Gadgetory

guys the arctas headset from SteelSeries are finally here we have received so many requests to take a look at these I have the 3 the 5 and the 7 today we're taking a look at the 5 simply because it's a Matsui price point of $99 let's see how it stacks up based on all the claims of the best microphone on the gaming headset and other claims that they're related in eSports that we are going to ignore so let's see how they stack up right after this explore your future with the cosmos 2 case and celebrate 25 years of ambition the drives cooler master forward enjoy the familiar yet still forward-looking character of the frame with solid aluminum handles it may be the most physical you'll ever get with the computer case but it's all worth while or get creative with any of the 13 storage options that encourage outside the box thinking meanwhile the curve temple glass panels on both sides ensures a lasting impression classically trained but still ready for anything the Coolermaster cosmos - let's celebrate the past by building for the future alright so it's $99 the arctas 5 is competitively priced compared to like the GSP 300 from Sennheiser which are awesome and they're priced also the same as the newest number of the G series from Logitech the g4 33 or the very well-known HyperX cloud 2 so the body is very light and it's made entirely of plastic but nothing creaks which is good and I do like the matte coating there's this one visible joint point though between the two plastic pieces on the headband that I wish was smooth you know but it's not a big deal the headband is a two-piece design with an adjustable fabric that is available in multiple colors and it supports the headset pretty well for small to medium sized heads but for example if you expand the fabric piece for a larger head it will be the plastic headband that will hold the headset and not the fabric for me personally the size adjustment is fine even with lots of hair but because the ear cups swivel to sit on your neck like this it's a bit tighter than I want and the fabric could be slightly smoother because if there's any it's just not pleasant also you have to get into a habit of removing the headset with both hands otherwise the joint on one side or the other absorbs the weight and the rotation of the headset which in the long run I think might cause the joint to fail the ear cups however feel quite nice on the skin unlike the fabric on a headband they can breathe and there's the angle drivers inside the ear cup for better audio direction my only point of feedback would be to add more padding in the center of the ear cup to avoid any contact with the plastic housing underneath it on the left side we get a mic mute button that sticks out and is easy to find plus a red LED is visible on the mic itself for new muted which is awesome there's also a volume wheel right here that has very little travel but it completely mutes the volume at the - position then there's the USB connection and a 3.5 millimeter input Jack that is used for audio sharing which is kind of strange so you can plug in a set of headphones and that person will hear what you hear I cannot think of a situation where I would personally use this feature to like audio share with a buddy or something but let me know what you think of this in the comments below alright so this is what the microphone sounds like on the arcus v I think it sounds good good low and pick up it's not nasally clear vocals there's only a tiny bit of digital noise in the background when noise reduction is disabled so right now it's on medium and if I stop speaking there's only a tiny bit of this noise that you can hear also keep in mind the microphone will still be on even if it's inserted inside the headset and to avoid bursting any eardrums if your volume is maxed out and people are listening to you avoid handling the microphone because all that is severely picked up it's just unpleasant keep the distance to the microphone because it is sensitive you know don't keep the microphone but yeah very happy with the mic now let's hear how it compares to the GSP 300 so this is the GSP 300 another $99 gaming headset now the input for the microphone is different this is going directly into my motherboard versus the arctas five handles all the processing and its own USB DAC so take that into account there is more digital noise here because I have not applied any noise reduction in the motherboard software but I think I prefer the sound of this one that a bit better it's more natural it's more clean it's not as processed as what we hear on the arcus 5 but still very acceptable your microphone on both headsets and I would prefer the convenience of a single port like a USB plug it into your computer and you're good to go in the package we get the headphone cable a 3.5 millimeter adapter and the USB sound card that also acts as your chat on your mixer so if you use teamspeak or Skype or other communication applications while gaming there's a very good way to either say mute your chat so that all you hear is the game or you can just go directly into your communications muting the game completely or go into that middle and play around with that balance so it's a nice thing to have plus it's a very fitting feature to have for a gaming headset just double check that your playback devices are configured properly I do like the modularity aspect of the 5 but this also introduces many points of failure and the main