Turtle Beach Stealth 500 Gaming Headset Review

thesixthaxis.com:

Turtle Beach are becoming the one-stop shop for peripherals right now. While they’ve built their own legacy over the years, they’re now also buying up other manufacturers like PDP, with brands like Victrix and Roccat all now falling under the same umbrella. While expansion is the key here, they’ve not forgotten what they built the brand on originally, and with the Stealth 500 they’re setting out their stall for this year’s gaming audio crown. They might just win it too.

In recent years, the Stealth headset lineup has iterated, rather than reinvented. The general form and design stayed the same for years, while they steadily updated batteries and connectivity. Not so with this year’s release, as the all-new Stealth 500 boasts a complete redesign, bringing it bang up-to-date.

Now, the old Stealth headsets weren’t ugly per se, but they were definitely showing their age. The first thing you’ll notice with the new Stealth 500 is how sleek and modern it looks, fashioned wholly out of black materials, it is almost as stealthy as its name implies. The build is mostly plastic, with a rigid plastic headband, but it has the added benefit of making this one very light headset. I’ve worn this thing for whole days and never had a moment of weariness, and that’s a huge boon if you live with your headset on.

One of the new features for Turtle Beach is a floating headband. Taking a swift glance over at Steelseries’ homework, they’ve decided this is the best way to do headbands, and frankly, I’d have to agree. It conforms to your head shape, you can barely tell it’s there, and there are three settings to adjust it for different sized heads. It’s absolutely spot on.

There’s a host of controls on the left earpiece, with a master volume dial and a chat volume one below it. These are slightly plasticky, but they’re not too cheap-feeling. You’ve then got a USB-C port for charging, and a series of buttons, letting you access power, Bluetooth and Mode settings without any issues.

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