SteelSeries - Arctis Nova Pro Omni 2.4 GHz Wireless Over-The-Ear Gaming Headset for PC, PS5/PS4, Xbox One, Xbox X/S, Switch/Switch 2 - Black

I once bought the Nova Pro's, and I was not a fan of the bass and how they were tuned even after I did custom EQ. the Nova Pro Omni has fixed all of that. The drivers are the same as the original Nova Pro, but they are tuned MUCH better. They are still very light weight which is also a plus (335-340grams). The Dac is easy to use but the great part about the Omni is that now you can use the SteelSeries GG App from your phone to change the EQ and toggle ANC on/off where before you had to use the Doc only or connect the headset to a PC. No need to figure out if you are getting the Xbox or PS versions and no paying extra for the Xbox version as this does all consoles and PC for the same price and you still get 3 color options as of this review. I myself do like a good bass but if you happen to be a bass head than you might find the base too soft but not flat. To put it simply, if you love Turlte Beach's bass then stick with Turtle Beach. I like a good base with clarify and the Omni wins. I even own the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro V1 and although good, its heavy and batteries were lasting 20 hours for each one. The Omni is light and the swappable battery is always a selling point. Each battery will last up to 30hrs which is amazing. Keep in mind, if you use the ANC then it will drain the battery faster, but you will still get 25hrs or so. If you use ANC and simultaneously on other devices then the batter may last 22-24hrs each. Still a step up from the previous generation. It does have simultaneous Bluetooth, and you can connect up to 4 devices at once. Not something your average gamer will do but if you are a streamer or content creator then this will come in hand. You can also connect wired to the Dac but you will need to get a separate cable as the device only comes with 2 USB-A to USB-C connectors. Thankfully I also own the Nova Arctis 7x Gen 1 & 2 and the wired cored on that works on the Omni. The ANC is a step up from the original Nova Pro. However, do not expect Sony/Apple/Bose quality. I have the Sony XM4 and those are way above the Omni but keep in mind that Sony/Bose/Apple gear towards music and movies where SteelSeries is a gaming headset. Once you start gaming you won't notice any outside noise. If you live in a loud home (kids and/or pets) then most likely you will not be using the ANC at all. I also like the small detail they added from the Nova Pro Elite which is the grip texture on the Dac wheel. If you have custom Earpads from the original Nova Pro, (Wicked Cushions for example) then they will fit on the Omni as well so no need to buy new ones unless you want to. My only issue is that for $400 I do wish they would have added a hardcase to protect the device but at the moment, only the Nova Pro elites have that. Although the Elites have better drivers and the case, to me it's not worth the $200 difference in price. If you are looking for an all-in-one gaming headset then these are the clear choice. Movies and Music are good as well but again, don't expect out of this world. The gaming side of this headset really does win and come out on top. SteelSeries surely delivered here and I am glad they are still keeping us in mind who can't afford their higher end product's.

