Customer Ratings & Reviews

These are the most complete earbuds for all purposes

These are trash. Volume is so low i can't even hear my weapon fire let alone footsteps. Maybe i got a lemon, maybe its operator error or maybe theyre just trash. I was excited to get them being i had the steelseries artic 7 and theyre great so i figured to step up with these new buds. Nope not happy at all

The airbuds have a ringing sound when in use, warranty team was great

worked great randomly stopped working case was faulty, right bud started blasting high pitch into my ear

Nice quality but a little pain in the butt, to set up the mic is very hard to hear from the people, on the other side of the game. Sound quality, it's okay not fantastic, but okay

This review is on a SteelSeries - Arctis Gamebuds true wireless noise cancelling gaming earbuds for Xbox, PlayStation, PC, Switch, Mobile and VR. I have been waiting a long time for an earbud solution for Xbox. This is an excellent pair of earbuds. They sound great. Volume is loud and the bass is good. Battery life has been great so far. They fit perfectly inside the curve of my ears as if a mold had been created from my ears. They hold in place and I can sling my head around without them falling out. Setting them up is easy. They come with a USB-C to USB-A adapter to connect to your Xbox. Once the adapter is plugged in, all you have to do is pull them out of the case and they immediately connect. Put them in the case and hold down the buttons on the earbuds for 3 seconds to enter pairing mode and connect them to the Bluetooth device listed. Press a button once and you can swap between Bluetooth and 2.4 wireless. The app on mobile can turn features on\off\up\down or you can do it by the buttons on earbuds. The buttons are easy to push and you can tell when you have pushed them. There are many equalizer settings you can change between in the app on mobile or PC. All of them are tailored to popular games. One of them is for footsteps and yes it does enhance footsteps. Other equalizer settings are for music, movies or your own custom. You can turn ANC on\off or in transparency mode. I do not like ANC mode. They have a horrible overpowered popping sound when in ANC at full volume. You can turn it down to get rid of the sound. There is an update that you need to perform when you get them. It can only be done through the PC and it was a little difficult to find the program due to different titles. Once I installed it and connected the earbuds while in the case to the PC, it only took about 5 minutes to update. I think after the update it helped with ANC a little but the popping sound is still there. Really there is no need for ANC though. The difference between ANC on\off and transparency is barely noticeable other than the popping sound. I would recommend these to anyone looking to get away from those bulky and funny looking headsets while streaming or playing games.

Turning anc on caused a high pitch ringing in the right ear bud. Volume significantly louder in left ear bud than the right.

Can’t control voice chat and game chat like older models

Was not what I expected and had a hard time getting the sound to be correct.

These gamebids suck. Wont connect, volpme too low, crappy build quality. -5 stars on all points. Dollar general makes better, uts sad.

I have gotten to the point where I really prefer having earbuds rather than using a headset for my gaming needs. Earbuds don’t squeeze my head in a long gaming session, don’t get hot if I wear them to long, and in general are just more comfortable by comparison. With this in mind, I was very excited to try the Arctis Gamebuds for use with my PS5. While the headset is very good, I still had a couple of minor issues. First off, the Gamebuds come in a very nice charging case. So, you have everything you need. This includes a charging cable and adapter so you can charge easily with USB-C or USB-A. Whether you have a new PS5 or the original one, you can still use the front charger. Inside the case, you have both Gamebuds and the USB-C dongle. There are even different sized rubber tips so you can fit the gamebud to your ear. Getting started is easy. However, this is where my first complaint comes in. When connecting the USB-C dongle to the PS5, this was a very tight fit. I don’t think I have ever had a USB-C connection where it really felt like I had to force the connector into the socket. With this connector I did. I was worried that I may break something in my PS5. I didn’t break anything, but it wasn’t as smooth as expected. However, once it was in place, the gamebuds connected immediately. There is also a companion app which works with these gamebuds. I highly recommend this app. This app allows you to customize you listening tastes. Being that it was being used on a PS5, there are even over 100 presets to match whatever game you are playing. All of the popular games are listed. You just pick which game you are playing. If you do not like it, you can customize it yourself. There is a 5-channel EQ that you can set. As far using the gamebuds goes, I was hoping that they would be a little more comfortable. The earbuds feels like it goes down into the ear canal a little more than I thought it would. With control buttons on the side of the gamebuds, when you press on the button it pushes it farther into your ear causing discomfort. It just felt like more force was required than should have been. With all of that out of the way though, the sound quality of the gamebuds is amazing. Whether playing GT7, Call of Duty, FortNite, or Rocket League or if I just wanted to watch a movie, the sounds are great. I was even pleased with the bass response from the gamebuds. And with the companion app, I was able to dial in the sound I really liked. The active noise cancellation worked fairly well too. The battery life is listed at 10 hours. I would say that is accurate from what I could tell. I had no problem using these for a couple of days without recharging. In the end, I liked the SteelSeries Arctic GameBuds for the PS5. The sound is amazing. Game chat with friends is crisp and clear too. I just had a couple of minor issues with the system, but once I got everything dialed-in, I was fine. I recommend getting a pair of these gamebuds to enhance your next gaming session.

