SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless Review
You can’t customize these widgets, but they work well enough. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless Review
I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand different consumer electronics products including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and a THX-certified home theater professional, and I’m here to help you understand 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and even 8K (and to reassure you that you don’t need to worry about 8K at all for at least a few more years).
The Bottom Line
The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless is one of the most impressive wireless gaming headsets we’ve tested, with excellent audio, effective active noise cancellation, dual swappable batteries, and a powerful software suite.
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- Full, clear audio
- Good microphone
- Surprisingly strong noise cancellation
- Clever base station with hot-swappable batteries and two USB ports
- Powerful software with extensive audio adjustments and effective simulated surround
- Bluetooth
- Audio profile requires some tweaking with EQ to get the best experience
- No optical audio input for the base
SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless Specs
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Circumaural (over-ear), Gaming |
| Wireless | Yes |
| True Wireless | No |
| Connection Type | Bluetooth, USB, Stereo 3.5mm |
| Water/Sweat-Resistant | No |
| Active Noise Cancellation | Yes |
The SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless wowed us in 2018 with its extensive connectivity options, strong sound quality, and handy dual batteries. That was over four years ago, though, and it’s taken that long for SteelSeries to make a proper follow-up. The Arctis Nova Pro Wireless is the company’s newest flagship wireless gaming headset, and it carries the same $329.99 price, plus many improvements. It looks and feels better, its base station isn’t as boxy, its simulated surround sound is much more effective, and it now has active noise cancellation (ANC) to block out distractions. Although you’ll get the most features and options from the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless when using it with a PC, the headset’s base station has two USB ports so you can also connect your PlayStation or Xbox (depending on the model of headset you buy; the two platforms still don’t play nice together). The Arctis Nova Pro Wireless earns our Editors’ Choice award for wireless gaming headsets, easily justifying its price with its strong functionality and performance.
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New Headset, New Base
The headset certainly looks and feels as premium as a gaming headset can get without spilling over into the extreme audiophile realm like the $900 Audeze LCD-GX. The matte black, plastic earcups are smooth and well-built, with circular gunmetal-colored metal earcups on the back. The earcups are joined by a same-colored metal headband with plastic and rubber running along the underside for further support, and an adjustable ski goggle-style suspension strap to keep the band lifted above the scalp. The earcups can also extend and retract, which are customization options that most ski-goggle headsets lack. The faux leather-covered earcups are generously padded with memory foam, though they aren’t removable. You can replace the metal panels and suspension strap with $34.99 colored kits, but you can’t swap the faux leather earpads for fabric pads. Still, this is a comfortable headset that feels as nice as similarly priced headphones, and should be wearable for long periods of time.
Most controls and connections run along the side of the left earcup, and include a power button, mic mute button, volume wheel, 3.5mm port for wired listening, and the pleasantly stealthy boom microphone. It’s a plastic capsule that sits on the end of a black, flexible arm, and rests flush inside a cut-out on the earcup to almost completely disappear when not in use. The right earcup holds only a Bluetooth pairing button and Bluetooth/ power indicator LEDs.
The earcups have magnetic back panels, and they easily pop off. The right panel hides the removable battery slot, which is very handy since the Nova Pro Wireless, much like its predecessor, includes two batteries so you don’t need to deal with downtime when charging. The left panel hides a USB-C port for charging the headset on the go, when you can’t access the transmitter’s battery slot.
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Speaking of which, the transmitter has been completely overhauled with a much sleeker design and different connectivity options. The black, plastic device features curved sides, making it no longer look like a square, blocky audio component. The gunmetal-colored multi-purpose knob sits on the right side of the transmitter’s face, with a monochrome OLED display next to it. The back panel loses the previous version’s optical audio input and output, but features two USB-C ports so you can connect two USB devices—such as a PC and a console—at once. It also holds 3.5mm line-in and line-out connections.
The transmitter’s right side features the unique and useful battery slot. According to SteelSeries, each of the headset’s two batteries can last up to 36 hours just connected over the 2.4GHz transmitter, or 18 to 22 hours using both 2.4GHz and Bluetooth. The batteries can also provide three hours of use with just a 15-minute charge.
The OLED screen displays the current device being used through the headset, the battery levels of both the headset battery and the battery in the transmitter’s charging slot, the sampling and bitrate of the incoming audio, and a simple two-bar visualization of the sound coming through each earcup. A large, circular meter to the right of the audio status and visualizer bars shows the headset’s volume level, and the sound can be adjusted with the large volume dial. You can click the dial to change the control to ChatMix, which lets you adjust the balance between game audio and voice chat audio.
SteelSeries’ Software Suite
The headset is designed primarily for use with a PC or Mac over USB, with support for either PlayStation or Xbox depending on the model. Whether you use a PC or Mac, you can install the SteelSeries GG software to get the most out of the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless. The program manages and updates the firmware of all connected SteelSeries devices, and provides several useful features for audio devices under its Sonar tab.
Sonar offers a full parametric equalizer for game (and media) audio, letting you make far more granular adjustments than your standard 5- or 10-band EQ. You still get a conventional 10-band EQ for chat audio, and another EQ for the microphone. Each equalizer has several different presets if you don’t want to experiment too much.
Sonar also enables audio features including spatial audio mixing with seven directional channels. Besides the simulated surround sound, you can turn on Smart Volume to keep your audio from suddenly getting too loud or too quiet. For both the chat audio and microphone feed, there’s a Smart Voice feature similar to Smart Volume; ClearCast AI noise cancellation that filters out non-vocal sound; and manual noise reduction and noise gate functions if you don’t want to use ClearCast.