I've been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to try the new SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni Gaming Headset for PC/XB/PS. SteelSeries brings some new and exciting features to this headset that to my knowledge, no one else is doing! It all boils down to the "gamehub". On the surface, this may just look like a DAC, or some wireless transmitter. To an extent, it is, however, it is also much more. This new and improved gamehub has multi-stream capabilities, meaning, you can hear audio from multiple sources connected to the gamehub at the same time. You can be listening to music on a mobile phone while also playing a game. You can be listening to audio from your PC, via Discord, etc while also hearing the audio from an Xbox or Playstation, at the same time! Not only is this a super cool and useful feature, the gamehub also supports 96kHz / 24bit over wireless! This is a big improvement from the typical 48kHz ('CD quality') seen in the past. This is now entering a more true "lossless" experience, albeit, far from the highest quality lossless can go. This does result in a spectacular sound stage with excellent clarity, punchy tones, deep bass, dynamic and clear mids and sharp highs. The heightened quality also brings depth and better spatial and immersive sounds and helps to separate for a less flat effect. This alone make the Arctis Nova Pro Omni completely worth the price of admission. But that is not all. SteelSeries provides 2 battery packs. One that is in use in the headset itself, accessible from a magnetic compartment, easy to access in the right can. The other can charge inside of the gamehub so it is ready to swap out when the one in use is empty. The gamehub has a battery life indicator for the connected headset as well as information on charge status of the extra pack. This is truly fantastic! The left can has the same compartment as the right, but hides a USB cable which can charge the headset if the gamehub is not around, or can be used in a wired mode. Wired mode is awkward and I would not recommend using it this way, this is very much intended to be wireless. The mic is also an amazing feature. The background noise cancellation is one of the best I have witnessed. It completely eliminates any noise I could create in the background. It feels as if you could be talking to someone next to a jet engine and it would still be fine (though my Jet was in the shop, so I couldn't test it out personally). The mic clarity is as exceptional as the audio coming into the headset. I did find it a bit odd how SteelSeries chose to make the pop filter a mostly on/off experience as you cannot have the pop filter installed and fully retract the mic into the headset. This is clearly why they chose to do it this way, however, it makes for inconvenience when it needs to be used and also allows for the most likely of scenarios the loss of the filter due to misplacement. This however, might be the only negative with the product, and nit picking at best. Even without the filter installed, I did not experience the need to really have it to avoid unnecessary harsh vocal pops. The headset is very comfortable. The cans are on the smaller side, which fit my ears perfectly, but if they were any larger this may have posed an issue. The headband sits slightly behind the cans and feels very comfortable on top of my head. It has plenty of height adjustments as well. The cans are leather wrapped vs cloth, helping with cleaning and maintenance, but they do sweat a bit. It would be nice to see swappable options in the future. The headphones are also fairly light weight and do not feel heavy during long periods of use. The SteelSeries GG worked well with this product, allowed me to apply a new firmware update very easily as well as tweak sound profiles. There is even a community associated where you can download new or custom sound profiles for specific games. You can choose a sonar (SteelSeries spatial technology) or standard stereo. Stereo is needed to produce 92kHz output, where Sonar is limited to 48kHz. I chose to use stereo 92kHz the majority of the time and did not miss the Sonar effect, mostly due to how clear and spatial the higher resolution audio sounded already. This is really a well through out, complete solution for serious gamers, content creator, and PC enthusiasts alike. It has some unique features not found elsewhere and is really spectacular to use. Much thanks to SteelSeries for their work on this and I look forward to using these for quite some time.

I had my first great pair of gaming headphones 10 years ago and they were Steelseries, so I was excited to see what the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni was all about. After wearing them with my current setup I discovered they're not just here to be heard but they're here to solve a specific set of problems. If you've ever sat down with your gaming setup and you have a PC, a console, your phone, or any other device you're probably juggling audio across all of these sources and it's a mess. The Omni is the answer to that mess. It can mix up to four audio sources at once. This headset can act like a true universal hub. - Unboxing - Opening the box presents you with an orderly layout, nothing flashy. There are headphones, a light carrying bag, an extra swappable battery, 2 USB-C to USB-A cables, a small microphone pop filter, and a Game Hub dock. Having 2 batteries in a meaningful addition. This completely solves the problem of having to wait for a charge, or charging them overnight. When one starts to run low, you swap them out. Each battery is rated for approximately 30 hours. 