SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 Wireless Multi-Platform Gaming Headset — Neodymium Magnetic Drivers — 2.4GHz + Mixable Bluetooth — 38Hr USB-C Battery — ClearCast Gen2 AI Mic — PC, PS5, Switch, VR, Mobile

Pros: Super comfortable, not too heavy, long battery life. Relatively plug and play on PC. Very good sound out of the box. Cons: Overall a bit pricey given the build quality/microphone quality. Needs Sonar software to sound their absolute best, or to get the most out of the headphone/microphone. Yes, its free, but still - Out of the box, sound quality overall is very good. On PC using Sonar EQ features, the headphones can be made to sound excellent overall, if still a bit etched/bright/harsh at time IMO. The microphone is overall pretty good with AI and other "enhancements", but I find adjusting the boom a bit annoying as I have to fight it a bit every time I pull it out to get it to rest properly near my mouth. I can always see in in my periphery as well, which can be a little distracting. Its possible that there is better value to be found just investing in a separate dedicated microphone. But having the "all in one" solution is convenient. I am very picky about audio quality, and I find these satisfying, especially after a careful tune. The 40mm drivers can really deliver on the bass, and deliver lots of detail and volume with low distortion. Comfort is excellent, though the clamp is almost too light for my taste. That said, I can wear these for hours with no major comfort problems with or without glasses. But they are too loose, even after I adjust them, for any sort of active wear. These are for sitting/walking around a little. Volume knobs are easy to find, though I'd like a little more resistance in them, and the ergonomics overall beat some of my other headphones for sure. The wifi range (not bluetooth), is quite good - I can play something on my computer and wander pretty far from it and maintain a signal. In terms of cons, I find these headphones a bit awkward to attach/detach from different devices with bluetooth. Its various beeps and boops and breathing LEDs do nothing for me in terms of figuring out how to disconnect from one device while staying connected to another. I'd like it to just tell me what it is trying to attach/detach to like my 7 year old Bose bluetooth speaker. The 2.4 ghz connection does not seem to have a benefit over bluetooth in terms of sound quality, which is a shame, and I don't know what happens when I break/lose that dongle. The on-board amp gets very loud, though there is some hiss, and one apparently has to enter the Sonar software to shut off the volume limit to get the full volume anyway, a bit of a quirk. Which gets me to another point: the "free" Sonar software is powerful, but it is also really needed to get the most out of these headphones. It is full of quirks - you need the "engine" menu to adjust or shut off the side mic feature, shut off the volume limiter, or to reduce game volume during calls. In the "Sonar" section, you can customize EQs for different inputs, but I found it impossible to copy an EQ I created for the "game" mode and set it to "media" or "aux" as well. Hence I have to repeat the process of doing my 10 point parabolic EQ over and over - tedious. Sliding with a mouse is fine for the uninitiated, but I needed to enter my exact values, and the software makes you click in the tiny boxes, and could not do Q values below 0.5. When listening to Music on my computer, it is also showing up under the "game" mode in the mixer, meaning I have to remember to turn on/off features like "spatial audio" since, while it is fun for games, it is terrible for music. You can drag and drop the "app" to its appropriate section, but this is more setup work. Also, Windows update has broken the Sonar software multiple times (no audio no matter WHAT I did - even audio driver reinstalls!). So far the solution has been to just re-install the Sonar software, easy enough. Still, this is super frustrating, especially the first time it happened because I had ZERO indication of what went wrong. IMO there should be a way to set a "global" EQ (parabolic, not just the sliders which IS available in the "engine" menu, confusingly), if you want. There should also be hotkeys I can set up to turn on/off things like spatial audio, the EQ, or adjust the side mic or other mic features. Heck, why not let me set an EQ and save it to the headphone itself, so I can have it when using these with my other non-PC devices? That would make these even more awesome and let me have consistent sound across devices. As an inferior solution, we could have an engine/sonar app for our phones/tablets, I guess. I still recommend these overall, for those wanting a good headset with a good mic that is fun for games but capable of being great for casual music/movie stuff too. When gaming I am still getting the hang of balancing chat/game sounds since everyone seems to have different microphone quality. I was hoping that one of the many features of this software would be to tame some of the hotter microphones out there. A pair of cheap, non-gaming bluetooth headphones I own seemed to do this a lot better. For the full asking price, I think some of the compromises in terms of material choices, microphone quality, and features are a bit of a stretch. But for the sale price I paid, I think it is about right, especially since the Sonar software really does up the ante if you are going to do a lot of gaming. Lets hope it stays free, otherwise I might have held out for better overall "out of the box" performance.

