SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless Headset 61522 - Black for PS5, PC

I use a headset for anywhere between 6 and 10 hours every day for my job, so I was particularly excited to get this pair of headphones to replace my wired Arctis Pro w/ GameDAC headset that started falling apart. All in all, the Nova Pro is a good quality headset that's a clear upgrade from my arctis pro; however, wearing it for more than 1-2 hours at a time was unfortunately too uncomfortable for me to keep using them.The clamping force is super high. Higher than any headset I've previously had. I don't know, maybe because I'm getting older and these headsets are meant for younger people, but holy cow. What's evil is it creeps up on you. You put it on and think, "Ah that's not nearly as bad as people say it is." Then four hours later you're rubbing your temples ... MoreI use a headset for anywhere between 6 and 10 hours every day for my job, so I was particularly excited to get this pair of headphones to replace my wired Arctis Pro w/ GameDAC headset that started falling apart. All in all, the Nova Pro is a good quality headset that's a clear upgrade from my arctis pro; however, wearing it for more than 1-2 hours at a time was unfortunately too uncomfortable for me to keep using them.The clamping force is super high. Higher than any headset I've previously had. I don't know, maybe because I'm getting older and these headsets are meant for younger people, but holy cow. What's evil is it creeps up on you. You put it on and think, "Ah that's not nearly as bad as people say it is." Then four hours later you're rubbing your temples and praying for your video call to end so you can rip these things off your head.Onto the ears. The vegan leather cushions look and feel premium, but boy do they come at a cost of essentially suffocating your ears. Even after 30-60 minutes of wear, your ears start to get super hot and eventually, really greasy/sweaty. This makes it really challenging combined with the headaches/earaches to keep these things on for too long at a time. Even worse, the active noise cancellation (which is pretty low quality, actually), sticks out of the earpads for some reason. It's a little nub with a wire attached to it that no matter your ear shape, you'll eventually feel. I most felt it after wearing the headset for a few hours and especially if I turned my head with them on. Feeling this when your ears are already hot and aggravated honestly made it feel like I had a bug or something stuck in my ear.Unfortunately, I also seemed to have a reaction to either the heat, the earpad material, or the ANC hardware, because my ears started to get super irritated, itchy, and even felt like they were burned. I verified it was the headset by not wearing it for a few days to let my ears recover, then try wearing them again to see the exact same symptoms return. This bit is not factored into my star rating because who knows, I may just have sensitive ears.I've since returned the headset and instead purchased the cheaper Arctis Nova 7 Wireless. While I dearly miss the battery hotswapping, I can at least say that the rest of the headset is pretty dang close to the Nova Pros--to the point where I'd almost recommend non-sensitive ear people to really reconsider paying double the price for almost the same experience. It's basically the Nova Pro but without the DAC, ANC, and hotswapping batteries. The Nova 7s are far more comfortable without that nasty ANC nub, have less of a clamping force, and most importantly have earpads using their AirWeave technology so your ears can actually breathe.TL;DR: Don't buy this SKU if you wear your headphones a lot. The ANC and leather pads ruin everything great about it.