I use the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless and the SteelSeries Alias Pro XLR for my primary gaming PC, and for good reason, as they are simply the best headset and microphone that I have used. However, neither is portable and earbuds are so much easier to travel with. So with that I was very excited to try the new Arctis GameBuds. Inside the box are the two earbuds, a 2.4Ghz USB-C dongle and a charging case which supports Qi Wireless charging. Each earbud has a single flat button where the SteelSeries logo is. You can customize the single or double press of each button using the Arctis mobile app. Customizable actions include a mute toggle, volume up or down, ANC/transparency modes; 2.4ghz/Bluetooth toggle, voice assistant, play/pause, next track and previous track. Pressing either button three times will always toggle between 2.4Ghz and Bluetooth audio modes. You can also change these options with the excellent SteelSeries GG software for PC or Mac. If you have a Windows PC, I highly recommend installing their Sonar app, which for me is the best audio application I have found for gaming. I was hoping the Arctis Gamebuds would give me an excellent audio experience and so far, they do not disappoint. The sound quality is superb and if it’s not exactly to your liking you can tweak the EQ with over 100 presets for almost all the most popular games such as Fortnite, Forza, Elden Ring, League of Legends, and Minecraft. If you want to create your own custom EQ profile, unfortunately you can’t do that in the mobile app. You’ll need to use the Engine software in SteelSeries GG on PC or Mac to do so then sync it to the GameBuds. While the GameBuds feature Active Noise Cancelling I’ve found it to be quite weak compared to even other competitor’s earbuds. It does a decent job of minimizing most low frequences but that’s about it. Most of the noise cancelling you do get is passive through only the seal between the eartips and your ear canal. That said, I was still able to use them on a flight last week. I played a few rounds of online competitive games on PC with friends and asked if they noticed any difference since I’m using new earbuds. They said no, but that was with the Sonar software enabled, which features excellent AI-based noise cancellation for your mic. When I turned Sonar off, they told me they could hear the football game I had on the TV in the background. With the AI noise cancellation software enabled they could not tell the difference between my Nova Pro Wireless I usually use and the GameBuds. The best thing I’ve found about these earbuds besides the excellent sound quality is that they are truly multiplatform. Bluetooth connectivity is one thing, and every other earbud or headphone offers it, but 2.4 Ghz wireless allows for higher bandwidth audio with much lower latency. It should be any gamer’s preferred connection method. With the USB-C transmitter it works with any of my gaming PCs, including handhelds like the ROG Ally. It works on my Steam Deck, even though that is running Linux. They work with my Nintendo Switch Lite, PS5, and because I have the Xbox version of the GameBuds, my Xbox One Series X. I even tested them with my Meta Quest Pro. The only thing that won’t work is Xbox if you don’t have the version of Gamebuds that support it. However, since they are the same price, I would suggest getting the Xbox version unless you must have these in white, as the Xbox version does not come in white. The one downside for the Arctis Gamebuds after having used the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless is that you have to manually switch from 2.5Ghz to Bluetooth. The Gamebuds do not automatically switch between the sources as the higher end headsets do. In fact, the Nova Pro Wireless will play from both sources at the same time, something I’ve gotten accustomed to as I can watch a video someone sends me on my phone while still listening to the game audio from my PC. However, it's easy enough to press either earbud just three times to switch audio modes. Pros - Great Sound Quality - Works with Xbox, PS5, PC, Mac, Switch, iOS, Android, Meta Quest - Low Latency 2.4Ghz Wireless and Bluetooth 5.3 - Multiple Sound Modes including ANC and Transparency - Qi Charging - Includes Small, Medium, Large Eartips - IP55 Water and Dust Resistance - Comfortable to Wear In-Ear for Long Periods Cons: - Doesn’t do Bluetooth and 2.4Ghz wireless simultaneously - ANC is not the best Overall – these are excellent earbuds for gaming, music, watching videos, etc, especially on the go, giving you high quality audio for gaming that works with nearly any platform.

Feels like a beta product. Pairing is downright awfull. I would lose synch while playing a game. Had to constantly re pair. Not ready for prime time.

These are great initially, but the new car smell only last about 4 months, returning them tomorrow, battery last about an hour and sound goes in and out on right ear.

Didn’t like this. The tips are uncomfortable and I wish there was a version without the silicone tips that you have to put inside your ear canal.

does not have a good microphone and my friends were listening badly to me.

I bought these to be my daily driver earbuds. I typically listen to things throughout the day sometimes upwards of 4 hours a day. The battery in the case has lasted really well all week and kept the earbuds charged as I took them in and out all day. The ANC is really clean and doesn't add any distortion or odd tone to the music, podcast, or audiobook I'm listening to. The transparent mode is the best I have hear outside of really high-end noise canceling over ear headphones I use when I fly. They charge really fast for the amount of power the case seems to have. I liked the mobile app to be able to control the ANC and to choose from the preloaded EQ options. I didn't like that I couldn't customize one on the app. The PC application is used to update the firmware and to make custom EQ. It was not impressed as I turned on the option to use the game specific EQ and ended up with the software taking over my PC audio settings. Every time I logged in, it changed my default audio to the USB-C dongle even if it wasn't plugged in. I would change it and then next time I logged in it was change it back. If you use the PC application, don't set it to automatically run unless you are going to use these for your PC audio all the time. Overall, I like them and foresee using them for a long time.

Like the title says, after about 1 weeks, I had the left earbud give little to no audio. The week I had it, there were no issues but I couldn't do ANC as it made me feel sick, that is a me problem but worth noting.

It is virtually impossible to get the earbuds to play audio from the Xbox. They connect to the dongle but no audio plays and/or the mic doesn’t work and the rest of the party can’t hear me. There seems to be no clear path to fixing this, restarts help sometimes but not always.

The fit was good. It just sounded bad. Even with the app the custom sound was that of a cheap pair of buds. Not for me.