Verdict
If you’re constantly switching between consoles, the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro could be the one headset to rule them all. If a revision leans into a more travel-friendly design as well, it could be a no-brainer for a lot of people.
Pros
- Fantastic sound quality and good battery life
- Good fit and comfortable over long periods
- Solid microphone and cross-platform compatibility
Cons
- Some unintuitive design decisions
- Noise cancellation isn’t the best
-
Multiplatform potentialStandard wireless and Bluetooth support allows the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro to connect to almost any device and mix audio with a second. -
Noise-cancelling cansA tight over-ear design and myriad microphones help active noise cancellation filter out distractions for you and your teammates. -
Strong audio performanceSupport for Windows Sonic, Sony 3D audio, DTS, and Dolby Atmos allow the 50mm drivers to do deliver loud and clear audio seperation.
Introduction
Competition in the high-end gaming headset space is heating up. Now, even a brand best known for great value, full-bodied cans that have offered a competitive advantage across multiple console generations is getting in on the action. The Turtle Beach Stealth Pro might be late to the game but it’s backing up its “pro” moniker with admirable performance.
Sporting active noise cancellation, a robust, detachable microphone and plenty of padding, it’s a sleek-looking audio solution that works across a wide variety of devices, but the feature set comes at a cost. Can it keep up with the growing popularity of Astro, Steelseries, and even the first-party offerings of the console giants’? If you’re not looking for the “absolutely everything” cans, these could fit the bill.
Design and features
- Relatively sleek and professional look
- Comfortable fit with wide adjustability
- Rich feature set for work and play
The design philosophy of the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro justifies the name. It’s black and silver. Though a little on the chunky side, I’ve owned many a pair of cans as inconspicuous as these.
Aside from the small logo on the cup and the writing on the band, they’re unassuming Bluetooth headphones you can quite easily take on the go so long as you don’t mind having a visible cavern where the removable mic would sit.
There isn’t a lick of lighting here (the typical giveaway of a gamer-focused solution). There’s generous padding around the ears but the headband could use a little more. It’s airy too. If headsets with more firm cushioning tend to hurt your head then that might be great to hear. I just prefer the suspended band that Steelseries tends to offer.
Other than the microphone arm and a detachable plate hiding the battery, there’s nothing to note on the left side of the device. Everything happens on the right.
Grab the right cup and your thumb will land on the USB-C charging port. Under that is a surface-level button to activate what Turtle Beach calls Superhuman Hearing, then there’s the power button and finally the Bluetooth button. Even with the bumps to differentiate the first of that trio, they can be hard to find.
You can enable noise cancellation with the logo button on the cup and turn the thin plastic face of the cup itself to adjust the volume. The function of that one button and the wheel can be changed in the app, but the others are stuck with their original purpose. It’s worth noting that while the earpieces do rotate to sit on your neck or desk, you can’t fold the headset down for travelling.
The Turtle Beach Stealth Pro box comes wrapped in plastic. That’s not too surprising for an expensive product, but it is a shame. Inside, the headset itself is suspended in more plastic. The accessories are in a cardboard insert, so it would have been nice to see this approach carried on throughout for the sake of easy, sustainable recycling.
Sound and mic quality
- Fantastic sound clarity and separation
- Decent noise cancellation
- Good enough flip-to-mute microphone for gaming
My first few hours with the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro were fairly lacklustre. Initially, my biggest takeaway was that they just couldn’t get loud enough. While well-balanced, I wasn’t immersed in the sound: as if they were telling me to look after my hearing for a change. It turns out that adjusting the volume is just a little unintuitive.
Rather than a simple volume wheel, rocker, or touch controls, changing the volume is done by spinning the incredibly thin piece of plastic that covers the right earpiece. You can slip your fingernail underneath it as if it’s detachable, even though it’s not. That’s where my confusion started. You won’t have this issue if you read the manual, but who does? It’s important to note how intuition works when interacting with new things.