I purchased these to use with my newly built pc so I didn't have to keep disconnecting and reconnecting my SS Arctis 9X between that and my Xbox Series X. And also because my 9X cannot use wireless and Bluetooth simultaneously on PC. I will start by saying that these sound excellent. And my friends have told me the mic sounds great. I was already a fan of Steel Series because of my 9X's, and these have lived up to my expectations easily. Pros: 1. Wireless and BT! I love being able to hear my game/chat and also listen to something on my phone at the same time. Or answer a call while playing. 2. Lightweight/Comfort. I can wear them all day and it doesn't bother me at all. And the headband is super comfortable. 3. USB C charging. I have a lot of USB C cables for all my other devices and my 9X is the only thing that uses Micro USB so I'm glad they updated these 4. Build quality feels solid. Some people complain about them breaking or feeling cheap, but mine feel great. Though I do take very good care of them. 5. Battery life/charging. The battery lasts pretty long and they charge pretty quick. Cons: 1. They aren't quit as comfortable as my 9X are. Though they are still pretty comfortable so I don't even like counting this as a con. 2. The buttons (power, BT, mute) and volume control/chat mix wheels aren't as easy to find or control while I'm wearing them as my 9X. 3. The mic isn't as flexible as I'd like. It always pulls out into the same position and doesn't adjust as easily as the 9X. Conclusion: Overall I am extremely happy with these. I couldn't afford the go with the Nova Pro Wireless or even the Arctis 9 which would have been my first two choices. And I got these for $130 which is $50 cheaper than you can get them most other places. So far, they have been worth every penny and all of the cons I listed are just me nitpicking and none of them are even close to a big enough deal for me to rate them any less than 5 stars. I have only had them a week so far, but I am currently going through a pretty aggressive treatment for cancer and can't work so I am home all the time and use these almost all day everyday. But if I do run into any issues, I will update this review. I would highly recommend these if you are in the market for a mid-high range wireless headset for PC. My only other non-SS headset in the last few years is the RIG 800 PRO HX, which was also an excellent headset, but I would take the Nova 7 anyday over those.

I have had hardware issues with this headset since the day I bought it. Despite several weeks of back and forth with SteelSeries' in house support team, the scroll wheel for my chatmix has never worked properly. Their soundmix software "Sonar" correctly blocks out the option for me to adjust chatmix electronically, but the physical scroll wheel has never functioned. After weeks of back and forth with their support team, which amounted to "turn it off and back on again," the ticket was marked as resolved and I was functionally told to go kick rocks. Being well past the Amazon return date, I figured I would just deal with it and move on. It's still a good headset, and the bluetooth is a nice touch, even if it cuts me off mid-sentence without warning in chat whenever I get a phone call. A 2 second delay would be nice. That is, until today. I went to go turn my headset on, ready to game with a friend. When suddenly, it appears to have bricked itself. Despite appearing as "connected" in the Sonar software and showing my battery percentage, the headset refuses to play any audio, and is flashing its indicator lights as if it can't connect to anything. It won't play audio from my PC, and the bluetooth won't connect to my phone. I turned the main power off and back on again, nothing. The bluetooth indicator keeps flashing, and won't turn off no matter what I try, or how long I hold the buttons. I tried disconnecting the dongle from my PC, even un-pairing it and re-pairing it to the headset. All of which appears to have worked, but the lights are still flashing like it's not connected, and the audio is nowhere to be found. I swear to god, I'm not tech illiterate. I've checked the volume wheel. It's not muted. My headset just bricked itself out of nowhere today, and I have no recourse. If this is how my experience with the Nova 7's have been, I can't imagine myself buying any other SteelSeries product again, despite all of the other good reviews they may get.