Honestly I wanted to like this headset, after having the arctis Pro Wireless for 4 years and having the band cut out, I said why not I'll buy the newer version.Was a mistake, first off, the spare battery layout for the headset which is the primary reason I went with this one over the countless other wireless headsets out there, is so annoying to take the cover off of, the arctis Pro Wireless I could while it's still on my head take the battery panel off pop the new battery in put the panel back on, this new one basically requires you to take the headset off find where the hole is with your finger and take the cover off which makes it more annoying to change the battery onand then my biggest complaint, the Nova Pro Wireless requires you to use sonar for Channel ... MoreHonestly I wanted to like this headset, after having the arctis Pro Wireless for 4 years and having the band cut out, I said why not I'll buy the newer version.Was a mistake, first off, the spare battery layout for the headset which is the primary reason I went with this one over the countless other wireless headsets out there, is so annoying to take the cover off of, the arctis Pro Wireless I could while it's still on my head take the battery panel off pop the new battery in put the panel back on, this new one basically requires you to take the headset off find where the hole is with your finger and take the cover off which makes it more annoying to change the battery onand then my biggest complaint, the Nova Pro Wireless requires you to use sonar for Channel control, meaning that instead of it having two built in different channels that you can choose which application goes to which channel and then use the balancer built in on the headset to balance between channels; you now have to install steelseries GG enable sonar which adds a middleware in between your programs instead if actually having it go through your headset, all of your sound now has to go through sonar then the headset. this would be perfectly fine if sonar worked, but it's supposed to be able to detect when your headset is on versus off(to change to your speaker), it does not work well, it believes that your headset is on at computer power on, meaning all audio goes through a powered off device instead of your speaker which is annoying. Then in the week that I've had this headset so far I've had to hard reset both the base and my headset three times because the mixer wheel button has stopped responding to the program meaning I can't move move the channel mixer back and forth, the old system didn't require this you only had to have the headset set up on the computer and then you could jump back and forth between your chat and your game channel.then there's the feel of the headset, now this could just be me not used to the headset yet much like how the buttons are however I don't like the overall feel of how it is on my head, and the active noise cancellation that it has works somewhat, but considering that it's an over ear headset, I expected far more than what it provides I can still very clearly hear anyone around me or my equipment around me.TLDR;- bad layout(both battery and buttons)- unreliable software/driver set- bad ANC- same audio quality as the old model- expensivebetter rangelonger battery lifehas the ability to swap between 3 devices concurrently (line 1, 2 and a Bluetooth device)All In all, while I'm not going to be returning this headset because it does work for what I want it for, and it is nice. if the arctis Pro Wireless is still on the market when you read this review, save yourself the $70 to $100 and just buy the old model, given my experience with both of them, I feel the old model was vastly superior.

This headset is definitely at the top end when it comes to cost. I picked mine up during a sale which definitely sold me on the purchase as I'd been doing some research on them the few weeks running up to it.For the money, you get a high quality, sturdy and good looking frame with comfortable ear padding that you can get a good few hours into wearing before you might start to notice some discomfort from sweating. There are 3rd party ear cushions available I have seen that are highly rated and are reported to prevent this.I'm not a massive audiophile but I can comfortably say that the audio from this headset has outperformed all of my previous headsets. The software provided by Steelseries allows you to easily separate each of your programs into different ... MoreThis headset is definitely at the top end when it comes to cost. I picked mine up during a sale which definitely sold me on the purchase as I'd been doing some research on them the few weeks running up to it.For the money, you get a high quality, sturdy and good looking frame with comfortable ear padding that you can get a good few hours into wearing before you might start to notice some discomfort from sweating. There are 3rd party ear cushions available I have seen that are highly rated and are reported to prevent this.I'm not a massive audiophile but I can comfortably say that the audio from this headset has outperformed all of my previous headsets. The software provided by Steelseries allows you to easily separate each of your programs into different categories to balance the audio separately which is a nice feature. There is also the option to connect 2 different audio channels, so the channel from your console/pc via the Dock and a separate one through Bluetooth which allows you to connect your phone to take calls or play music from that device.The battery life is pretty good and lasts several hours, I haven't noted how long exactly, because the dock allows you to charge the second battery extremely quickly and always reaches a full charge well before I've drained half of the battery in the headset. Swapping them out is super quick, so when I do need to, it's barely an inconvenience.The mic seems to work great, I'm not a streamer so I couldn't comment on the overall quality but my friends and teammates can hear me clearly with no issues.They definitely won't suit all budgets but if you're in this price range from all of the reviews and comparisons that I could find at the time of purchase, they were the best overall headset across multiple reviews. I'm certainly happy with them and don't see myself upgrading anytime soon.