Thank you Turtle Beach for sending us this headset to review!

We here at Christ Centered Gamer have been fortunate enough to review most of Turtle Beach's recent audio lineup. This includes their entry level headsets all the way up to their Stealth 700 Gen2 MAX, which is their former top of the line. However, if you look at their product pages, historically they used to offer one headset above the 700 series (often called Elite). Now, Turtle Beach has decided to make their new flagship, the Stealth Pro, for more than just for gaming - this could easily be what you take with you when you commute around town on the bus or train. Being your 'everything headset' is quite an ambitious goal, and for many, they just might have pulled it off.

When I first picked them up, I was immediately surprised by the impression of quality that they give off. While the plastic band on the top is fairly typical of Turtle Beach with their brand embedded into it, the rest of the materials and build are clearly a step above. The headband is made from a really soft leatherette material, as are the ear pads. The cups are attached to the band with a metal and plastic band, and also look and feel nice. The cups are a fbig step up from other designs, with an aluminum ring that swivels with the cups and the headband, along with a really thick plastic cup. It's probably the best built headset I have, and I would not be ashamed at all to walk around town with this thing on - and I did, as I wore it to the office one day (I work remotely, so I only go into the office about once a month.)

Speaking of working, while I know this is primarily meant for gaming, it's quite an excellent work companion. When you connect this headset to both a phone and a computer or games console via the wireless transmitter, you can hear both sources at the same time. While this isn't the first device to do this (the Turtle Beach 700 Gen 2 line does this also, as does ROCCAT's Syn Max Air), those devices are more of a hassle in some ways; the 700 Gen 2 is trickier to switch Bluetooth devices with, using an older Bluetooth version, and the Syn Max Air was unstable for me in other ways that this Stealth Pro is not. The only time I had connectivity trouble was after a long time disconnected from the headset, or if I used my USB switchbox to switch the headset between two computers (work Macbook and my personal desktop PC), sometimes I would have to re-plug in the transmitter as it didn't always wake up right away. Outside of that, the connection quality has been excellent and the wireless range is quite good.

Actually, I take that back. I took these with me to Downtown Chicago, and it worked flawlessly on the train, as well as in the corporate office that I work out of. But walking from the train station to the office, Bluetooth connectivity was a mess. It was only for a couple of blocks, and I was around perhaps hundreds of other commuters with their Bluetooth devices also walking to their offices. I was quite shocked, as outside of this small gap between buildings, my experience with this headset has been largely stable. (Perhaps it doesn't get along with 5G wireless towers? Some urban wireless network? Perhaps just too much interference from other Bluetooth users? Though my Mixcder E9 headphones worked fine there on my last trip downtown...) It could be related to some microwave signal of some kind, as it also has trouble with my microwave running. Hopefully, Turtle Beach can fix this in a firmware update, but there is a good chance it's just not compatible with millimeter-wave signals.

Unlike the large wireless transmitter that the ROCCAT Syn Max Air includes (ROCCAT is Turtle Beach's PC peripheral sister company), this one is a small, hockey-puck sized transmitter connected with a USB-C port and also doubles as a charging dock for the spare battery. So when I brought these to work, I put the puck into the included small sleeve along with a USB-A to USB-C cable, and of course the headset itself, both into the included thick microfiber carrying bag, which I tossed into my work laptop bag. I brought out the headset on the train for Bluetooth use, and it worked great. When I got to my cubicle, I connected my work laptop to the docking station, found a spare USB-A port and connected this headset transmitter to that, and tossed it behind my laptop screen and no one was the wiser. It performed flawlessly for my meetings, allowed me to listen to a podcast on my phone while working, and allowed me to handle calls while in a meeting with careful uses of mute. The microphone sends your audio to both sources, so you have to make sure that the right people can hear you!

The headset has both an optional boom arm (which I recommend using when you can), or the also excellent built-in microphones. Not enough headsets have this as a backup option; you don't want to use a boom arm on a train (at least I don't). But in my testing, you come through crystal clear to the other side, no matter which mic you use. The boom arm is great because it is closer to your mouth, so it picks up a bit less background, and you can flip it up to mute it instantly. The onboard mics can only be muted via software; if you mute them via the companion Turtle Beach app and don't realize it, you can find yourself fidgeting with the app in a rush last minute once you realize they can't hear you.

