As you might expect of Turtle Beach's flagship wireless gaming headset, the Stealth Pro features fantastic sound, Bluetooth connectivity, active noise cancellation (ANC), great build quality, and swappable batteries. It's easy to recommend on those qualities alone, but it omits an important feature that would further help justify its $329.99 price: spatial audio. Unless you use a PlayStation 5 or bring a separate simulated surround sound system to the table, the Stealth Pro is a strictly stereo headset. Still, it's worth considering if you want a gaming headset that doubles as a pair of comfortable headphones with excellent sound quality.
A Simple, Comfortable Headset
The Stealth Pro headset is essentially a sturdy pair of black-and-gray headphones with a detachable microphone. The earcups feature circular backs that widen out to an oval shape to hold the large, generously padded memory foam earpads that are covered in faux leather. The cups are connected to the headband through circular metal struts that let you rotate them flat. The headband has a conventionally padded underside rather than the more gently supportive ski goggle suspension found on high-end headsets such as the Audeze Maxwell and the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless. Still, the headset sits comfortably against your ears and doesn’t put an unpleasant amount of pressure on your scalp.
The left earcup holds most of the controls and connections, starting with the USB-C port for charging. The back panel features a large volume wheel with a clickable mode button in the middle that toggles ANC (you can also use the Turtle Beach Audiohub software to make the wheel toggle chat boost, mic noise gate, EQ presets, or even provide multimedia controls when connected to a PC). Three additional buttons sit on the bottom edge: Power, Bluetooth, and a combination button that toggles the Superhuman Hearing feature (more on that in a bit) with one press and mutes the built-in mic by pressing and holding.
Unfortunately, the buttons are flat and hard to locate with your fingers. They also aren’t particularly clicky, which makes it even more difficult to tell if you’re actually pressing them. Curiously, instead of using the large, easy-to-find button on the back panel as a multifunction playback/call control for Bluetooth devices, that role is allocated to the Bluetooth pairing button. It’s an awkward layout that takes time to get used to.
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The right earcup lacks controls, but the back panel pulls off to reveal the headset’s removable battery slot. The Stealth Pro is the second gaming headset we’ve seen that comes with two swappable batteries (the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless is the other one). A circular rubber cover located in a cutout under the panel reveals the connection for the detachable microphone. This retractable mic design isn't quite as effortless as the Arctis version, but it works well.
Stealth Pro Batteries and Desktop Transmitter
The USB transmitter is a gray, puck-shaped device. It features a USB-C port for hooking it up to your wired device, a USB-A port for charging the headset directly (or charging any other USB device, though it doesn’t support a data connection), and a switch for setting the headset to work with your PC or game system. An LED ring around the puck indicates the headset’s connection status; it glows solid green when it’s connected and breathes red when the mic is muted.
The puck lacks volume or chat mix controls, but it features a recess for the second of the two included batteries. The ability to easily swap batteries is welcome in any headset, as it lets you avoid any downtime. According to Turtle Beach, each battery lasts up to 12 hours.
By offering only connectivity and battery charging, the USB transmitter lags behind the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless base station, which includes two USB-C ports for connecting to a PC and a console at the same time, a clickable wheel for volume control and game/chat balance, and a monochrome OLED screen that offers much more information about the headset’s status than a light ring. Neither transmitter features a place to hold the headset when it’s not in use.
Flexible Connections, But No Spatial Audio
The Stealth Pro is designed to work with either a PC or a console (PlayStation or Xbox depending on which version you buy) with the USB transmitter. It also supports Bluetooth 5.1 wireless connections to any compatible device, including phones and the Nintendo Switch, though it has no wired connection options. It only supports the SBC Bluetooth codec; most gaming headsets with Bluetooth don’t use higher-end codecs (though the Audeze Mobius supports the Apple-friendly AAC and high-resolution LDAC codecs).