Only one persistent downside: head band size is a little large. Other than that, these are probably the best headphones I've ever used. My previous Sennheiser pair was pretty decent, but these knock those ones out of the park in pretty much every way. Overall ("+" for Pro, "-" for Con): + comfortable - head band could be a bit smaller, but otherwise are really good + adjustable inner band for the head band is nice enough and prevents pain on top of my head + adjustable mic that works well enough for calls and has on-board mute toggle + bluetooth and wireless 2.4GHz can be used simultaneously + nice when calling from my phone while using my PC + USB-C charging is quite fast, and battery life long enough to last me a few days worth of my regular usage + standard 3.5mm audio jack for stereo input over a cable so I can use them even when they haven't been charged in a while - some times in a call on my PC (e.g via Discord), the headphones won't register the audio going through them properly, so even though I'm in the middle of a call, the headphones might turn off unexpectedly as if I wasn't using them i. solved by playing some white noise in the background at a very low volume, but it would be better if this wasn't an issue. ii. I should note that I use Linux, so this may be a driver compatibility issue with the 2.4GHz USB dongle, but I'm unsure, ymmv + volume adjust independent of source device + if I'm unsure what my volume might be at, or what the volume of some inputs might be, then I can set the headphones themselves very low to prevent any really loud noises going into my ears + great audio fidelity and bass response (at least to my untrained ears) Probably my most valued purchase of anything less than $200. Very much worth the money imo.

This is too expensive of a headset to completely tank in under a year. Bought in January 2024, today is Nov. 25 2025, it has stopped holding a full charge for more than 10 minutes, no longer will connect wirelessly, can only use a cord and even then the microphone no longer works. So, it gives about 10 minutes of audio until it loses its charge, you'd have to keep the charger plugged in while using it. I will not buy this again, I have bought headsets a quarter of this price that lasted for years. Edit: Just a day later and it's gotten even worse. It can't even gather enough charge to turn on, no lights, just a dead headset. I am contacting the manufacturer for warranty service. I will update if they honor it. Update: It took me a near month to get through the warranty experience, despite my immediate and prompt replies to their requests. They did end up replacing it, but not before making me jump through hoops like a monkey. After establishing, it was indeed broken, they sent me instructions on how to destroy it. They asked for picture, after picture after picture, of the same thing over and over. After a dozen of those, despite me following it to a tee, they then asked for 30 second video clips of the destroyed headset showing again the same information. I was told to make sure the headset was in stock on their website FIRST before starting the RMA to replace it. I assumed that meant, one would be reserved for me. I did this, verified it and it was in stock the moment I started the RMA. By the time they sent me the coupon, the headset was, yes, you guessed it. Out of stock. So I had to get on a mailing list to wait for it to be in stock again. This took roughly another 10 days. Why they asked me to check if it was in stock, was pretty pointless since the process didn't bother to reserve one for me when I started the RMA. The agent who assisted me was kind and professional, no fault of his own to follow the companies protocol that was filled with repetition on actions already done, over and over. It was silly. The headset is excellent when it works (the replacement is working well so far) but the warranty acrobats you are asked to do over and over, will give me pause to buy SteelSeries again when there are many very good competitors out there. I will research any reviews detailing the warranty processes next time I am buying one. I still give the headset 4 stars, as it is very nice, -1 for the warranty gymnastics.

So I've had the Arctis 7 headset for years and it never really fit well (I put up with it because the sound quality was SO much better than other brands) so I was a bit skeptical about buying the Nova 7 headset.... All of that went away the second I put the Nova headset on. It's lightweight, fully adjustable, and the sound quality improved over the Arctis 7 line. I've already had profiles set up in GG so switching over to the Nova from the old Arctis was easy, I didn't even have to mess with any of my old profiles, the Nova just made everything sound so much better. I marked the noise canceling lower because it's not true noise canceling, if you have it at a lower volume, sound does bleed through. But the audio quality of the drivers is so good that unless you have a rave going off next to you, you won't hear a thing other than what's playing through the headset. I've been in music production and mixing for the past decade and the Nova is better than my studio headphones. As soon as I got them, I loaded up some of my favorite bass-heavy music and blasted it through the headset. Steelseries might as well advertise these as haptic because the bass gets them moving. My friends in Discord say the mic quality is good, which I also have filtered through GG. Overall, I couldn't be happier. If you're considering getting this headset and don't mind running Steelseries GG to tweak your sound profiles, definitely get it.

