I’m absolutely flabbergasted at the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro headset. Most of the time, I would enjoy the comfort of a TB headset, and the beautiful delivery of the audio, and be forever annoyed by a dongle that belongs to the early 2000s. While there have been more than a few headsets that have impressed me in the TB family, they always seemed to feature some minor or major quirk that kept them from over-the-top perfection. But this time around, the folks at Turtle Beach have truly gone above and beyond with their design and delivery of the Stealth Pro.
The 50mm Nanoclear drivers deliver across-the-board audio fidelity that works wonders with PS5, PC, and Xbox sound capabilities, while the noise cancellation capabilities of this headset are unrivaled in the gaming world. All of this combined with design simplicity and user-friendly functionality, there’s a lot to love about this headset and absolutely nothing to hate.
Let’s get this going.
Comfort and Style
The Turtle Beach Stealth Pro is a headset that stands on its own when compared to other headsets in its gaming family. The word simplicity is the best place to start when describing the style of the headset. While the TB headset family is a cornucopia of different price points and design, ranging from clunky plastic to a comfortable padded pro experience, the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro takes a route of its own. It’s too good for the family it lives within, much like the snobby rich relative that is so loaded that they don’t have to be nice to other members of their family during reunions. They know they are the best from top to bottom and have little need to prove this factual sentiment. You can hate them all you want for being this way, but their style and success help them block out all the jealous complaints you might have.
Much like that relative, once you experience the Stealth Pro headset, there is little need to compare it to others, as it is dominant as it is simple with its intentions. The style of the headset starts with a simple metal headband covered in well-padded material. It’s virtually invisible to the top of the head, as you can wear this for hours upon hours without top-head fatigue. Even the best of the best before this headset from ROCCAT, EPOS, and Astro can’t provide this amount of comfort and simplicity to their design. I have never experienced this kind of comfort before with a gaming headset. Even the fancy Sony wireless headset for the PlayStation 5 gets the top of my noggin sore after a couple of hours. The Turtle Beach Stealth Pro doesn’t. It’s just there. Invisible to the nerves.
Now, with such comfort you would think that the earcups would be firmly and roughly pressed against your ears, almost taking the brunt of what the headband was hiding. The TB Elite Pro in the past was notorious for doing this. Its earcups pressed so hard that my ears sweated during gameplay. I never knew that ears could sweat before the Elite. It became an entirely new category for reviewing headsets, now a permanent category when judging these devices. I was fully expecting the Stealth Pro to follow suit with the Elite Pro, but it just emulates the same stature as the headband gives off – a complete absence of the earcups pressing against the sides of my head and pressing the arms of my glasses into my skull. There is no pressing, no pressure, and no pain. It’s insane. I can’t get over the fact that this headset could produce this much comfort with its simplistic design. It’s as if the engineers designing this thing stopped and said, “Maybe we’re overthinking this. Maybe we should focus on just making the entire headset with a severe lack of hindrance to the player’s comfort.” I wouldn’t be shocked if that was the beginning of the design stage. Whatever was discussed, the design worked and delivered unimaginable comfort during gameplay.
Beyond just comfort, how things are laid out in its design brings an entirely new way for Turtle Beach to pave its future high-end headset.
Simple functionality, through complicated technology
Batteries and Base
The Turtle Beach Stealth Pro features some interesting design. Up to this point, Turtle Beach headsets were mostly wired and wireless rechargeable design. This meant that you would have to take a headset off, hook up a USB cable, and use it wired while you’re waiting for the charge to allow for wireless-ness. It’s not an unusual design by any means, as most of the headset gaming industry goes this route. Hell, even high-end audio companies like Audeze and the almighty Astro still ask you to charge their headset up via wire before using them. It isn’t a perceived problem but now it’s a thing of the past. Turtle Beach did something that I have never seen before with its recharging. While you can certainly still go the wired route, this headset includes two batteries that you can swap out. Yes, you read that correctly, batteries for the headset are swappable. How the batteries work is simple.
