Gadgetory

hello good people I'm do a tree and today's SteelSeries is launching their new arctas Pro line of headsets their PC and ps4 compatible I have the game dak and the wireless versions in-house but there's also a standalone pro version and today I want to mainly focus on the game dark Edition and spend some more time with the wireless one and deliver my thoughts on that later finally an ultra slim body keyboard with mechanical red or blue switches designed and perfected for work and play that the sorrel gram excess evolved to fit right in check it out below ok so it is clear that SteelSeries is trying to target the slightly higher end consumer base within the gaming industry because of the price so the game dark Edition costs $249 while the wireless one sells for 329 but also because this is their first high res audio certified gaming product this is a certification that is done through the Japanese audio Society it means that the drivers can reach 40 kilohertz or above incapable of delivering 24-bit 96k low hertz for the entire system so for the interface and the DAC and I think the certification badge is a good marketing move to like separate themselves from this perception that gaming headsets and audio suck and more companies are now trying to follow suit so like this msi GH 60 also has the high res audio certification but this one is a significantly cheaper product and so I'm hoping that this entire high res audio badge will not come at a significant price premium because of it so the arctas Pro physically is almost identical to the previous Octus pairs but they have fixed some of my previous complaints so you can still interchange the fabric headband the RGB illumination is awesome with that soft perimeter glow but the still serious logo is no longer illuminated so they look a little bit more tasteful this way the retractable microphone is the same with a mic mute LED but the mics which is larger and easier to press the volume wheel now matches the color of the body but it's still way too easy to spend and I always unintentionally change the volume when taking the headset on or off and we get the refined aluminum hinge so they are stiff enough for rotation but don't freely wobble around and they can rest on the table flat or on you neck and now with a slightly larger angle so they don't really choke you like on the previous pairs the side plates are now magnetic and are removable I'm guessing we'll see some accessories for game specific side plates but this is also necessary for the wireless addition so you can access the removable battery the headphone sharePort is still here and I find it useless because you know listen to your own music comfort wise the ear cups are thick and pleasant to the touch but the headband is non expandable so you can only relax the fabric piece to a point where it needs the headband so for individuals with smaller heads this is not a problem and I'm personally fine with it as well but in no way will this fit larger heads if you have lots of hair wear a cap or hat and also like to wear the headset at the same time so unfortunately this is not an accommodating design for everyone alright so this was the mic sounds like on the arctas probe there's a lot of detail it's not too nasally you can still hear the compression because it's tries to noise cancel out the background so for example right now let me type on an MX blue keyboard which are you know super loud switches you can hear them but they are slightly muted I wish there was a bit more bass in my voice with this microphone but the good thing is that if you're constantly yelling at the microphone you can obviously adjust the volume of the microphone pickup which you cannot do for many other headsets what you're hearing now is the game one headset which I've been using as like the benchmark for microphone in this field this one has a bit more bass pickup which I prefer it sounds a little bit more full but it's not as detailed or clear as the arctas pro plenty of things come in the box because this is entirely modular system so replacing any broken components is easier down the line but their choice of a USB mini-b a pin cable is of course on purpose it's not a common connector and you're locked to only using the SteelSeries headsets with the included DAC I do like their approach to the interface of the game docto so it's an elegant monochrome display not high-resolution but it's fine it's not too bulky it's easy to navigate it has a good i/o but you connect the headset to the left side of the DAC which means placement of this thing on your desk will be limiting so for my space it cannot be on the right because it interferes with my mouse cable it can all be above my keyboard because the cables are just awkward so the only appropriate place will be on the left side where I can more comfortably around the cables and I like my headphones an audio on the right side so I can route it kind of like below the table but now because this thing on the left I have to deal with the additional cable work and that's just not pleasant and there's no other way around it unless you go fully wireless with the rest of your peripherals now the initial setup and menu guidance for navigation is super simple you finally choose your source and good luck have fun the wheel and the back button feel great with nice tactile bumps during rotation and easy presses but the volume level starts at zero and decreases and I found that weird because normally you'd want to turn the volume up now a few things to keep in mind for that initial setup there are two ways to adjust the volume on the headset and on the DAC so when I plugged it in the volume was super low even to 100% on the DAC so make sure to adjust the volume on the headset as well if you're you know volume is super low second thing is that volume adjustment in Windows is locked when the DAC is plugged in and if you want to go to the high res audio setting it will be grayed out initially so you have to go into the windows audio settings and choose your appropriate sample rate so 24-bit 96k hertz for that actually to show up on the deck and you can see exactly what sample rate you have on the monochrome display switching sources will kill the audio for a few seconds until Windows changes that in the background the main advantage of a pc mode is that you have the chat mix basically allowing you to balance out the volume of your incoming voice versus in-game volume so you can balance that out with nice visual graphic there you can enable surround sound if you don't want to navigate into the menu here we also get a few EQ profiles and the custom calibration for the equalizer the microphone side tone levels and the microphone volume which I would suggest for you to leave at 8:00 and have a microphone about an inch away from your face we can even customize the RGB illumination with a few color options that you can sync to the mic mute led as well now you do have a bit more control inside the driver software like gainsaying function and saving your desired EQ settings but the software is not really required to take the full advantage of the game deck and I think it's well thought out so you can control everything the game doc about the probe just keep in mind that it is a glossy so keep your fingers off and have some sort of dust particle cleaner nearby because that thing gets dirty superfast and finally my audio experience with these has been excellent but not exactly perfect first the drivers on these are incredible not like the overly harsh treble type but like a controlled spectrum with nice bright sound the bassist it-it's powerful like goosebumps level when listening to the Bladerunner score I love this theory signature out of these the layering of the different elements is impressive in the blind test I could not tell the difference between the high-res versus PC mode but when I actually sat down and tried to listen for the differences knowing which one was what I felt like the high res gave me slightly fuller trouble that was less dry so I think maybe there was something going on or could have been just a placebo whereas in games I was not able to hear any difference whatsoever the important takeaway is they sound fantastic for games whether it's for competitive so you want to hear every little bit of detail to know exactly what is going on in your environment or for simple casual strategy it's a super clean signal it's bright with a nice bass extension to my only two complaints are surround sound it's still not right for me it pushes the mid-range way out and the details compromised you do get a slightly larger soundstage but I prefer the detail over feeling something delivered further in the distance and the second load complaint is that I wanted a little bit more power in volume running these at 100% on the headset and on the DAC listen to something epic you know when you want to just like turn up the volume slightly a bit more well that wasn't present here it's still very loud and it isolates everything very well but I wanted a little bit more alright so conclusion time I think the pro name makes sense they've done some refinements on the body so it's like the more premium versus the darkest three or the five or the seven even and the DAC the game DAC have seals the deal it's a fantastic clean signal you know lots of customization it's almost driverless you don't really need the drivers for it so as a total package I think they've done a really good job making sure to deliver to the quality that the gamers don't really expect but it's like an audiophile you know high quality audio experience that is now available for gamers from a gaming company the catch however is the price at two $49 this is an expensive package especially because it's kind of like locks you down to their own ecosystem let's say you cannot plug in any other headphone into this thing because it's using that USB connector aside maybe from like the artists v headset but the DAC is not even sold separately so if - $50 is your price range potentially look into like a standalone $99 headset with analog connections and then by a separate DAC that you know the hundred $50 you can find plenty of those so that would be like a more open ecosystem that would complement upgrade ability down the line whereas this does not so share your thoughts about the artist Pro Plus the game DAC edition stay tuned for the wireless review coming very soon I'm doing tree make sure to check out this other relevant content subscribe for more and we'll see you in the next review