Turtle Beach Stealth Pro Review: Go Anywhere, Play Anything
These wireless gaming headphones aim to do it all, and they’re pretty darn close to perfect….
Can you really have it all in one pair of headphones? Turtle Beach’s new Stealth Pro, which the company calls “the King” of wireless gaming, aims to prove you can. These wireless cans deliver a smorgasbord of features in an effort to be your ultimate gaming companion.
Noise canceling? Check. EQ-adjustable sound? Yup. Comprehensive platform support? Indeed. The wireless headphones even have swappable batteries, so you’re never left cold in a hot gaming session. If there’s a gaming feature you’ve heard of, the Stealth Pro probably have it, all wrapped in a relatively stylish chassis.
True, there is a bit of the jack-of-all-trades effect here. The Stealth Pro do just about everything well, but they aren’t necessarily the very best at any one thing. At $330, they’re also a hefty investment. But if you can stomach the price, this pair has the goods where it counts, making for a luxurious gaming accessory no matter what you’re into, and even a solid pair of travel headphones in a pinch.
Headset Meets Headphones
The best compliment I can give the Stealth Pro’s style is that it’s not too game-forward. They won’t be mistaken for a pair of Sonys or Sennheisers, especially with the detachable microphone in place, but when compared to rivals like the HyperX Cloud Alpha (10/10, WIRED Recommends), the Stealth Pro look positively debonair in their black and steel color scheme.
The chassis is hefty and a bit unwieldy at just over 400 grams, but thick padding layered in soft leatherette along the ear cups and band keeps things fairly comfy. I wore the headset for around three hours with no complaints; when I did feel some wear on my head, moving the band helped rebalance things.
The ear cups offer solid noise isolation, and when combined with the headset’s adjustable active noise canceling, you can effectively escape the outside world when listening to tunes or gaming. This isn’t top-level ANC, especially in the higher registers, where the headset gets handily beaten by masters in the headphone world like the Sony WH-1000XM4 and newer XM5 (9/10, WIRED Recommends). I actually found myself turning it down a notch or two while gaming, which tamped down white noise and kept me at least marginally aware of the world around me.
On the left ear cup is a port for the wand microphone, which worked quite well in my online gaming campaigns. A friend said it sounded “100 times better” than my previous headset. Of course, the Stealth Pro does cost about 10X more than my old cheapskate model. The mic can also be rotated up to mute, and if you don’t want to use it, there are two built-in mics. These also work pretty well but pick up a lot more ambient noise.