2 cables gives you some insight into how this is supposed to be used. The Game Hub has multiple USB inputs, and the cables mean you can hook up multiple systems at once to your hub and mix as you see fit. There's a carrying case which is a nice touch for travel. The pop filter is nice for recording or streaming. The documentation is minimal but there's an instruction manual that will give you product information and critical/essential instructions. - Design & Build Quality - The headset is clean with a matte black design and the subtle SteelSeries logo. It can definitely blend in well with any school or work environment. It has an adjustable suspension headband at the top to secure the fit. It's about 350 grams; weight in your hands feels about average for the wireless category. There's a retractable boom microphone, love this design because you can tuck it back in when not in use. On the left cup you have a textured volume wheel, a mute button, and the power button (also a toggle for ANC once powered on), along with a USB-C port underneath the magnetic cap. On the right cup you have a bluetooth/wireless button and a swappable battery underneath the magnetic cap. The earcups are a soft, comfortable, leather material. The build quality feels about average in terms of sturdiness. The gamehub that comes with is a small rectangular dock with an OLED display. The pixels look sharp and the contrast is good enough to be read easily from a sitting position if it's placed on your desk. There's a metal textured mix dial for selection. On the back of the gamehub are 5 ports. You have Line In, Line Out, USB1, USB2, and USB3/Xbox (if you have an Xbox you need to use USB3.) This setup allows the Omni to support every major platform. The GameHub mix dial handles the balance between them. - Comfort - This was a big surprise. The earcups are very comfortable relative to the premium headsets I've used over the years. After a full session of gaming, music, browsing, and a movie, I didn't even realize I was wearing headphones; no heat or discomfort. SteelSeries did an excellent job here. The suspension headband helps distribute pressure across a wider area so that the main headband just kind of floats on your head. The earcups are deep enought that your ears are feeling anything but cushion, and don't feel clamped down. Hopefully the leather and cushion holds up over time. - Performance - This is the most important part. After running these headphones through music, movies, games, voice chat, and morning video conference meetings here's my honest evaluation. Music, Movies, and games all sound remarkably good. The 40mm neodymium drivers paired with the 96kHz/24bit hires signal give you exceptional sound and clarity. The positional sound is top tier. Bass stands out. With the Bass Boost EQ preset enabled, the low end is tight and heavy. There's nothing mushy here. Drivers are well controlled and the earcups have a proper seal. Volume is also worth mentioning. This headset gets loud. If you've ever owned a headset that you felt you wanted to crank up a little, but you were maxed out, I know how you feel. I had to turn down this headset on a couple of occasions which is a good thing. There is a volume limiter in the software if you want to lower the max volume. ANC is good, but not great. I picked up some sounds I'm not used to hearing in ANC. Overall, I'm really happy with the quality of sound and performance. - Spatial Audio - I tested positional audio in Minecraft and the spatial separation and positioning was really good. The direction based audio told me right where someone was sneaking up from. You can pinpoint sounds around you with confidence. Sometimes this is the difference between life and death during a game. - OmniPlay - This is the standout feature so I tested this specifically. I had Bluetooth music streaming from my phone, a game playing on the PC and my Discord App going simultaeously. The Gamehub mix dial handles the balance between them. Every source arrived at the headset cleanly, no weird crosstalk, no audio issues, and the mix dial seemed to shift the balance without cutting any of the sources, Impressive! - Microphone - The mic test was the most surprising result. I jumped on a call with a friend and his reaction was that my mic sounded like I was on a Podcast. A podcast quality voice on a gaming headset mic with no external interface or adjustments is excellent. The AI noise rejection is doing its job and the AI processing produces a natural sounding voice. - EQ Presets and Software - This preset library is unbelievable at 342 presets in the companion app. There are EQ profiles tuned for specific games, music genres and content type. Whatever you're doing, SteelSeries most likely has a preset already tuned for it and there's even an auto-switch feature meaning the EQ can change on it's own as you launch different games. Beyond the presets you have 3 different ways to control your headset. The Gamehub gives you instant control. I found myself using the volume or chat knob in game depending on what I needed at the moment. The SteelSeries GG software on PC gives you the most customization and comprehensive set of features like the per app Sonar mixer where you can route Game, Chat, Media, and Mic to different virtual channels all with their own EQ curves. The mobile companion app does most of the same but it's more of a light version of the app with the more critical options available in an easy to access touch format. I did like the convenience of the mobile app for certain quick settings. - Battery - This headset has amazing battery life at 30 hours and it can be swapped out. The other battery charges in the gamehub while you're using your headphones. This is a great idea and perfect solution for gamers. I have one of their gaming mice with the hot swappable batteries and it's a lifesaver. - Learning Curve - Setup takes a minute. There's no way around it. There are three sets of controls (Gamehub, SteelSeries GG PC app, Arctic companion mobile app), sound