In the search for gaming audio perfection, you’ve got to put a lot of different headsets on a lot of different heads. Turtle Beach know this better than anyone, with an ever-evolving and ever-growing collection of gaming headsets, that show the true nature of a well-oiled research and development cycle. The Stealth 700 has been a staple of that lineup, and with the Gen 3 version, they’ve taken things to the next level, creating a headset that you might not want to take off. Thanks to their various innovations, you won’t have to.
Priced at £179.99, the Stealth 700 Gen 3 is a wireless and Bluetooth-equipped gaming headset. One of its key selling points is the inclusion of two 2.4GHz USB-A dongles, so you can plug one into your PS5 and the other into your PC, and then seamlessly switch between them via the crossplay button on the right earcup. It’s a great solution for the multi-system gamer.
Turtle Beach have got comfort don’t pat these days. From the Stealth 100 at the lower end of the spectrum, which is now available in a very cool artic camo flavour, through to the Stealth 900, they know how to make a gentle ear cushion or two. The Stealth 700 Gen 3 is super soft and super gentle – this sounds like a child’s shampoo advert, but bear with me – and I couldn’t get over just how plush the headband was every single time I picked it up.
I haven’t been all that kind to the Stealth 700 either, stretching out, and leaving it hanging off monitors, TVs and headphone stands, all of which hasn’t damaged the metal-reinforced headband or ear cushions in any way. Frankly, the Stealth 700 feels bombproof – not something we’re going to be testing.
That build quality is probably why the Stealth 700 is a little chonky. They have all the stealth qualities of a bag of spanners bouncing around on an airport baggage retrieval belt, as they’re amongst the most noticeable headsets you could wear. They still look smart, especially in our review unit’s black and anodised metal review trim, and it’s clear that the design team have taken time improving the visuals over previous iterations, but this is a big pair of headphones, and there’s no getting away from that fact.
The advantage of all that size is that Turtle Beach have been able to pack it with tech, and they’ve made the ear cushions and headband thick and pliant. It’s also a true over-ear headset, fully covering each ear, and ensuring decent passive noise cancellation. You’ll need that too, as their’s no Active Noise Cancellation included, which is something of a shame in a headset at this price. That said, the ANC in competing headsets is never really mind-blowing, so perhaps Turtle Beach have made the pragmatic choice to exclude it.
The Stealth 700 Gen 3 houses an array of on-board controls, from the power button with its surrounding LED, to three dials for volume, chat and WHAT?.
They’ve also packed in two massive 60mm Eclipse dual drivers, each set separating the high and low frequencies, and thanks to their expansive size they’re very capable of pushing a whole heap of audio around. The Stealth 700 Gen 3, as with most of Turtle Beach’s modern headsets, sound excellent. The Signature Sound EQ setting gives you bags of bottom end while maintaining plenty of detail at the top end, so dialogue and sound effects ring through clearly.
I’ve been playing a lot of Monster Hunter Wilds, and the Stealth 700 has done an amazing job translating monster roars and the epic soundtrack into an enveloping atmosphere. You can absolutely blast your ears off too, as the Stealth 700 Gen 3s go all the way to what feels like 11. There’s some serious output available for the hard-of-hearing, or those seeking hard-of-hearing status later in their lives.
They do a great job with music too. I may be mildly obsessed with the new Linkin Park song – you’ve listened to it non-stop for three days too, right? – and the band’s trademark guitar sound is both powerful and aggressive here, with Emily Armstrong’s vocals careening across the top of it all. If you’re into the heavier side of things, or dance music with thumping drums and grinding bass lines, this is the perfect headset for you.
The microphone boom arm folds back into the left earpiece, so when you’re not using it you wouldn’t even know that it’s there. When you fold it down for use, you can angle it slightly towards your mouth, but it sits in a very rigid position, a very fixed distance from your mouth. While that means it’s should be reliable and offer similar performance every time, there’s no option really for customisation beyond being off or on. Performance is solid though, with a decent representation of your voice flying off into the void.
The Swarm II software is available for iOS, Android and PC, and from here you can make a batch of changes to your headset, including updating it and both transmitters. I was impressed how easy this was to do – many apps need a couple of goes for updating things, or something fails, but here, despite the additional connection points, it all worked impressively well.
Once you’ve updated everything, the app itself gives you extensive access to the workings of the Stealth 700, from a choice of EQs, including a series of custom slots, to tweaking the performance of your microphone, adding and setting a noise gate to prevent unwanted sounds from getting through, to altering the EQ of your voice.
One of the sole issues I found with the Stealth 700 Gen 3 was the blinking LED light that surrounds the power button. In the middle of the night, it was distractingly bright, shining back off the screen of my Nintendo Switch at me, while also annoying my partner as she attempted to go to sleep. There doesn’t seem to be any way of turning this off if you’re solely using the Bluetooth connection, only stopping if the headset hooks up to one of the dongles. It’s a clear issue that can hopefully be remedied by an update, especially if you’re a Nintendo Switch player who’s using the Bluetooth connection as your primary setup. Worst comes to the worst, I guess you can always apply a bit of black tape.
