These are the Arctis 7Ps from SteelSeries, a wireless headset designed for the PlayStation 5. But how do they compare to Sony’s Pulse 3Ds or Astro’s A20 Gen 2s?
What I’m going to do is go over the sound quality, comfort, design and controls. Then I’ll show you the wired and wireless differences, do some mic tests and show you how you can adjust the EQ settings through the SteelSeries software, which is awesome.
Oh, and although these are for the PS5, they will work on the Xbox Series X and S too, I’ll explain how you can do that later.
Unboxing
So first up, what’s inside the box. The 7Ps come with everything you need for both a wireless and wired gaming experience.
We get the headset itself and a USB-C dongle which plugs into the PS5. Then there are 3 cables here; a USB-C to USB-A adapter, a 3.5mm headphone cable, and the micro USB charging cable. There is a manual too which is on the underside of the tray.
Look and Feel
First impressions when I took these out, they feel really nice and solid, they are pretty heavy too, and they definitely have a quality finish to them. They feel more premium compared to the Pulse and A20s.
The frame itself, the band that goes across the top is actually metal. Now I wasn’t expecting this at all, but it’s really nice and gives it that weighted feel. It means there’s a lot more support and feels firm, but still has some good flex to it.
Then covering the band is this fabric strap, which you can adjust so it fits your head, and it’s got the black and blue styling going on which looks nice. This is the part that will rest on your head and move up and down to accommodate your size, there’s no sliding parts on the side as such. So as you stretch it, the headset will increase in size. That’s one less thing to break.
The rest of the headset is a hard plastic, and as I’ve got the black one here, it’s a matte finish which will probably show fingerprints easier, but I do like it, it looks clean.
On the side of the earcups it’s got the steelseries branding, and it’s quite an understated look, I think I prefer this to the white pair overall. As for the earcups themselves, they have some memory foam texture feel when you press them, but still really soft. They feel softer than the Pulse headset, but totally different to the A20s which are fabric and even softer.
Comfort wise, these are the comfiest headphones I’ve ever worn. First the cups are quite deep, which is perfect for sitting over your ears, as opposed to on your ears and pressing against your head. There’s just no pressure at all on my ears or on my head with the strap. It just sits there, almost floating. It means I can wear them longer and it reduces the risk of headaches from the added weight or pressure. So yeh, comfort is the best I’ve used in years.
Another awesome feature of these earcups, is that they rotate. So this is ideal for either placing them on your desk or table where they can lay flat, or around your neck. But the headband is quite tight, and it’s not actually very comfortable wearing them like this.
I think the overall look and feel of this headset is quality, minimal and practical. Not much I’d change here.
Buttons / Controls
Taking a look at the buttons and controls of the headset.
Starting with the right cup, there’s the power button, which you press and hold for about 3 seconds to turn it on and off. It will beep when you turn them on ……. and off too. It’s not very loud either, so it won’t deafen you.
When it’s on it’ll light up, and this is also the battery indicator icon. So when it’s green it’s between 50% and 100%, then yellow = 20-50% , red = 10-20%, and a flashing red = less than 10%.
There’s the sidetone wheel, which lets you control how much of your own voice you can hear through the headset. This stops me from shouting while I’m playing, as I can actually hear myself.
On the left earcup there’s the mute button, which you can toggle on and off. The volume control for the headset, a wired connection port, a 3.5mm share port and the micro USB charging port. Then there’s the retractable microphone, which I’ll show you in more detail in a minute, along with some mic tests.
Wired / Wireless
When it comes to using the headset, you can use it both wirelessly and wired.
So it uses a 2.4GHz (giga hertz) wireless connection, this is the same as used in the Arctis 7 and Arctis Pro Wireless headsets. This will give a significantly better performance than Bluetooth, which you might have expected it to use. This means the audio is lossless instead of compressed.
To get setup for wireless, you’ll need the USB-C dongle, and plug that into the PS5. Works on PlayStation 5, PS4, PC, Android, and the Switch via this dongle.
Once plugged in, it will auto connect as the dongle and headset are already paired straight out of the box.
As for the wireless range, this will work for a good 40 ft or 12 m, so plenty of range here. I’ve had no issues with the connection dropping or cutting out so far even when leaving the room. You can also control the voice chat balance using the PS5 sound settings too, but this can only be done on the PS5 not on the headset itself unfortunately.
As well as using the headset wirelessly, you can also use it wired. This is where the 3.5mm headphone cable comes in. So if you plug one end into the headset, and the other end into your controller, you can still get the sound and use the mic as you’d expect. I’ll demonstrate the mic quality differences in a minute. But this is a great backup if you haven’t charged them for wireless use, but it also means you can use them on other devices.
So although the 7P headset is marketed for the PlayStation, it will technically work with the Xbox Series X too if you’re using the wired connection. As I did, I just plugged the 7Ps into the Xbox controller and it worked, so that’s a bonus. But if you want one headset to work wirelessly on both the PS5 and Xbox Series X though, you’d be better going for the Arctis 7X, as they will work on both.
