Turtle Beach Stealth 300 Review
Thanks to our good friends at Turtle Beach, we had the opportunity to use the Turtle Beach Stealth 300 for a few months, and have thoroughly enjoyed our experience with it. Although we weren’t crazy about everything the headset had to offer, it was a quality product for a great price, and anyone looking for that entry level headset would be well serviced by this device. Let’s dive in!
Build Quality
There is nothing flashy about the Stealth 300 headset, and I’m actually a big fan of that. We reviewed the Xbox One version of the headset – which is also compatible with the Nintendo Switch – so the soft green Xbox colours accent the black headset throughout. The band on the top of the headset between the plastic bridge and your head is a comfortable green mesh, bringing extra comfort over past Turtle Beach headsets that have had a harder plastic, or thing pleather band. The thick green band does a fantastic job of keeping the top of your head comfortable, and the breathable mesh keeps sweating issues to a minimum.
The cups are nicely molded to the average sized person’s ears, with one side just having a plastic finish, and the other housing the microphone, volume and chat dials, and the power button, and mode button. Everything is easily accessible, and once you’ve memorized the button placement doing what you need to do quickly is fairly easy. While the headset doesn’t have a mute button for the microphone, simply pushing the microphone into the upgright position will automatically perform the mute option, which is a fantastic way to reduce the button clutter on the headset.
The design and build of the headset is top notch, but as an individual with a wider head, I found the headset fairly constricting, and would create some painful problems after only an hour or so of use. For those with wider heads, passing on this set is probably ideal. The build quality is solid, but that solid build comes with trade offs, one of which is the tighter feel. Around the ears, however, was never a problem. The cushioned earcups fit nicely, and felt great, even after long gaming periods. My painful issue was the plastic near the top of the headset, just before where the mesh padding began.
For those with taller heads, each side of the device will extend, so finding that perfect fit shouldn’t be too difficult. A single cord runs from the left earcup down to the Xbox One controller. I generally prefer to have an inline remote to handle my volume, but the earcup system works fine, as noted above.
Audio Quality
The audio quality in the Stealth 300 does not disappoint. With two 55mm drivers, the sound coming out of this 79.99 headset rivals that of headsets in the 100-200 dollar range. Whether listening to music, watching movies, or playing games, the quality of the audio is perfectly acceptable. Long time and hardcore audio fans might notice a few drawbacks that are common in sub 100 dollar devices, but for the average gamer, this headset is great.
The biggest issue I find with headsets as they become cheaper and cheaper are muddle lows and high pitches highs, that don’t sound like they should. Fortunately, those problems don’t seem to exist in the Stealth 300. All the audio was crystal clear which is exactly what any gamer would want.
When playing a few first person shooter titles, I never felt like the surround sound audio didn’t worked as well as I would have expected, and I’m currently using other devices that do a much better job. That being said, what you get here is still passable and not at all a detractor if you want to access the other great features of this Turtle Beach set that others don’t have, most importantly the muteable flip-up microphone.
What I REALLY like about this set, however, is the ability to tailor the headset to your personal preferences, through the use of 4 pre-set audio modes that can be triggered using the button on the headset. The 4 modes – Bass Boost, Vocal Boost, Treble Boost, and Signature Sound – are wildly different, and provide a range of pre-sets that will accommodate most listeners.
Conclusion
Besides the tight fit, there wasn’t a whole lot in this 80 dollar headset for me to get upset about. It’s not doing anything wildly different that the competition, but is providing more features at a lower price than most. With the ability to hold a 30 hour long charge, this headset should factor in perfectly alongside your Xbox One or Nintendo Switch setup, and shouldn’t be ignored if you are looking to upgrade your current headset model.