headphone cable is using the not so common USB mini-b 8 pin cable so if you're plugging this into your phone or a game controller you need to use the 3.5 millimeter headphone adapter that is a 4-pole plug and will carry the microphone signal as well and because of both USB and analog connections it is cross-platform compatible but the RGB lighting of course requires that USB connection which by the way is very tasteful I know it's totally unnecessary on a gaming headset and I wish I could disable the SteelSeries logo but the sin ambient strip around the ear cups is uniform so it's very visually appealing and can be configured with a few motion effects and Perseid color control or they can be completely disabled in terms of audio performance I think it's a fun headset really nice detailed sound signature without any harsh treble the bass is fine still allowing those deep hits to come through without overpowering the rest of the frequencies and because this is run through USB there is enough power so that you don't have to worry about all is the volume too low and plus the very good thing is there's no distortion at high volumes plus we have very good stereo imaging for spatial orientation the soundstage is a bit small compared to what I get on my game one so in battlegrounds for sample you can pinpoint where the distance fire is coming from but you don't get that sense of that super large environment so I could hear that player sneaking below me and waiting for me to come down and I knew exactly where he was but then my aim failed me and so for competitive play it's very good because the stereo spatial detail is excellent but as soon as you enable that surround sound with DTS X it just completely falls apart in the audio department so DTS X enabled we lose all details separations so there's no longer these elements that you can pinpoint and hear exactly what's happening it's like a super audio without those distinct elements many important audio cues like your footsteps other people's footsteps incoming fire Direction gets completely destroyed you lose positional awareness you do gain a bit of that larger sense of the environment but with the compromise of completely destroying the proper sound signature and this makes me angry because in mind the only one who thinks surround sound should die you get much better positional accuracy and much better soundstage and much better detail element separation in your audio cues in stereo mode and there's no need to cripple very good drivers on this headset with virtual software surround sounds and in the week I've been playing around with this headset I've experienced a few hiccups such as this connection issues from the main USB port where the headset would light up the USB sound card would light up but the headset would not actually show up in the software nor in the properties until I restart my system I've also experienced this weird volume glitch where the volume both on the headset and then the software was maxed out but I was not able to hear it maxed out it was kind of low and quiet and it was only fix itself when I would move the slider back and forth and then back to 100% both of these issues luckily seems to be software related so the volume glitch only happened once while the headset disconnection issue happened to me twice in the week I've had this thing be ready 4x to 99 with as rocks flagship gaming eye 9 motherboard the world's first to feature a quantity at 10 gigabits per second LAN port for extreme bandwidth a 13 space power designed for smooth power delivery and rely overclocking and of course USB 3.1 type C that can also charge your devices of up to 36 watts more info in description below so for conclusion I think still series have done a good job making sure to check off as many of those marketing points as possible for that sweet $99 price point really tasteful RGB illumination nice design matte black coating aside from this a weird little joint point they're comfortable multiple headband colors you know little customization options really good microphone also because it's going through USB nice - noise reduction and they're you know the only concern would be for the size because they don't expand and they only rely on this top fabric headband for size expansion which might be an issue for larger heads but for $20 less the arctas 3 may be a better option simply because it's an identical headset in every way aside from not having that USB sound card that also acts as your chat sound mixer thing so if you want to save yourself 20 bucks and get really good stereo sound get the artist 3 if you don't care about the RGB elimination because this is just plain $79 good sound good microphone recommend it and so that's it I have enjoyed my time with the artists 5 the RGB illumination ask yourself if it's worth the $20 and also because of that USB connection it is more convenient for laptop users and maybe for those who don't have good onboard audio that is of course your best bet but it's not perfect and I'm not giving it in the word because they're selling it as a surround sound headset without the proper maybe software equalizer tuned in to make sure that it delivers but inferior mode let's say if this was just a stereo gaming headset it would get my award because in stereo is just fantastic and surround sound it's not so guys thank you so much for watching make sure to check out these other relevant videos here and we'll see you in new one of these