A New Benchmark For Premium Gaming Headsets?
You may well enjoy your gaming sessions by just plonking yourself in front of a TV, controller in hand, your favourite game fired up, wasting away a few hours, ripping yourself from any real world troubles. And that is fine. There’s nothing wrong with gaming in its most pure form – a switch off from reality.
But if you ask me, there are a few things you can do to heighten that experience, to elevate it above the norm. You could get yourself a better controller, a nice gaming chair, or you could perhaps upgrade your screen to something bigger, more responsive. Maybe you can chuck some light at things, utilising the wide array of gaming peripherals that highlight RGB goodness.
Frankly, one of the very best things you can do is to buy a decent headset. They come in all shapes, sizes, varieties and price levels, from a host of differing product manufacturers. We’d go as far as to say that a decent headset should be one of the very first things you buy.
I’ve been lucky enough to have used dozens of different headsets over the years and decades, but it’s those from SteelSeries that have consistently wowed. It’s one of the reasons why we have recently placed the SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds at the top of our best wireless buds article. And it is true once more for the newest cans to come from SteelSeries – the utterly superb, pretty remarkable Arctis Nova Pro Omni. Granted, they aren’t cheap, but what they are is nothing short of stunning.
Premium Design Delivers Outstanding Comfort
Immediately ‘SteelSeries’, if you’re at all familiar with previous headsets, you’ll know what to expect from the Arctis Nova Pro Omni. In fact, it takes everything that the company has learned over the years, building on the likes of the already great Arctis Nova 7X Wireless, tweaking for further greatness.
They come in three flavours – Graphite, White, and the Midnight Blue we have been hands-on with – and look superb, both in hand, and on head. With a suspension-styled headband taking the lightweight nature off the top of your head, they feel great when in place too; super comfortable to wear for hours at a time, even in the hottest of times. Of course, with them being over-ear cans, you may wish to remove them for a little bit from time to time, if only to allow your ears to breathe, but for the most part, keeping these in place during long sessions is absolutely fine.
Connectivity And Features Cover Every Gaming Platform
Fully wireless, or capable of running a 3.5mm audio cable if required (you won’t need to do this!), we found the Arctis Nova Pro Omni to be easy to set up, seriously stable on the connection, fast becoming our go-to headset for pretty much any and all gaming and audio needs for the last few weeks. We’ve gamed on Xbox Series X, having played some Game Pass gems on mobile, and have paired them up with our ROG Ally X for some handheld action. With standard wireless in place for console play, but integrated bluetooth also present, allowing you to connect to a variety of devices, the Arctis Nova Pro Omni is far from lacking.
It’s far from lacking in the features stakes too. A retractable mic is very much becoming standard for high-end SteelSeries, and this one is a delight, ensuring easy, clear comms from your own mouth to those of your teammates and colleagues. In-game, or for calls, we’ve had zero complaints from how this mic handles audio out, which is good, because SteelSeries promote it as a ClearCast Pro mic, which should, if you take press materials as read, help reduce up to 96% of background noise, something which is up to 30x more than other gaming headsets. We obviously can’t vouch for those numbers entirely, but we’d happily back SteelSeries to the hilt. They’ve thrown in some AI Noise Rejection too, along with a pop filter in the box should you need it. We’ve not.
Superb Audio Performance Makes Every Game Better
And of course, audio-in is just as good. SteelSeries headsets absolutely excel in ensuring you are able to hear any and all audio that has been placed in your games, and whether it’s been the engine roars in Forza Horizon 6, or the more serene backing soundtrack of something like Leafy Corner, we’ve been amazed by the sound here. It’s all powered by Hi-Res Wireless Certified 96kHz/24-bit audio and a pair of excellent 40mm neodymium magnetic drivers, helped along further by some cracking ANC. If you’re looking to totally zone out, to immerse yourself in the latest and greatest games, this is a headset that allows it.