With that settled, these can get very loud. Just a smidge louder than my primary gaming cans from Steelseries. Even so, the volume wheel is far from the best solution. There’s no feedback to your adjustments: no sound, rumble, stage or click. It’s too smooth and the scratchy rotation against the cup feeds right through the largely hollow plastic tunnel that it sits on. It’s only here where the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro ends up feeling cheap, which It isn’t.
Beyond the flimsy volume wheel and inability to control your audio source on-device – which hurts the outside potential of these cans – sound quality is excellent. Vocals are clear, there’s the rich, thumping bass you expect from Turtle Beach, and they get as loud as you should want. With EQ presets for each connectivity method, setting preferences for console gaming, video calls on a tablet, or listening to music on your phone is a nice touch.
Leakage is kept to a minimum at average volume, and while the noise cancelling can’t rival dedicated travel headsets from popular brands like Sony, Bose, or Sennheiser, it just about beats what Steelseries offers at around the same price.
It’s an impressive piece of kit but the wireless performance could be better. It’s prone to breaking up just one room away with the doors open. I live in a tiny brick house where the rooms are small but the walls are thick. That’s the opposite of many. Still, it’s a problem I haven’t had with any other headset in recent memory. Given how large the charging puck is on my desk, I expected better. Thankfully, its large stature is a boon for the battery.
The puck doubles as a way to charge a second cell, allowing for effortless hot-swapping when one is about to bite the dust, and if you do somehow end up with two battered batteries at once, you can hook up a cable to the headset to get three hours worth of charge in the average time it takes to race through a Call of Duty lobby.
When it comes to the microphone, it delivers call quality I’d consider to be perfect for the needs of most. There’s always going to be that warm, fuzzy noise in the background making your voice seem a little softer than you think it is, but the vocal quality is clear enough for comms.
If you’re not the type who yells to be heard, you’ll probably want to leave the EQ preset to Signature Sound and flick the adjustments off. You can likely find a sweet spot that works for you, but it’s the easiest out-of-box solution if the noise gate keeps cutting you off.
It would be nice to see Turtle Beach simplify its software library however. Downloading the correct solution for the Stealth Pro took a bit too much clicking and confirming, but the download was fast, the launcher is clean and the UI is easy to understand.
Once detected, you can hop between four distinct tabs to adjust EQ presets for each connectivity type, remap the buttons on the headset itself, tweak the noise cancelling strength, assign hotkeys for those same actions and even change what the volume wheel does. There’s a great degree of control, although the ability to tweak the three edge buttons could have been a bonus
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
You should buy if you want a gaming headset that can do it all
Able to work on virtually any device, you can get a lot of use out of a single pair of cans with the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro. A swappable battery can make a huge difference, too.
You should not buy if you don’t need multi-device support
If you’re more likely to game on a single device or travel a lot, you can get similar sound quality in more appropriate products.
Final Thoughts
Though there’s major work to be done in the on-device offers of this one, the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro headset performs admirably when it matters most. With a good-enough microphone, clear, strong audio, and charging and connectivity options to suit the multi-platform pro, it’s almost perfect.
If you’re serious about taking your gaming headset out on the road, it’s still hard to beat the classic Sony WH-1000XM4. With a cheap after-market boom mic, they’re superb if you don’t mind tethering yourself to your controller.
For another solid multi-platform audio solution, the Steelseries Arctis Nova Pro provide a better all-round experience if your consoles are together, with the Arctis Nova 7 being best for single-device setups. You can also customise them to suit your style. Don’t need wireless Xbox compatibility? You could save a couple of quid with the Razer Barracuda Pro or HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless. Most of these feature on our list of the best gaming headsets around.
How we test
Every headset we test is used for at least a week. Various things are tested: Ease of use, is it suitable for everyday use, gaming or work. We test what platforms it works best on, and what connectivity options it has, e.g. Bluetooth, wireless, and any software it comes with. If applicable, we also test battery life.
We also evaluate its audio playback quality with music and games.
Used over the better part of week for gaming and listening to music.
Compared to other popular products at and around its price point.
Connected to various devices.
FAQs
Yes. you can use Bluetooth 5.1 to connect to mobile devices and mix the audio with another connected to via the receiver.
You can customise what the rotating left cup cover manipulates via the app.