It might be spying on me, but its the best headset I have ever had so I don't know if I care. Hands down the best headset I have had for gaming. The ear muffs are comfortable and soft but also breathable so your ears don't get as hot as with the plastic-y kind of ear muffs which flake of after a year. Mic is great and I love that it can retract into the headset and be out of the way when you dont need it. The easy to reach mute button and its associated red light are extremely convenient. Bluetooth range on headset is admirable. I can walk from one corner of my house to the opposite corner and one floor down with no change in audio quality. Battery life is many hours. The fit for my head is perfect and the adjustments for those who need them are good although im not sure it would be good for a small head. 100% would buy again, good value. HOWEVER, it might be spying on me. The light on the headset dongle goes off when the PC turns off. TWICE now I have come into my room after taking a shower in the morning to find the little light on and within 3 seconds of looking up at it, it turns off. There's no reason for that light to be on and I have never once noticed it on before but it just randomly turns itself on and then off right as I walk in the room???? Very sus. I went into Bios and turned the USB power to devices off when PC is off just to be sure.

TLDR: Headset good 4 stars, Software horrible 0 stars, for an average of 2 stars. The headset itself I would give a solid 4 stars. It syncs up easy enough, it is comfortable even after hours of gaming, and sound quality is good for the price. But do yourself a favor and DO NOT install GG Steel Series Software. The GG Steel Series Software is utter garbage. I downloaded it hoping to dial in the spatial audio. The software "test" did not come out of the correct head phone (left was left, center was right, right was center, back left was right, back right was left) which makes attempting to dial in completely useless. Even if you don't open or do not have the software loaded it overwrites your windows audio. So you could have your headset at 100% on the task bar where 99.9% of windows users check their volume and you can barely hear anything. Well somehow the volume in the app will turn itself down to 20% so the headset volume is actually at 20%. Oh and the volume knob on the headset is linked to windows audio, so you could have that turned up and it won't make a difference. Meaning you have to tab out of whatever app/game you are playing load the software just to adjust the volume. I also ran into the issue where one night I could hear my friends perfectly fine on Discord. To then play the next night and have my game volume fine but I could barely hear any of them in Discord. It wasn't the main volume because the game audio was loud and clear. I turned them all up to 200% in Discord, and it barely made a difference. I open the Steel Series app and low and behold my game volume was fine but my Discord volume somehow got turned down to less than half the game volume. You may not find this annoying but I almost returned the headset because it rendered it almost unusable. Good news is, you can uninstall the app and the headset works just fine. So I 100% recommend doing that.

Make sure to download GG software to control Sonar it will take you to next level

Item came fast and in good working condition. Headphones exactly as described

Melhor headset gamer sem fio de todos! Qualidade de som absurda e possui um app da SteelSeries que configura o fone para todos os estilos de jogos. Além disso, que fone confortável!!!! Nota 1000

The headphones work amazingly well. No complaints at all except for one small gripe. When I take it off charge and press the button to turn it on, sometimes it won't respond and I have to find the hidden reset button under the ear cup to reset it. I've figured out you have to wait about 5 seconds after taking it off charge before turning it on.

Using on my PC for casual gaming and work. Great sound (if you're not an audiophile), wireless connection works across my small house, and they're comfortable for 8+ hours of working. Mic quality is pretty good actually with side tone, controls are okay. Software is terrible, (although better than most) but all peripheral software is. Build quality is excellent, I'm a full time glasses wearer so ear/head comfort is important - these are comfortable and don't press super hard on the sides of my head. USB-C so it charges very fast, and the battery lasts all work day, or over several weeks when used casually. Always connects right away (which is why a dongle connection is always superior to Bluetooth) and without issue. Spent a lot of time researching, testing and cost comparing before I landed on these. I've now owned them for almost 2 years and I have no regrets. One thing, whenever the software updates I have to re-pair the headset to the USB dongle. It does not present itself as having an issue, but the only thing that fixes it is pairing again.