value, in my opinion.
The headphones feature a metal band frame with rubber pad, but a suspension headband
that wraps around.
These come in a few different styles, though the default black and grey is my favorite.
The suspension-style band keeps the weight off of the top of your head - a big source
of headaches for me with headphones - but can result in more clamping pressure.
I don’t feel like there’s much pressure, it’s a fairly loose fit, though not loose
enough to fall off my head.
That does mean it might be too loose for those with smaller heads than my giant noggin.
The ear pads are nice and soft, and provide enough padding to keep the drivers off of
my ears without being too stiff.
“AirWeave” material is what SteelSeries calls it - designed to keep things dry and
cool.
Works well enough for me, my head stays surprisingly not hot and sweaty in these.
Kudos.
They fold out for this “let them sit on your neck” thing that supposedly someone
does, but these - as with most other headphones - hold my neck way too tight for me to ever
do that.
Feels like I’m choking, no thank you.
The outside of the can is a rubber-y material which can grip dust, but the overall matte
aesthetic is nice and much more favorable than a glossy shine - though the microphone
end is glossy, so that’s an annoying inconsistency.
The cans feature a variety of plugs, buttons and dials, and this gets a little messy.
On the left, you have the slide-out microphone, a mute button, volume dial, and then… err,
this gets weird.
There’s a microUSB plug for charging, a 3.5mm jack for audio sharing - you can hook
up another pair of headphones to these and hear out of those, too.
This is a neat feature that I might’ve used as a young kid, but not these days.
In this recessed bit, you have a weird sort-of mini USB plug like would come on older cameras
- not the normal mini USB.
This is used for the 4-pole smartphone adapter in case you wanted to use these with your
phone - again, someone does this I guess.
The mute button is fairly annoying.
It sticks out when enabled, so you can find it easily to unmute, though it might take
a couple times to push it all the way in.
But when it’s not muted, I always wind up flicking the volume dial trying to find it,
and then about push the cans off my head to press it in.
Quite annoying.
On the right, you have another volume dial and the power button.
This volume dial is for the game-chat mixer.
YES!
I’ve talked about headsets like this in my OBS tutorials and people thought I was
crazy.
The USB wireless transmitter installs two audio devices to your computer - one for “game”
and one for “chat” - though you can use them for whatever you like.
The volume dial on the right ear is your mixer control.
All the way up is 100% game 0% chat, middle is 50-50, all the way down is 100% chat.
This is a fantastic feature for gamers and especially game streamers - and I wish more
headsets had this capability.
Sound-wise, I actually enjoy the Arctis 7.
It struggles a bit with the typical “oomph” you get from gaming headsets.
The quality sounds fine, highs mids and lows are actually pretty well-balanced.
But the sound just feels a bit… weak, I guess?
I don’t know, it doesn’t feel as “powerful” or “strong” as the H Wireless, which is
quite disappointing.
It’s still good and fine, and most people probably won’t even notice - but even with
a EQ preset applied, I just don’t feel like the drivers are strong enough to provide a
boomy gaming experience.
Kinda strange to experience in the age of bass-heavy cans.
To be honest, a side effect of this means that I don’t get anywhere near as much “ear
fatigue” from listening with them, but I do find myself “craving more.”
I dunno.
It has a close-up, closed-back soundstage, but more than good enough to enjoy gaming.
Directional/positional audio was great for me, and I had no problem identifying enemies
in games like Overwatch, and vocals were clear and crisp in Diablo.
This headset isn’t great for ASMR for me.
I was hoping it would be, since the wireless nature makes it easier to sleep or relax with,
but the soundstage isn’t wide enough to really get the tingles going for binaural
audio, for me at least.
I did have an issue where if the mixer dial was half-way or close to the chat side, left-side
audio was stronger or louder than the right side for a few weeks.
This is no longer the case, but I never really narrowed down the cause.
Was very strange.
There is no RGB lighting on this headset, though.
I was disappointed to see this after watching the Hardware Canucks’ review of the Arctis
5.
I thought I had just missed the option in the SteelSeries Engine software, but nope,
RGB is only on the wired Arctis 5 model.
Oh well.
The metal band in the Arctis 7 actually makes it a little heavier than the H Wireless, but
the suspension band keeps it from feeling that way.
The wireless receiver is a little puck with a decent length USB cable.
It features line in and out passthrough to mix in external audio, though placement of
that is probably inconvenient for most.
The SteelSeries Engine 3 software is alright.
There’s always a bunch of updating to do when you first plug in a device.
It gives you control over Equalizer presets, Dynamic Range Compression to normalize audio
levels, and enabling the DTX Heapdhone:X 7.1 virtual surround.
As always, it’s your choice if you want to use it, but I cannot stand it.
Dimitry said it best and now I can’t get the phrase out of my head for this subject
- virtual surround turns your headphones into a soup of audio swishing all over the place.
Directional audio is just fine in stereo mode with these cans, virtual surround ruins that.
Vocals get echoey and actual positioning is inaccurate af.
If you wanna really test it for yourself, pull up a good ASMR video with proper binaural
audio.
Listen in stereo and hear as they move around the left and right sides.
Then turn on virtual surround and hear how nothing is right.
It will ruin you forever on virtual surround.
[Mic test] The software also lets you adjust mic volume
and what they call “Mic Sidetone.”
This is sometimes also referred to as “Mic Loopback” and is just how much you can hear
yourself in the cans from the mic.
This helps keep your from yelling at chat since you can’t hear your own levels.
Speaking of the microphone, SteelSeries also claims this to be the best gaming headset
microphone.
You’ve been hearing it for the past minute or so.
You can decide for yourself.
In my opinion, it’s good, but probably not the best.
Especially compared to something like the ModMic, it just doesn’t cut it.
The mic also picks up ALL handling noise and can annoy the crap out of your gaming buddies.
[end mic test]
So that’s it!
The SteelSeries Arctis 7 wireless 7.1 gaming headset.
It’s pretty nice, but I’m not sure if it holds up to the SteelSeries H Wireless
and it’s big, but easily-breakable mixer box.
But for a mere $150 - which is cheap for a great headset - I’d say it’s probably
worth it.
As always, product links will be in the description below.
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The Wireless Headset of my DREAMS?! - SteelSeries Arctis 7 Review

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