The Stealth Pro doesn't come with spatial audio technology, so you must get your own. If you’re a PlayStation 5 owner, powerful spatial audio is already supported through the console. For PC or Xbox, you can use the free Windows Sonic, though we’ve found that commercial software like Dolby Atmos for Headphones and Razer THX Spatial Audio both offer a superior effect.
The Turtle Beach Audio Hub software for Android, iOS, and Windows offers many customization options, though no spatial audio processing. It has multiple EQ settings with treble boost, bass boost, and vocal boost sliders for each one, along with an adjustable Superhuman Hearing. The latter is a feature that supposedly gives you an in-game advantage by enhancing sounds like footsteps. A 10-band EQ is available for setting up your own sound profiles, and you can configure individual EQ settings for the mic, transmitter, and Bluetooth. You can also adjust the headset’s active noise cancellation. Likewise, you can configure the right earcup's multipurpose button and wheel to perform different tasks, such as adjusting the volume or setting the game/chat mix.
Stealth Pro Mic and Noise Cancellation
The boom mic is quite capable, offering a generally clean signal. It picks up some sibilance and its dynamic range isn’t particularly wide, but it sounds clear. The noise gate and mic sensitivity tweaks in the Audio Hub software might help you get better sound out of the headset. It’s more than enough for voice chat and can back up a webcam for streaming in a pinch. However, it doesn’t sound quite as rich or crisp as the Razer Kraken V3 Pro, and we generally recommend getting a dedicated USB mic for serious content creation.
The Stealth Pro includes active noise cancellation, which uses external microphones to detect outside noise and generates sound waves to counter it. The ANC is competent, easily blotting out computer fan noise. It isn’t as effective as you get with the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless, but it works well. Gaming headsets generally lack industry-leading ANC; for that, you need high-end dedicated headphones like the Bose QuietComfort 45 or the Sony WH-1000XM5.
Stealth Pro Sound Quality
The Stealth Pro pumps out strong bass when the content calls for it. In our bass test track, The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the bass synth notes and drum hits come through with plenty of force; it's almost head-rattling at maximum (and unsafe) volume levels. The headset seems to apply digital signal processing (DSP) to tamp down on low frequencies (starting around the 70% volume level). Still, it offers plenty of power and no distortion.
For less sub-bass-filled music, the Stealth Pro delivers a balanced, full audio profile. The opening acoustic guitar plucks in Yes’ “Roundabout” demonstrate solid resonance in the lows and low-mids, with string textures coming through in the highs. When the track properly kicks in, the various elements in the busy mix receive enough attention.
Using only the game’s mixing, Fortnite sounded clear in testing. Zipping bullets and distant gunfire carried a strong punch, though there was little directionality outside of basic stereo panning. You'll be able to identify the general direction of nearby action, but nowhere to the degree that you would by using a headset with pre-authorized Dolby Atmos for Headphones (like the Xbox version of the Audeze Maxwell). You can remedy this with a $10 to $20 software license, but we wish it came with the headset.
Likewise, Ultrakill's crunchy, thumpy, frenetic soundtrack sounded excellent in testing. Shotgun blasts were packed with power, and the snarls from charging monsters were full and forceful. The game’s stereo audio offers directionality, but not with spatial audio's precision.
An Excellent Gaming Headset
The Turtle Beach Stealth Pro is a high-end gaming headset that offers strong sound quality, a comfortable design, Bluetooth connectivity, a clear microphone, and swappable batteries. Overall, it won’t disappoint you with its performance, though it doesn’t unseat the $349 Steelseries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless our Editors’ Choice winner thanks to its better controls and spatial audio system for PC gaming. We’re also bigger fans of the $299 Audeze Maxwell headset, which offers audiophile-quality sound thanks to its planar magnetic drivers and includes Dolby Atmos for Headphones.
The Turtle Beach Stealth Pro wireless gaming headset features fantastic sound, good active noise cancellation, and swappable batteries that let you keep playing without missing a beat.
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