Verdict
If you’re constantly switching between consoles, the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro could be the one headset to rule them all. If a revision leans into a more travel-friendly design as well, it could be a no-brainer for a lot of people.
Pros
- Fantastic sound quality and good battery life
- Good fit and comfortable over long periods
- Solid microphone and cross-platform compatibility
Cons
- Some unintuitive design decisions
- Noise cancellation isn’t the best
-
Multiplatform potentialStandard wireless and Bluetooth support allows the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro to connect to almost any device and mix audio with a second. -
Noise-cancelling cansA tight over-ear design and myriad microphones help active noise cancellation filter out distractions for you and your teammates. -
Strong audio performanceSupport for Windows Sonic, Sony 3D audio, DTS, and Dolby Atmos allow the 50mm drivers to do deliver loud and clear audio seperation.
Introduction
Competition in the high-end gaming headset space is heating up. Now, even a brand best known for great value, full-bodied cans that have offered a competitive advantage across multiple console generations is getting in on the action. The Turtle Beach Stealth Pro might be late to the game but it’s backing up its “pro” moniker with admirable performance.
Sporting active noise cancellation, a robust, detachable microphone and plenty of padding, it’s a sleek-looking audio solution that works across a wide variety of devices, but the feature set comes at a cost. Can it keep up with the growing popularity of Astro, Steelseries, and even the first-party offerings of the console giants’? If you’re not looking for the “absolutely everything” cans, these could fit the bill.
Design and features
- Relatively sleek and professional look
- Comfortable fit with wide adjustability
- Rich feature set for work and play
The design philosophy of the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro justifies the name. It’s black and silver. Though a little on the chunky side, I’ve owned many a pair of cans as inconspicuous as these.
Aside from the small logo on the cup and the writing on the band, they’re unassuming Bluetooth headphones you can quite easily take on the go so long as you don’t mind having a visible cavern where the removable mic would sit.
There isn’t a lick of lighting here (the typical giveaway of a gamer-focused solution). There’s generous padding around the ears but the headband could use a little more. It’s airy too. If headsets with more firm cushioning tend to hurt your head then that might be great to hear. I just prefer the suspended band that Steelseries tends to offer.
Other than the microphone arm and a detachable plate hiding the battery, there’s nothing to note on the left side of the device. Everything happens on the right.
Grab the right cup and your thumb will land on the USB-C charging port. Under that is a surface-level button to activate what Turtle Beach calls Superhuman Hearing, then there’s the power button and finally the Bluetooth button. Even with the bumps to differentiate the first of that trio, they can be hard to find.
You can enable noise cancellation with the logo button on the cup and turn the thin plastic face of the cup itself to adjust the volume. The function of that one button and the wheel can be changed in the app, but the others are stuck with their original purpose. It’s worth noting that while the earpieces do rotate to sit on your neck or desk, you can’t fold the headset down for travelling.
The Turtle Beach Stealth Pro box comes wrapped in plastic. That’s not too surprising for an expensive product, but it is a shame. Inside, the headset itself is suspended in more plastic. The accessories are in a cardboard insert, so it would have been nice to see this approach carried on throughout for the sake of easy, sustainable recycling.
Sound and mic quality
- Fantastic sound clarity and separation
- Decent noise cancellation
- Good enough flip-to-mute microphone for gaming
My first few hours with the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro were fairly lacklustre. Initially, my biggest takeaway was that they just couldn’t get loud enough. While well-balanced, I wasn’t immersed in the sound: as if they were telling me to look after my hearing for a change. It turns out that adjusting the volume is just a little unintuitive.
Rather than a simple volume wheel, rocker, or touch controls, changing the volume is done by spinning the incredibly thin piece of plastic that covers the right earpiece. You can slip your fingernail underneath it as if it’s detachable, even though it’s not. That’s where my confusion started. You won’t have this issue if you read the manual, but who does? It’s important to note how intuition works when interacting with new things.
