The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless is designed to be the only headset that governs them all. You’re trying to replace what you connect to your console, the battlehorse headphones for your computer, and the sleek Bluetooth cans you carry with you on the go. That’s how SteelSeries justifies its $ 349.99 price tag, making it one of the most expensive wireless gaming headphones ever made.
That and the fact that it is full of technology.
USB-C, 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth, 3.5 mm, ANC, dual batteries …
You can hear three things at once with its 2.4 GHz wireless base station equipped with display and dialing and Bluetooth. It has four additional microphones to power its active noise cancellation or hearing transparency mode. Get two interchangeable batteries that can each last a full day of 24 hours of non-stop audio, while the other is on the base station for charging. This base station allows you to switch between two USB-C audio devices while also offering a 3.5mm line input and output for a pair of speakers as well. You can even connect a 3.5mm cable directly between the headphones and a DAC for higher quality audio.
Most importantly, these are the best-sounding wireless gaming headphones we’ve used, and the first ones are good enough that we might also consider buying them instead of expensive Bluetooth headsets.
good stuff
- Fantastic audio quality
- Two long-lasting interchangeable batteries
- It connects to just about anything
- Incredibly customizable
- They fixed the low battery warning
Bad things
- A PC Buggy app is required for full functionality
- Strange slippery spheres
- Noise cancellation could be improved
The Nova Pro Wireless and its $ 249.99 wired counterpart Nova Pro are the rare hands-free headphones that help you enjoy PC gaming and console use even more. There are some weird design decisions, some flaws, and even some bugs, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that these products bend to fit seamlessly into your gaming repertoire.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The ultimate wireless gaming headphones, perhaps
By Sean Hollister
“It’s an almost perfect gadget, but a couple of times a week, that part ‘almost’ makes me want to shout.” It’s me, last August, writing about the predecessor of the headphones we’re reviewing here. For the past two years, the $ 330 SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless has been my daily driver and includes many of the same features as the new Nova Pro, such as the base station, interchangeable batteries, the ability to mix multiple power sources. audio, and the ability to duplicate it as a Bluetooth headset on the go.
And for the most part, the new Nova pulls her out of the water. Sounds much better, with powerful bass that did not have the original and the audio that seems more … present. There’s a depth where the original feels thinner and flatter in comparison (and that’s with the Nova Equalizer totally flat, to begin with). It made me want to listen to an entire album again to hear the extra definition instead of just one or two songs. And of course, this low hit is also important for games and movies.
The microphone retracts completely into the frame. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
While the microphone doesn’t seem to have improved, this isn’t exactly a hit – it’s one of the clearest, richest microphones we’ve tested. As long as it expands, anyway: the richness disappears when it completely recedes, sounding more like a Polycom in a conference room with drafts, which was not a thing with the original.
The whole design has been refined a bit with this completely gone microphone, and SteelSeries has abandoned its trademark Arctis ski headband for a four-position elastic strap and retractable arms that finally allow you to adjust the height upwards and down to the higher heads. The new leather ear pads are also much more stuffy than the old cloth headphones, though I wonder if they will peel off as they age.
The new base station also seems to have the same excellent wireless range as its predecessor – chatting with my Discord playgroup as I walk down the hallway, through two walls, to the kitchen for a snack. This is a bar that many wireless gaming headphones I’ve tried can’t get rid of. I’m also happy that the base station is abandoning the optical sockets I never used for USB-C inputs, with easy switching to switch between them. You also no longer need a proprietary cable to get 3.5mm analog audio directly into your headphones. A standard 3-pin TRS cable works well, though SteelSeries also includes a 5- to 4-pin cable. Plugging in one turns the Nova Pro Wireless into a completely passive analog headset, with a slightly less grainy sound than wireless mode.
You can’t customize these widgets, but they work well enough. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Dual USB-C, dual 3.5 mm. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The second battery, when charging. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge We are baffled by the big, slippery sphere. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Here’s the weird part: aside from these softer headphones, to me … I don’t like how the headphones feel! It’s actually no more comfortable than the state-of-the-art Arctis Pro for my rather large head, and I couldn’t find a single position where it didn’t look like it was pressing my skull or jaw throughout the day. . Cam says he hasn’t experienced it, but agrees that it doesn’t have the effortless floating feel of SteelSeries ’previous Arctis headphones.
And I find it strange that SteelSeries has abandoned the wonderful, tactile, rubber-coated spheres of the Arctis Pro Wireless for the smooth and unresponsive here, which cause my fingers to slip right away. The base station still doesn’t feel heavy enough, sometimes it goes over the table when I try to push the button, and the interchangeable batteries are a little harder to swap out and remove now with one hand: both the headset plate and the base station have smaller indentations so the nail can catch.
28 hours with a single battery, almost 24 with ANC
But I can’t complain too much about this battery, because in almost every other way, it’s the most impressive battery system I’ve used in a wireless gaming headset. I measured about 28 hours with a single 50 percent volume charge with ANC and Bluetooth turned off and 23.5 hours with ANC turned on – this is an all-day battery charge at the volume I actually use to listen to music.
With the two batteries together, this is more life than we’ve ever seen with a wireless gaming headset and much more than the 15.5 hours I got with the original Arctis Pro Wireless in the same test. And if you want more, SteelSeries will sell you a pack of two extra batteries for $ 19.99.
Also, the headphones finally make it impossible to lose when these batteries run out, a big complaint I had with the original. Now, you get a low battery sound every 30 seconds for at least the last 20 minutes of your life, and the base station screen also warns you better; not only does the battery indicator flash when it’s low, but you can now. see partial bars for battery value instead of just full ones. And while you can’t exactly change the hot battery if you let it die (the audio turns off the moment you pull out the package), it turns on again if you plug in a new package quickly, no need to press it again. ‘food. .
A backup USB-C charging port if you’re traveling. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
You can even technically plug in the headphones to charge them instead of changing a package, but the location of the port is strange; it’s under the magnetic plate on the outside of the left earpiece, so it looks like it protrudes from the side of your head if you play with it that way.
The base station interface has also changed in other ways: there are still too many menu pages and too little information on the main screen (who needs the audio levels of the left and right channels these days?) , but I love the control you get – a full equalizer, a loud side tone so you can hear talking, adjustable microphone volume and gain that you can control from the unit or wirelessly with the headphone dial.
Unfortunately, my favorite feature is now locked behind the SteelSeries GG PC app – chat that lets you have two different audio devices on your computer and choose the balance between them, quickly calming an overly noisy game at favor your teammates at Discord or vice versa. other way round. Nova only activates this feature if you use its new Sonar program, which gives you individual equalizers for each of these channels (and even your microphone), but Cam and I found strange bugs, including one that broke audio devices later. a reboot and one that occasionally creates ghost presses on my keyboard. I would prefer …