mixing on the Gamehub, presets, customization, etc. I even had to go into my PC into the advanced sound settings to get 96 kHz/24 bit setup. The first few days I was clicking around trying to figure out how everything worked and where each setting lived. Give yourself a little bit of time. Play some games, listen to music, get on Discord, talk on the phone, sit through some conference calls, and customize to your liking. Everything will start making sense and I soon realized how I could merge all of these separate worlds together. - Pros - * Sound Quality is exceptional acros music, movies, and games * Bass is tight, even when boosted * True multi-device mixing * Hot-swap dual battery system eliminates downtime * Hi-Res Audio * Genuinely comfortable enough to forget you're wearing headphones * Multi-Level ANC * Feels really light on your head, excellent design * Over 300 audio presets for games - Suggestions/Needs Improvement * Travel bag could be sturdier * ANC is adequate, but needs improvement The Arctis Nova Pro Omni has excellent drivers, universal platform mixer support, a hot swappable battery system and comfort that makes you forget your wearing headphones. The audio quality stands out on its own. I would highly recommend this to any serious gamers that want excellent audio, long battery life, and multi-platform support. This is the headset for all of your devices. I highly recommend it.

This is a fantastic headset with great, high quality sound… giving my high end headphones a run for their money in a few ways. Its design is both professional and fun, making it great for general use beyond just gaming. Games, music and video calls all sound great. The handy self-storing microphone is ideal and I find the head strap and ear cups comfortable and premium. Pro-level EQ controls, Hi-Res audio, and the ability to seamlessly control up to 4 inputs make this stand out on the audio front. __ Sound __ I didn’t expect it, but these challenge my top-tier headphones for best (or equal) sound quality. I love how these sound. They were balanced by default, with a rich spectrum of sound. Steel Series Arctis apps will allow you to fine tune these - gaining full parametric EQ adjustment from the desktop app that allows you to fine tune the sound curve itself - something I’ve only ever seen in my higher end headphones. These also offer a list of games with game-specific EQ settings to toggle. Since the sound is already great, I doubt I’ll bother to toggle to these, but for games with strange imbalances, or if you just want to ensure you’ll hear important sounds in specific FPSs, it could be helpful. Active noise cancelling (ANC) is a great inclusion and makes gaming better in almost every situation, creating better focus and immersion when in rooms with others. The ear cups alone can only do so much to block out outside noise on their own. The mic sounds good, with independent noise cancelling control from the app. I love that extending and retracting it can auto-enable and auto-mute it. Always handy and one less button to fiddle with. __ Design & Build Quality __ I love the design here. The mix of matte black plastic, anodized metal and silicone give these a very premium, ‘studio’ look. Supposedly the prior version had a rubberized material on the ear cup caps, but I’m happy to report that these are quality plastic, with no rubberized finishes to be found (those finishes always fail in time). The head strap is fantastic - with better ventilation by virtue of being an actual strap, rather than a pad. It can be adjusted by notching it onto predefined peg holes, but it can also be easily removed for cleaning as a result too. Primary size adjustment is still done by extending the ear cups independently on their posts. These posts are plastic, but are solid and well made. The top of the band is an anodized aluminum/metal that looks greats and definitely lends to the pro look on these. The caps on each ear cup are held on by magnets, concealing a USB-C charge port on the left and the battery on the right. A simple cloth is included, which offers little protection, but should prevent scuffs. These also come with a control dock to plug in up to 3 usb connections for wireless transmission, in addition to the bluetooth option. All 4 inputs can be switched between or mixed, with control over chat volume and other audio you’d like to get just right while gaming. This had a nice white pixel display that shows realtime status of battery levels and volume. You can also toggle through menus and EQ settings. It’s not super intuitive, but has a small learning curve involving pressing and holding the knob’s button for an amount of time, or holding the capacitive button at the front. The knob itself is nice to have for quick volume control without fiddling with the dial on the headset itself. Like prior Arctis Nova Pro models, this dock also stores and charges a second battery for hot-swapping to your headset if you happen to run out at an inconvenient time. The battery life is so good in these anymore, it’s mainly useful for this situation, but also allows you to rely only on battery swapping rather than ever having to plug these in. __ Summary __ I really love these so far. With incredible sound, ANC, its integrated mic, the novel charging transmitter with it’s volume dial, and a slew of features and fine EQ control... it ticks just about all of the boxes. Sound-curve-level adjustment level thanks to rare parametric control provided by the Arctis desktop app is a great and unique inclusion. I have almost no complaints... The only small nit that comes to mind being that these do not pause music when taking the headset off. These look great and are comfortable to wear for extended periods of time. Quality, through and through. These will be what I recommend to friends and family going forward.