What’s more, SteelSeries’ Arctis App brings in a ton of differing equaliser settings, hundreds available for you to pick and choose from, depending on the settings and feel you want from your audio, whether that be the audio you hear, or that your mic delivers.
Smart Battery Design
With super soft memory-foam premium vegan leatherette earcups encasing your ears, and that lightweight nature of the Arctis Nova Pro Omni (this thing weighs 335 grams by our reckoning), you’ll rarely want to use any other headset whilst this is to hand.
It’s helped by easy to use controls too. The right cup plays home to the Bluetooth switch, with a removable battery hiding under the external speaker plate. And yes, SteelSeries have chucked an extra battery in the box so you can continue playing even when the 30 hours of power is up. Meanwhile, the left cup tackles the power, your mic mute button, and volume control dial. There’s also the 3.5mm audio port for wired connections, the integrated mic, and, under the speaker plate is a USB-C power port. We’ve found that plugging the Arctis Nova Pro Omni into any old USB-C keeps the headset topped up pretty much forevermore, with 15 minutes of charge keeping you going for some four hours or so. That’s pretty decent going.
With a 90 degree twist on the cups allowing you to rest the headset around your neck if needed, and a high grade plastic covering the headband and cup holders, the Arctis Nova Pro Omni looks every bit a premium headset. It’s not scratchy horrible plastic either; that is appreciated, SteelSeries. As is the simple slide-to-adjust fitment, complemented by a push adjustment on the suspended headband.
The GameHub Adds Even More Flexibility
As with most SteelSeries headsets that come with higher-end price points, the Arctis Nova Pro Omni also makes the most of an external GameHub control unit with a nice clear OLED display. It’s this which plugs directly into the console of your choosing, ensuring you can sit it on a desk and utilise it’s powerful controls. It’s all cool and that for PC play, but we must admit to it being made somewhat redundant when connected to our Xbox Series X|S. Kicking back on the sofa is the optimum way to play Xbox, and that means the control unit is very much out of reach. Again, the App comes into play here, as do the on-headset controls, but should you be looking to utilise the GameHub, it’s full of some cool tech and ideas, like being able to slot the additional battery in for charging whilst you play, switching between sources, adjusting volumes, EQs, profiles and a host more.
Better still, the GameHub has a line in and a line out, sitting alongside three different USB-C ports. That means you can connect up three devices at once – an Xbox, a PC, a PlayStation – jumping in and out as you see fit. If you’re looking for one device for all platforms, you’ve probably found it. And whilst that GameHub may not be a key part of the Pro Omni, for it’s a more than capable headset in its own right, the combination of the two really does elevate things further. In fact, there are only two things I dislike about that GameHub. Firstly, I don’t particularly like the smaller touch sensitive button on the front; it’s just a little too slow to react and I can’t help feel a physical button would be a better fit. And secondly, being super picky, I’d have loved for the GameHub to be colour-matched with the headset. The Midnight Blue is such a rich colour, that we want more of it.
Worth Every Penny If You Can Afford It
So yep, SteelSeries are at right at the top of the game yet again with the Arctis Nova Pro Omni. Unmistakably SteelSeries, this is a headset that should easily be on your wishlist. It’s got connectivity galore, it’s got stunning sounds, and there are some aesthetics to kill for. It helps that it’s one of the easiest to use, most comfortable headsets on the market.
None of that comes cheap though, and I guess that’s where we have to get on to the price, and it’s a big one. So sit down and hold on tight, as you’ll need to fork out £350 for the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni headset. There’s no question that that is big money, and it’ll immediately push some players away, yet in a world in which SteelSeries’ range topping Nova Elite is getting on double that price, it weirdly makes it much more palatable. Basically, for those who have the cash spare, go for it. You won’t be disappointed.
Huge thanks got out to SteelSeries for providing their Arctis Nova Pro Omni headset for review. Pick one up for yourself from SteelSeries direct.
