When it comes to co-op gaming, audio quality can make or break the experience. Communicating effectively with your team, being immersed in the game's world, and hearing every subtle cue can drastically improve gameplay. I've been using Turtle Beach's headsets now for the past few years, with both the iterations of the Stealth 700 Gen 2 tested on this site. But is the Gen 3 enough of a difference? Let's dive in.
Turtle Beach is back with a new headset in their Stealth lineup, the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro. This time positioning itself as a premium option in the wireless market to compete with the likes of Astro Gaming A50s and the Steel Series Nova Pro. Having tested over a dozen headsets in the past few years, it's becoming harder and harder to see what truly sets these apart from each other.
Last year I reviewed the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 and called it "quality comfort." In fact I've reviewed a handful of other headsets since then and still go back to the Stealth 700s as my favorites. Turtle Beach is back with a minor update this year that includes several claimed improvements with battery life leading the charge. This is also the first fully cross gen version of this headset that covers just about any platform out there - which is an improvement all to itself.
Turtle Beach has jumped into the controller market with a new wired controller designed for the Xbox Series consoles and also compatible with Windows 10 PCs. What sets this controller apart is it has a built in headphone mixer that lets you adjust and apply audio presets to any standard 3.5mm audio headset as well as adjust game and chat balance on the fly.
By my count, we are approaching close to 100 headsets evaluated on this site in our 13 years of existence. Needless to say we've seen all makes, models, and varieties - from wired stereo headsets to fully wireless surround sound monsters. I'm at the point now where I know exactly what features I want to hear in a pair of cans for my ears. And let me tell you - the perfect headset still doesn't seem to exist.
Last week, we learned that the PlayStation 4’s audio options would be a tiny bit limited at launch. Mainly due to Bluetooth and USB based headphone chat being non-applicable, a post release patch will be issued in 2014. Similarly, Microsoft’s top, 3rd party headsets will be pushed into 2014 also, due to a delay on the promised headset adapter.
We were once worried that our expensive third-party headsets would be thrown to the wayside when Xbox One was released. Gaming headsets heavily boost the experience quite a bit for most people, so gamers had a reason to be slightly concerned over this. Luckily, Microsoft has officially confirmed their plans to offer an adapter to accommodate those gamers’ needs.
It was just last week we learned that the Xbox One would forgo including a headset in the box for online chat. Instead the system would rely on its Kinect peripheral for your voice chatting needs. For a myriad of reasons this isn't ideal, but perhaps more eye opening is the fact that existing 3rd party headsets would not work with the Xbox One. So we did what any good site would do, we hit up our community.
One accessory that seems to be becoming extremely popular are gaming headsets. What's a gaming headset? It's a pair of headphones that offers solid positional audio combined with a microphone for voice communication. Turtle Beach had a few pairs of their latest and greatest headsets on display on the show floor, and I put my ears to the test.
