Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Review – Is the wireless headset for the Xbox also suitable for the PC? Yes, but…

1 - Einführung und Unboxing 2 - Technische Daten und Features 3 - Konnektivität, Konstruktion und Teardown 4 - Mikrofon- und Soundcheck 5 - Software und Dual-Audio Nutzung 6 - Galerie und Fazit

Microphone

The microphone, which can be flipped up and retracted into the casing, does its job, offers acceptable voice quality and is primarily practical. The sound is a bit hollow and tinny, but the intelligibility is quite okay.

Due to the retractability, the microphone had to be designed quite short, which unfortunately has a somewhat negative effect on the sensitivity. The microphone is relatively far away from the mouth and has to be configured accordingly in the common chat programs like TeamSpeak and Discord. As usual, I attach a short voice recording.

Sound

In terms of sound quality, I would place the Stealth 700 Gen 2 at least in the upper midfield. At least in the category of gaming headsets, which unfortunately generally lag behind ordinary headphones in this respect. The headset plays quite powerfully and voluminously, probably also due to the decent driver and the “bass reflex enclosure” shown on page 3, although the treble is not present and especially not clear enough for me. Again, I must note that sound is a subjective sensation and thus different for each listener.

Music
I listened to various pieces from hand-picked classical music to bass-heavy techno to the most aggressive metal shredding with the Stealth and always came back to the aforementioned realization across the entire spectrum: The sound is pleasant and powerful, but I clearly lack resolution and clarity. I was able to counteract this problem to some extent with the equalizer and make the sound much more pleasant for me. At this point I have to note that the Stealth is by no means as catastrophic as the recently tested EKSA unit, where the hi-hats were virtually inaudible without equalizer.

Gaming with Superhuman Hearing Technology
I was particularly curious about this test, because if I’m honest, I generally consider such promises to be pure marketing hogwash. 44% better K/D (Kill/Death Ratio = ratio between kills and own failures in shooter games) – of course proven with a study!
Basically, the localization with the headset works quite well, although the lack of clarity did not allow perfect localization in some places. The good old CS:GO had to serve for this test again and in the middle of the match I activated the Superhuman Hearing. In fact, the tone changes dramatically! Quiet sounds are clearly amplified and the exact opposite of the familiar “bathtub frequency response” is felt – the midrange frequencies are thus significantly boosted and emphasized. To be honest, the sound is an absolute disaster with the activated technology. High and low tones are practically non-existent and sounds that are normally very quiet (e.g. the howling of wind or other ambient noises) are perceived much louder instead. I must admit that with the technology you can hear the footsteps of enemies much earlier and locate battles better. However, outside of competitive e-sports shooters where every little advantage has to be used, I can’t imagine any scenario where I would prefer such an “ugly” and unnatural sound. In a blockbuster game, I want to enjoy the bombastic sound in all its glory and not just hear that a grasshopper has just fallen off a blade of grass eight kilometers away.

What else works with the equalizer?
Since the Stealth 700 Gen 2 is primarily a headset for the Xbox, there is no extensive PC application for configuring the device. With the Android app you can adjust some settings, as I will show on the next page, but for my tests I use the free third party software Equalizer APO, which I might present separately in a small article if there is interest. By slightly boosting the higher frequencies above 4000Hz and especially around the 10,000 – 16,000Hz range, the clarity of the sound can be significantly increased. Individual instruments such as hi-hats and also voices are then much more perceptible and also better locatable. Of course, this is only possible within a limited range, because if the upper frequency range is boosted too much, unattractive sibilant hissing will quickly occur.

The low bass is already quite powerful, which is probably also due to the bass reflex construction around the driver. Of course, you can also use the equalizer to make a real bass monster out of the headset. For me personally, however, it quickly becomes too droning.