Tweaks made in Sonar don’t apply when the headset is used with a Bluetooth connection, but you can still make some adjustments in a different part of the SteelSeries GG software. The Engine tab provides a separate EQ for the headset, which is saved to it for use with Bluetooth, away from the base station.
Clear, Tweakable Mic
The Arctis Nova Pro Wireless’ microphone sounds very good, especially with its features enabled in Sonar. Clearcast AI Noise Cancellation (which is separate from the active noise cancellation the audio that comes in through the headphones receives) reduces outside noise, and Smart Voice regulates volume. Both features worked well, with the former eliminating both laptop fan noise and the chirps of birds outside, and the latter keeping my voice at a listenable level. You should keep those features activated, because otherwise the microphone produces a slight fuzz that sounds like wireless interference (though that could have been outside noise).
You might want to play with the mic EQ presets in Sonar, too, because the default flat setting isn’t the best; it made my voice sound both rough and slightly sibilant. Oddly, the Balanced setting is sculpted, and cuts out the lowest frequency band, as does the Less Nasal setting. Both made my voice sound crisp and clear, and Less Nasal actually slightly reduced the congested sinus sound my speech can get.
It took a bit of tinkering in Sonar, but after I found the best settings (Clearcast and Smart Voice turned on and EQ set to Less Nasal), the microphone sounded excellent. A dedicated USB mic almost always sounds better for serious content recording and streaming, but with the right tweaks the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless’ mic works in a pinch.
Strong Noise Cancellation
Active noise cancellation (ANC) has become an increasingly common feature in high-end gaming headsets. Apple, Bose, and Sony all have the strongest ANC technology currently available, but their best noise-canceling headphones cost at least $330 and don’t have the Arctis’ connectivity or gaming features. Fortunately, other headphone and headset manufacturers have demonstrated that you can get solid ANC without reaching those prices, and SteelSeries counts among them.
The Arctis Nova Pro Wireless’ noise-cancelling circuitry is surprisingly potent. It effectively blocks out the sounds of my office’s air conditioner and laptop fans, though it doesn’t completely eliminate the air conditioner’s hum. It also doesn’t completely dampen the subway’s rumble, but it still makes for a much quieter ride and significantly tamps down on the loud music that plays in my local coffee shop. The Bose QuietComfort 45 and Sony WH-1000XM5 are both more effective across the frequency ranges and come closer to completely eliminating a lot of noises, but this is still a strong showing for a gaming headset. Previously, the Bose QuietComfort 35 II Gaming Headset had the best ANC in the category, but it’s since been discontinued.
Sounds Best With Adjustments
The Arctis Nova Pro Wireless can put out some impressive low-end sound, as heard with our bass test track, The Knife’s “Silent Shout.” At maximum and unsafe volume levels, the kick drum hits and bass synth notes are palpable and almost painful, without any distortion.
The opening acoustic guitar notes in Yes’s “Roundabout” come through with solid low-mid resonance, while offering some finesse in the higher frequencies to bring out the string texture. When the track properly kicks in, the bassline sits a bit in front of the other elements, but the guitar strums, drums, and vocals can all be clearly discerned, and don’t take too much of a back seat to the bass. This is with the default EQ settings, and setting the preset to Music: Bright significantly brings out the high-mids and highs. In fact, its curve is a bit too aggressive in the high end, but you can reach an excellent middle ground with some experimentation.
The backbeat in The Crystal Method’s “Born Too Slow” reaches deep enough to ominously drive the track, though the riffs and vocals are slightly blunted in the higher frequencies with the default EQ setting. The Music: Bright setting improves the balance significantly as-is, but once again you can really get the sound you want out of the headset by playing with the software.
Gaming and Spatial Audio
The simulated surround sound that comes via the SteelEngine software sounds impressively accurate using the Arctis Pro Wireless. Playing Satisfactory, I got a strong sense of directionality from the whirr of machines around me, panning and mixing between the ears to give a solid impression of not just left-right, but forward-back imaging. The sounds of industry were full and clean, with the crunch of construction, the woosh of hypertubes, and the soothing ambient soundtrack well-balanced and clear.
Fortnite also sounds good with the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless, again with solid simulated surround. I could easily pick out the general direction of nearby footsteps and shots; it was about as good a directional sense that a pair of headphones can offer. The Fortnite EQ preset also helped bring out the game’s sound effects with frequency spikes that highlighted both loud weapons fire and more subtle ambient sound.
A New Best From SteelSeries
It took a number of years, but SteelSeries has updated its flagship wireless gaming headset in many wonderful ways. The Arctis Nova Pro Wireless is a bit pricey at $330, but it offers excellent performance and plenty of connectivity. The headset does its best work connected to a PC, with the SteelSeries GG software enabling surprisingly good spatial audio and offering preset tweaks that really improve the audio balance past its default setting. The active noise cancellation is surprisingly effective, too, and like the previous Arctis Pro Wireless, the dual-battery setup that keeps a fresh battery fully charged in the base means you can keep playing without pausing to plug in your headset. For all of these benefits, the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless earns our Editors’ Choice award for wireless PC gaming headsets.
If you want loads of features for less money, the $199.95 JBL Quantum 800 offers ANC, Bluetooth, and simulated surround sound, plus RGB lighting. Its performance and build aren’t quite on the Arctis’ level, however, and it lacks official console support. The $299 Audeze Penrose has audiophile-pleasing sound out of the box thanks to its planar magnetic drivers, but it’s limited to Bluetooth and wired connectivity and lacks spatial audio processing. The $249.99 Razer Barracuda Pro is another technically impressive headset that offers ANC and simulated surround sound, and has a much smaller transmitter and a useful travel case to make it easier to carry than the Arctis. However, the headset’s noise cancellation isn’t quite as effective, and its non-boom mic leaves a lot to be desired.