We've seen gaming peripheral companies make a dent in the premium gaming keyboard market, so why not audiophile headphones? That's what SteelSeries must've been thinking when it put together the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite—a headset with new drivers and heaps of connectivity. Oh, and a seriously large price tag.
The Arctis Nova Elite launches today, September 30, for $600/£600/€650. Okay, if you're still with me, let's talk specs.
The headset looks a lot like the $325 Arctis Nova Pro—from the swooped back earcups and placement of the ANC and boom arms, to the desktop hub included with both sets. SteelSeries says it teamed up with a designer here, Jakob Wagner, but the external differences appear to be mostly material. Literally—the Elite has a little more metal, including the control wheel on the side, which might explain the added weight. The Elite weighs 380 grams. The Pro, 338 grams.
But under the hood, there are some changes.
The Elite's drivers are touted as carbon fibre. Rated to the same frequency response as the Pro's 40 mm drivers, 10 - 40,000 Hz, the carbon fibre cans are more sensitive with a dBSPL of 101 to the Pro's 98. That means the Elite will produce a louder sound for the same power. SteelSeries has also added a brass ring for rigidity.
Beyond that, the headset is officially certified as Hi-Res Wireless, which means they're rated by Sony to deliver on certain requirements for high-quality audio, such as 24-bit/96 kHz, and without wires using the LC3plus codec.
LC3plus comes from the Fraunhofer Institution, a group of research organisations that create algorithms, standards, codecs… you name it. You might have heard of a few of its popular creations, like MP3 or H.264. Just note you'll need a device that supports LC3plus, though, as far as I am aware, LC3 is a part of the Bluetooth LE Audio specification, and LC3plus is backwards compatible, which means quite a few modern devices should already support it.
Alright, enough codec chat. The GameHub (desktop hub) supports OmniPlay, which essentially means you can connect to a PC, PlayStation, and Xbox all at once, and mix audio from up to four sources. It has three USB Type-C ports on the rear. Three! One more than the GameHub with the Nova Pro. Though both share the same hot-swappable battery solution that we're big fans of here. It means you practically never run out of battery, as you can always take a fresh battery out of the GameHub and slot it into your headphones.
Other shared features include Active Noise Cancellation (4-mic, same as the Pro) and a ClearCast Gen 2.X Retractable Boom mic. The Pro has the ClearCast Gen 2, and I think auto-switching between the dual mics is the main difference here.
Altogether, I'm wondering where the budget has been spent here. That's an expensive driver upgrade even by today's audiophile prices. For example, the Audeze Maxwell is a pair of wireless planar magnetic headphones with a microphone, and it's only $299. I spent a lot less on my audiophile headphones, the Sennheiser HD 650, and the Audeze LCD-S20 I recently reviewed are more affordable. Though granted, those last two aren't wireless, so apples to oranges.
It appears as though SteelSeries is going for three-headphones-in-one—audiophile, gaming, and portable—hence the inordinately high price tag. I guess I can see that argument, or how it played out in SteelSeries HQ—though consider me still a bit sceptical.
1. Best overall:
HyperX Cloud Alpha
2. Best budget:
Corsair HS55 Stereo
3. Best wireless:
Razer BlackShark V3
4. Best mid-range wireless:
Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3
5. Best audiophile:
Beyerdynamic MMX 330 Pro
6. Best wireless audiophile:
Audeze Maxwell
7. Best for streaming:
Audio-Technica ATH-M50xSTS StreamSet
8. Best noise-cancelling:
AceZone A-Spire
9. Best earbuds:
Steelseries Arctis GameBuds
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