With that settled, these can get very loud. Just a smidge louder than my primary gaming cans from Steelseries. Even so, the volume wheel is far from the best solution. There’s no feedback to your adjustments: no sound, rumble, stage or click. It’s too smooth and the scratchy rotation against the cup feeds right through the largely hollow plastic tunnel that it sits on. It’s only here where the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro ends up feeling cheap, which It isn’t.
Beyond the flimsy volume wheel and inability to control your audio source on-device – which hurts the outside potential of these cans – sound quality is excellent. Vocals are clear, there’s the rich, thumping bass you expect from Turtle Beach, and they get as loud as you should want. With EQ presets for each connectivity method, setting preferences for console gaming, video calls on a tablet, or listening to music on your phone is a nice touch.
Leakage is kept to a minimum at average volume, and while the noise cancelling can’t rival dedicated travel headsets from popular brands like Sony, Bose, or Sennheiser, it just about beats what Steelseries offers at around the same price.
It’s an impressive piece of kit but the wireless performance could be better. It’s prone to breaking up just one room away with the doors open. I live in a tiny brick house where the rooms are small but the walls are thick. That’s the opposite of many. Still, it’s a problem I haven’t had with any other headset in recent memory. Given how large the charging puck is on my desk, I expected better. Thankfully, its large stature is a boon for the battery.
The puck doubles as a way to charge a second cell, allowing for effortless hot-swapping when one is about to bite the dust, and if you do somehow end up with two battered batteries at once, you can hook up a cable to the headset to get three hours worth of charge in the average time it takes to race through a Call of Duty lobby.
When it comes to the microphone, it delivers call quality I’d consider to be perfect for the needs of most. There’s always going to be that warm, fuzzy noise in the background making your voice seem a little softer than you think it is, but the vocal quality is clear enough for comms.
If you’re not the type who yells to be heard, you’ll probably want to leave the EQ preset to Signature Sound and flick the adjustments off. You can likely find a sweet spot that works for you, but it’s the easiest out-of-box solution if the noise gate keeps cutting you off.
It would be nice to see Turtle Beach simplify its software library however. Downloading the correct solution for the Stealth Pro took a bit too much clicking and confirming, but the download was fast, the launcher is clean and the UI is easy to understand.
Once detected, you can hop between four distinct tabs to adjust EQ presets for each connectivity type, remap the buttons on the headset itself, tweak the noise cancelling strength, assign hotkeys for those same actions and even change what the volume wheel does. There’s a great degree of control, although the ability to tweak the three edge buttons could have been a bonus
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
You should buy if you want a gaming headset that can do it all
Able to work on virtually any device, you can get a lot of use out of a single pair of cans with the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro. A swappable battery can make a huge difference, too.
You should not buy if you don’t need multi-device support
If you’re more likely to game on a single device or travel a lot, you can get similar sound quality in more appropriate products.
Final Thoughts
Though there’s major work to be done in the on-device offers of this one, the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro headset performs admirably when it matters most. With a good-enough microphone, clear, strong audio, and charging and connectivity options to suit the multi-platform pro, it’s almost perfect.
If you’re serious about taking your gaming headset out on the road, it’s still hard to beat the classic Sony WH-1000XM4. With a cheap after-market boom mic, they’re superb if you don’t mind tethering yourself to your controller.
For another solid multi-platform audio solution, the Steelseries Arctis Nova Pro provide a better all-round experience if your consoles are together, with the Arctis Nova 7 being best for single-device setups. You can also customise them to suit your style. Don’t need wireless Xbox compatibility? You could save a couple of quid with the Razer Barracuda Pro or HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless. Most of these feature on our list of the best gaming headsets around.
How we test
Every headset we test is used for at least a week. Various things are tested: Ease of use, is it suitable for everyday use, gaming or work. We test what platforms it works best on, and what connectivity options it has, e.g. Bluetooth, wireless, and any software it comes with. If applicable, we also test battery life.
We also evaluate its audio playback quality with music and games.
Used over the better part of week for gaming and listening to music.
Compared to other popular products at and around its price point.
Connected to various devices.
FAQs
Yes. you can use Bluetooth 5.1 to connect to mobile devices and mix the audio with another connected to via the receiver.
You can customise what the rotating left cup cover manipulates via the app.
