SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5 – Digital Download

SteelSeries achieved this with the Arctis Nova 5 wireless headset. Totally spot on. This nominal gaming headset is a truly versatile headset that works equally well while watching movies or listening to music. It’s also priced perfectly for mid-range hardware (around A$300 in most places), light as a feather, exceptionally long on battery life, and impressively full-featured.

This is the best $300 you can spend on sound equipment, no joke.

So, digging deeper: The Arctis Nova 5 comes with both a 2.4 GHz dongle for connecting to anything you can connect USB 3.0 to (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, ROG Ally) and a Bluetooth module for everything , which cannot be done (iPhone, Android consoles, ROG Ally with the power supply connected, so it works for longer than 30 minutes). Of course, you’ll want the faster and lower latency 2.4GHz connection when playing games, but for listening to music on the train, watching movies on the plane, or just keeping your headphones glued to your head and having a Bluetooth option is greatly appreciated (and something I think is necessary in headsets).

But the advantages of this Bluetooth connection do not end there. One of the coolest features of the Nova 5 is that it comes with an app for iOS and Android. Download this little thing and you’ll see at a glance how much battery time is left (and be surprised how slowly it drains) and play around with a few features. For example, you can adjust Sidetone with a quick swipe of your finger, which affects the level of ambient noise the headsets allow – useful if you want to tune in to what’s going on around you.

Perhaps more importantly, you can instantly switch between 100 EQ profiles for different games, and the headset instantly adjusts to the optimal settings for any given game. Unfortunately, this feature wasn’t designed with someone like me in mind: it’s not like the folks at SteelSeries would even know that half the games I play even exist, and no, there’s no room for Quintessential Quintuplets there .

However, even in this case, there is a much greater awareness that perhaps some people like to use headsets for more than just repeating the cheerful war crimes of Call of Duty. There are many settings for movies, depending on whether you’re watching something Michael Bay or something smart enough that you want to actually hear the dialogue. The same goes for music, so in a few months, when you buy the limited edition of my visual novel with a soundtrack on CD filled with ballroom dancing music, you’ll have the perfect headset to put on your ears and feel the rhythm with.

The biggest advantage is that using all this is really simple and easy. No messing around with apps that look like they were designed for game developers, not gamers or even regular people. It’s an accessible, minimalistic and elegant application with great power.

Wearing the headset is also a pleasure. The headphones are light, the ear cups are large and the foam is soft. There’s no ugly brand screaming “GAMER” if you want to run to the shops for beer and crisps but at the same time like the music too much to want to stop. I assure you, there is nothing worse than telling the world that you are a gamer because you are standing at the cash register with a frozen pizza and your headphones are big, green and have a microphone pushed directly in front of your mouth. The Nova 5 is discreet, low-profile and elegant, and the microphone can be hidden away when you’re not using it. You’ll look as cool as ever, even if you’re secretly listening to Taylor Swift (and still holding that frozen pizza).

When it comes to audio quality, the great irony of the Nova 5 is that for a gaming headset, it tends to have the weakest gaming performance. For movies and music, the ability to adjust the equalizer settings makes it very easy to switch between songs you can feel (whether it’s heavy bass or you’re in the mood for a disco party) and songs that are there to feel. be heard (i.e. the singer is really good at his job).

The same goes for the movie. This works equally well if you’re watching The Lord of the Rings with its breathtaking soundscape, The Avengers with its action-packed soundscape, and Barbarella with… well, you all know why I watch this movie. It works for all of them. This is where the EQ settings come in handy, too, with profiles well-tuned for everything from talkative to punchy.

What the Nova 5 likes less is receiving too much information. In games, there are sounds coming from multiple directions that are not precisely coordinated. There are steps to follow, a soundtrack in the background, colleagues at the microphone and much more. To some extent, the headset tends to interpret all this information as combative, and the balance isn’t as pleasing to the ears as I would like. I’ve found that for gaming it’s better to turn the headset down a bit.

On the other hand, instead of playing Final Fantasy XIV, you can simply load up the soundtrack, close your eyes and take a nap while the masterpiece of the soundtrack wraps you in a warm blanket. It’s just as fun as playing the game, and the headset turns back on instantly.

I’m using a bit of hyperbole here – video games don’t sound like it bad in any way by the Nova 5. Except that if you want to tease out the difference between a truly high-end headset and this one, that’s it. You’ll still get better sound quality than you would with a cheap headset. You’ll still be able to enjoy the craftsmanship that went into both the sound design and the music. You just won’t get a $600 headset for $300. Because we live in a capitalist world and things don’t work that way.

Arctis Nova 5 is my new favorite headset. It’s truly an all-day headset that works with all my devices, is easy to manage and tune to what I like to watch, listen to and play, and is the most comfortable and versatile way to relieve tinnitus I’ve ever experienced .