The battery on the headset goes underneath where you plug in your mic. Its plate on the earcup is magnetized, so pulling off the TB plastic piece is a cinch. Pulling the battery out of the earcup and replacing it is as easy as grabbing it with your fingers, giving it a slight tug, and then putting in the new battery. It will take you a whopping 10 seconds to complete the entire task. It’s quick and easy.
Now, how do you charge the batteries? This is an even better design. The headset comes with a base. The base acts as a dongle for consoles, while basically just a charging station for PC, Mac, and everything, not a console. You can keep this hooked up with the extra battery sitting flat in the base while charging. It’s not ugly, it’s not unnecessary, it’s just a simple and beautiful design. It’s the first useful reason to have a dongle attached to your machine. While the only inconvenience of this base is to remember to switch it to the Xbox setting when playing on a console (why it isn’t called console instead of Xbox is baffling), the rest makes sense. Why not have a device that is more than a dongle? Why not put it to good use to make it less of an annoyance? The charge base’s dual identity of a battery charger and dongle makes it far more understandable when figuring out its existence and use in this headset’s design. To boot, it’s also a passthrough charger, so if you need to charge anything USB, this tech will accommodate that. It’s diverse in its usage and usefulness while staying brilliant in its design.
Headset and earcups
If comfort and dongle functionality weren’t enough for you to enjoy the headset and earcups, let’s talk audio delivery and noise cancellation. The obvious step to judge a headset’s usability in the gaming world is how it sounds and how you sound. Typically, you get one great version of that duo and a good to so-so (sometimes bad) version of the other. With the Stealth Pro, you get the best of both worlds.
The mic that comes with the headset is of boom mic quality. It features direct and flowing audio from the user. For example, I had a student that needed to use a microphone to record a podcast for another class. I had him record the podcast in the Esports lounge at the University of Maryland and set him up with a Neat mic. If you’re not familiar with that type of mic, it’s a pure voice-over mic. You can record some damn fine audio with that mic and walk away feeling like a professional. Unfortunately, the only time he could record his audio corresponded with my video game review course, which meant the lounge was occupied with a lot of people who were trying to get their own work done. The only option I had for this student was to break out the Stealth Pro and hope for the best. Well, the headset delivered. Recorded beautifully in Adobe Audition, the headset felt like a boom mic that simply concentrated on the student’s voice and delivered little else around him. He got his podcast done for his other class and was satisfied with the quality. Generally, headsets like these don’t deliver that type of quality. From my extensive experience with gaming headsets, the mic picks up noises and potentially other things going on. The Stealth Pro acts as a professional boom mic in how it picks up and what it records. It’s very directional with its intentions and blocks out the rest along the way. It’s a high-quality detachable mic that drowns out over 95% of background noise, which is absolutely insane. Mics like this with all their gaming intentions shouldn’t be this good. But it is this good.
Equally as impressive with this 50mm driver-driven audio experience is how the noise cancellation works in the earcups. Changing your level of noise cancellation is easy, as you simply push the button on the left earcup and listen as most of the noise in your environment exits stage left. You can still hear the people around you, but all unnecessary noises are taken out of the equation. For example, as I’m typing this review, the AC in the house is running, the dishwasher is running, Blade Runner is playing on the television, and my kids and wife are sporadically talking to me about random things. When I press that button, everything that isn’t a voice is taken out of the earcups. It’s like walking into a padded audio booth that wants to silence external jibber-jabber. It’s a little unnerving how instantaneous this happens, but at the same time cool and welcomed. Much like everything else on this headset, it works in a simple, yet brilliant way.
The design, delivery, and functionality of this headset is nothing short of perfection. It’s truly the best of the best in the Turtle Beach family.
On that note, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
The Turtle Beach Stealth Pro headset is the top tier of the Turtle Beach family. It features an amazing and simple design, an unrivaled comfort level, and easy functionality and usage that you’ll wonder why headsets weren’t designed this way before. It’s everything you want from a headset.