One thing I think is a bad design though, is while the dongle is plugged into the USB C port on the front of the PS5, it covers the other USB port. So if you needed to say plug your controller in, or an external SSD, you’d have to either remove the dongle or use a rear port.
Microphone
So this little mic is hidden inside the headset, it’s not removable but it is retractable. So you just pull it out when you need to use it. Now while it’s docked, it’s not auto muted, you’ll need to press the mute button on the headset to do that. But when you do press this button the end of the mic will flash red, so you know you’re on mute.
Another cool feature with the 7Ps is, you don’t need to use the mute button on the headset, which can be a bit fiddly, you can actually use the DualSense mute button too. Tapping it will mute the headset, and show the mute icon on screen.
As for the noise cancelling on this mic, it’s actually incredible. It’s far better than any of the other headsets I’ve used over the last few years. It does a really good job of blocking almost all noises and even other people talking in the room. Now if you use the sidetone feature, to hear your own voice, that will pick up all sounds. But this is not what others hear while you’re talking, it’s just so you can hear people around you. But if you turn the sidetone off using the scroll wheel, you won’t hear much, it does a good job of blocking outside noise.
But, with that noise cancelling comes compromise to voice quality.
So if you do online gaming, or party chats like I do, the mic quality is probably important to you. I mean, you want to make sure you sound OK to others. I think overall they sound pretty good.
Sound
So the number one reason you’re even remotely interested in the Arctis 7Ps, is the audio quality, what do they sound like?
Well I can start by saying they are better than the Pulse 3D and the A20 Gen 2s. But then they should, they are more expensive. The same as the A50s sound better than these, at double the price again.
They are packing 40mm drivers, and sound really really good. They are very well balanced across the range and even out of the box, which are set to a flat profile, they are punchy and quite bassy.
So whether it’s explosions in cold war, car sounds in Dirt 5 or footsteps in Warzone, everything is picked up with great detail.
On top of that they support PlayStation’s 3D audio. Now I have tried this switched on and off, and I actually prefer it off. Although the 3D or surround sound was probably better in terms of directional detail, the overall sound quality just sounded muffled. But with 3D turned off, it sounded great. But you can use it either way.
For the price point they are extremely good. I’m seriously impressed. There’s no noise cancelling on these though, but it still does a great job of muting most sounds around you.
One thing to note is, if you turn the headset off the sound won’t revert back to your TV or speakers, it will stay connected to the dongle until you either unplug it or manually change the settings on the PS5. So that’s a shame, as other headsets offer this.
EQ / Engine
Another awesome feature of the 7Ps is, you can adjust the Equalizer settings in the SteelSeries Engine software. So a bit like Astro’s Command Centre if you’ve used A40s or A50s, you can edit, save and create custom presets.
All you need to do is go to the SteelSeries website, which I’ve linked to in the description, and download the Engine software. It works on both Windows and Mac.
Then plug the dongle into your machine, open up the software and the headset will appear in the menu.
From here you can either use one of the premade presets, such as flat, performance and immersion, or create and save your own. The default if you never use this software is flat. You can create, name and save as many as you need too, so I created one called COD and another called Story.
Unfortunately the headset will only save one preset at a time, so once you’ve selected the one you’re going to use, you’d need to plug it back in and swap it each time. It would have been nice to have 2 or 3 you could swap between, maybe by tapping the power button.
Personally I’ve been using the performance preset, and I think it sounds great. If you’ve seen any presets out there I should check out, please let me know.
Charging
As for charging it, you plug one cable into the micro USB port and the other end into the PS5. It’s a shame that the headset isn’t USB C, it would have made things easier. As I mentioned earlier, you can see the battery indicator on the headset, just by looking at the power button colour.
What’s great about this headset is, if you do run out of charge, you can use them wired, unlike the A20s for example which only work wirelessly.
The battery life is rated at 24 hours on the Arctis 7Ps, and by comparison the Pulse 3D is 12 hours and the Astro A20s come in at 15 hours. So 24 hours is pretty decent.
Price
On the SteelSeries website the 7Ps are $150 or £160. Whereas the Astro A20 Gen 2s are $120 or £100 on the Astro website. So that’s a $30 to £60 price difference. But if you sign up to their newsletter, you can get 10% off the price. I didn’t know about this at the time, but I could have saved another £16.
Recommend?
So the ultimate question is, would I recommend the 7Ps and do I think they are worth the price.
The short answer is yes. These are better than the Pulse 3Ds and the A20s. The sound is fuller and more balanced, plus the overall look and feel is more premium feeling to the other two. Then there’s the option to tweak the EQ settings in the Engine software, this is a huge plus point. On top of that, you can use them wireless and wired, which the A20s don’t offer.
So yes, I’d recommend the 7Ps. But if you’re wanting a headset that works wirelessly on both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, you could also go for the Arctis 7X instead, as they are compatible. Otherwise you can get the 7P like me, and use it wired with the Xbox.