Speaking of the Turtle Beach app, there are two: the Turtle Beach Audio Hub V2 for PC and Mac, and the Turtle Beach Audio Hub app for Android or iOS. Both apps have the same controls, and this is certainly the most PC-friendly Turtle Beach headset I've used yet, as most of the other headsets either don't have PC controls, or use a PC app for firmware updates only. This app is incredibly feature packed; explaining it all could take a while. But I have to point out some important highlights, because there is some serious functionality here - and some I've never seen before.

First, something I just discovered minutes before writing this review: using Bluetooth LE (Low Energy), you can have the headset connected to a computer over Bluetooth, and still control the headset's settings over BLE via the phone app. This feature is something I've only seen on other high-end Bluetooth devices, like the 1MORE EVOs I reviewed a while back. This is a great feature. I was concerned that connecting this headset to something other than a phone would lock out many of the headset's features; that doesn't appear to be the case, and I'm grateful to discover that for your benefit. (With that said, the Bluetooth connection to my phone seems more stable than that with my laptop, but I'm not ready to blame the headset just yet.)

Other features are fairly typical for Turtle Beach devices; things like Superhuman Hearing (I'm personally not a fan) and Game & Chat mix, which is commonly used with consoles like Xbox. There are also some microphone monitoring settings and noise gate, which blocks sounds below a certain level. This can be useful, but it can also make the mic sounds really bad - be careful with that one. On the headset there are four buttons: Superhuman Hearing (toggles it on/off), Power, Bluetooth, and a remappable button that defaults to Active Noise Canceling toggle (I would leave it on this). Sadly, only the remappable button can be changed; I would like it if the power button could do something else like it does on other Turtle Beach headsets.

Back to the app, outside of the Active Noise Canceling feature already mentioned (and that's huge - more in a minute), the main feature that is most interesting are the equalization features. You see, you can set all three connection types, the Game (wireless 2.4GHz), Bluetooth, and Microphone to each have their own custom EQ. Each has a profile option, or you can fully customize them with a 10-band graphical equalizer. This is HUGE. No other headset that I have ever seen offers this level of customization of sound quality. The human ear can only hear ten octaves, so this should easily cover most desires for audio tuning, assuming you don't have extreme needs that require a parametric EQ.

The thing that's so remarkable about this is you can entirely control, to your preferences, each device independently, and perhaps most uniquely, how you sound to others. With an EQ, you can give yourself a bassy, boomy radio voice. Or you can make yourself sound thin and clear with a treble emphasis. Or you can boost up the midrange. While I don't think this microphone is even a good choice for singing or instruments given its 100Hz-8kHz range, it's likely more than good enough for most other uses, especially when communication is a priority. I used this headset on a game stream here:

I think it worked pretty well as my mic in that stream, but listening more closely, I might have benefited from the 'Full' EQ preset, as it would bring out the lower register of my voice better, since my voice is pretty deep. You can also adjust the mic sensitivity in the control panel rather than in OBS, if you choose. It's a powerful feature.

As previously mentioned, you can also adjust the EQ profiles for the Game and Bluetooth devices independently also. All of these changes, along with every other change, are saved to the headset - until you pull the battery to swap it out. Unfortunately, if you don't have the app actively running and configuring your headset on your phone or computer, some of your previous settings can be forgotten until you set them after swapping the battery out.

This is important (in my opinion) because at least one default is quite contrary to my liking. This default isn't really noticeable if you have the flip-up microphone connected; if you don't, you'll run into this with the onboard mics. You see, by default, microphone monitoring is enabled. So what, you might ask? Well, if you are in a crowded place, you can hear most people around you talk. That might not be what you actually want. Also, if you turn on Active Noise Canceling, and have microphone monitoring on, what does that get you? Well, it kind of cancels out the noise canceling, wouldn't you say? (It does reduce the bass frequencies quite a lot, so it's not entirely worthless, but it seems like a rather silly default.) In my opinion, microphone monitoring should not be on by default, especially with noise canceling enabled. Ideally, the Active Noise Canceling On/Off button on the side of the headset should be changed to a three-way toggle, flipping this between a default normal mode, ANC on, and a transparency mode (perhaps via mic monitoring?). I hope Turtle Beach will consider changing this via a firmware update.