Overall there is a lot to like about the Arctis Nova Pro Omni. I found the fit to be comfortable for their size and the earmuffs along with the ANC seal out any external sounds. The spare battery and charger in the base station guarantees you will not run out of battery life. The base station provides the ability to mix your audio feeds and there are lots of connectivity options using 2.4 wireless or Bluetooth. I found the sound quality to be good and you can access over 320 different preconfigured equalizer settings to match your game play. There is both a mobile app and pc software that allows you to configure the audio quality to your specific needs. The headphones do support spatial audio but even using the software I wasn’t as impressed with the spatial separation compared to other high-end headphones. Pros: - Solid build with good audio quality and ANC - 2.4 wireless and Bluetooth connectivity that allows up to three simultaneous connections via the base station - Replaceable battery with spare included - Feature rich Apps for mobile and pc - Retractable recessed microphone - Base station with Display and battery charger Cons: - Not the best spatial audio separation - Limited voice prompts vs tones Performance: I found the 40mm drivers provide good sound quality and the ANC does a respectable job isolating you from external sounds. Within the GG Windows app and the mobile app there are preconfigured equalizer settings for over 320 various games and listening modes. I tried many of them including the equalizer settings for Asseto Corsa, War Thunder, Beam NG, Sniper Elite, Star Wars and Minecraft. For the most part I felt the equalizers did a decent job and there is a custom mode that you can configure for your specific needs. The only downside I felt was in the Spatial audio playback. The Steelseries GG software does allow you to configure the spatial audio however when playing some games they just didn’t seem to provide the spatial separation that some other high-end headphones provide. Set Up: Once I had the base station connected to my gaming pc I downloaded the Steelseries GG app for Windows. The app is user friendly and I was able to download the latest firmware for the base station and headset. Next I downloaded the app into my iPhone and verified that I could control the headset from the Windows app as well as my mobile app. This is great if you plan on gaming using your phone or a console. The Windows app does offer some additional features but the mobile app covers all the basics. The connectivity is simple on this headphone because you can use the 2.4 wireless or Bluetooth to the base station as well as Bluetooth directly to your mobile device or tablet. Sadly these headphones use tones vs voice prompts most often so you don’t get a voice prompt telling you that you are in pairing mode or connected. Instead you get tones which you have to interpret. Fit and Feel: These are rather large headphones but they have super soft earmuffs which help seal out the ambient noise as well as cup your head softly. There is an elastic headband strap that you can adjust to control how much of the headphone’s upper arm contacts your head. For me this really improved the overall feel of the headphones because I no longer felt a bar sitting on the top of my head. Also because of the way the headband sits on my head I didn’t notice the weight of the headphones nearly as much. The earmuffs and speakers are large enough to cover my entire ear and they didn’t create any issues for me when wearing my glasses.