Summary
Steelseries nails the premium feel of the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless headphones from the moment you open the box. The cardboard feels silky and opens smoothly, the headphones are laid delicately within like an ornate headpiece glistening in the light. All the boring stuff, like cables and instructions, is hidden away so you can appreciate the majesty of Steelseries’ premium headphones. But you should expect a sense of ceremony when this set of cans will set you back nearly as much as a PlayStation 5.
While I was a little gutted the box opening wasn’t heralded by a trumpeter proclaiming the peripheral’s proficiencies, the luxurious feel was the next best thing. The headphones themselves have weight to them – always a good sign – and yet sit lightly on the bonce, never feeling restrictive or tight.
They are slightly top heavy, and a vigorous head nod or sneeze can send the headband swinging down over your eyes like a cheap X-Men cosplay.
Thankfully, the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless sound as good as they look. Again, they should do at £329.99. But the sound quality is astounding. Music filters through crystal clear, as do the standard working day noises like interviews, meetings, and Slack notifications. However, the headphones come into their own when you open up a game.
Impeccable Sound
Apex Legends is my go-to game for testing headphones. While there are some audio design issues in the game itself, they are easy to distinguish from headphone deficiencies and, aside from that caveat, it’s a game where sound matters.
You can hear the specific intonations of each weapon to know whether or not to push that team with a Kraber. You listen out for footsteps to tell if an enemy is approaching your location. Your teammates’ voice chat is of utmost importance as you work together to beat 57 others to the finish line.
The Arctis Nova Pro Wireless exceeded all expectations here. They provided great sound quality and especially excelled in spatial audio: ie letting me know which direction sounds were emanating from. While Steelseries could have stopped here with a great pair of cans, it just kept adding more.
Noise Cancel Culture
Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) is the latest rage in audio design, and Steelseries cancel it all. Activated with the click of a button on the headset, you can instantly hear the difference when you make the switch. While I do think it makes the sound a little bit tinnier if you’re listening to high-quality music (though you won’t notice it on Spotify), it almost completely removes the sound of my (very clicky) keyboard, let alone any disturbances from further afield.
I have no more trouble with neighbours mowing grass outside my window ruining my concentration, no issues with working from busy cafes where I can’t help but eavesdrop.
The battery life on the headphones is impressive, easily lasting the 20 hours advertised and often a little bit more. If that’s not enough for you, there’s a swappable battery hidden under the removable side panels and a spare included in the box. These can be charged by USB-C by plugging the headphones themselves in, or by slotting them into the ‘connect hub’ that comes in the box.
Added Value
“But Ben, what on earth is a connect hub, and how will it charge my headphones?” I hear you ask. The connect hub is a little piece of kit that kind of works like a stream deck. You plug your devices into it by USB – yes, devices plural (up to two) – and it transmits the signals wirelessly to your headphones. You can use the hub to switch between the inputs at will, change the volume, gain, or balance, and charge that all-important second battery.
It’s a clever bit of kit, but it’s a shame you need Bluetooth or a wired connection to connect to any device other than the ones plugged into this. It’s a slog switching cables between my office PC and my Xbox and Switch in the living room downstairs, and I can only imagine that would get worse if you were travelling with the headphones and wanted to work from a cafe or a conference.
That said, switching between different inputs using the connect hub is super handy, especially if you mainly want to use these headphones for sofa gaming – you won’t need to switch cables when changing consoles ever again.
The hub has preset sound profiles for a number of games, including Apex Legends, Baldur’s Gate 3, Rocket League, and every competitive game that comes to mind. I couldn’t tell how different the sounds were on the Apex and PUBG presets, for instance, but switching back to ‘Smiley’ or ‘Bass’ when listening to music made a world of difference.
Another benefit of using the connect hub is that you may listen to multiple things at once. While I enjoyed connecting my headphones to my (docked) Switch while playing through Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for my preview and dropping some lo-fi tunes from my phone via Bluetooth as soothing background noise, the possibilities are endless. The most obvious use-case is playing a multiplayer game on your Xbox or PS5 and chatting with your co-op partners via Discord or phone call on your phone.
The in-built microphone is serviceable, with some basic noise cancelling AI implemented. It’s good enough for competitive games, but if you want to record a podcast or sound professional on a call, I’d stick with a standalone mic.
Button Bloopers
The headphones aren’t perfect. The buttons all feel a little bit misaligned, they’re not quite where you’d expect them to be to press them easily. There are also too few, so each has multiple functions and it can be tricky to memorise the combinations. For the first few days of testing I completely forgot that turning the headphones off didnotturn the Bluetooth off, and the battery drained quickly overnight – at least that’s what I think the problem was. Similarly, the beeps to acknowledge when you’ve turned them on or off, whether Noise Cancelling is active or not, and whether Bluetooth is connected, are indecipherable from each other.
In terms of usability, these don’t score highly. This is a case of form over function, but when they look so good and sound so crisp, you can forgive some misplaced buttons. Except for the fact that rolling the volumebackwardsturns the volumeup. Who came up with that idea?
That’s not bad going as far as complaints, though. The headphones are incredibly comfortable; even after wearing them for 12 hours non-stop the only slight irritation I felt was on my helix piercing. They fit my head as well as they do my wife’s. I didn’t let my daughter try them on because who gives a toddler a £320 piece of kit, but I think you’d have to be at least a teenager to fit in them. Any size up from that, though, and you’re in for a treat.
Are The Steelseries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless Headphones Worth It?
When it comes to value, you have to assess your own finances and, realistically, £320 is an exorbitant amount of money for a pair of cans to stick on your lugs. If you’re comparing this outlay to buying something else, like a weekend break or a puppy, it’s hard to recommend the headphones.
But if you have £300 you want to spend on headphones, you may’t go wrong with this pair. The downsides are so few and inconsequential that I barely even think about them for 99 percent of the time I’m wearing them. There’s a reason we labelled these as thebest Steelseries headphonesmoney can buy. If you’re looking for quality design across the board, from pristine sound to forget-you’re-wearing-them comfort, the Steelseries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless headphones won’t disappoint.
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