Turtle Beach Stealth 450 PC & Mobile Wireless Gaming Headset Review

Introduction

Turtle Beach have been on a winning streak this last few years, delivering very competitive headsets at virtually every price point. We’ve reviewed quite a few of their products this last year and I must admit that they’ve all been really impressive in terms of features, performance and quality, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what their latest PC gaming headset has to offer to an already pretty feature packed range of products. Check out our previous reviews of the 420X, 800X, XO Seven, 500X, Z60, Elite 800 and Recon 320 to scratch the surface of what Turtle Beach have been doing just this year!

Turtle Beach are doing great work in the PC peripherals market this year, not only with headsets, but they also launched their fantastic desktop devices, such as the Impact 700 and 500 mechanical keyboards and the GRIP 500 and 300 gaming mice. But enough of touting their previous products, as the one we’re really interested in today is their new Stealth 450, a wireless PC and Mobile compatible gaming headset, which offers features such as DTS Headphone X, SuperHuman Hearing, Variable Mic Monitoring and more!

The packaging is really nicely designed, although that much is true of almost all Turtle Beach products. All the major specifications are listed on the box, as well as a stylised image of the headset.

Around the back, we’ve got a more technical breakdown of the features, such as the surround sound modelling, wireless dongle and the detachable microphone.

In the box, you’ll find all the usual documents, setup guides, warranty information and a nice Turtle Beach sticker.

There’s two cables included in the box, one for connecting the headset to mobile via 3.5mm 4-pole, meaning you’ll be able to use the headset for phone calls. The other cable is the USB to MicroUSB charging cable.

The microphone was also tucked into the box and features a gold 3.5mm connector and a small bit of branding on the head.

There’s a small opening on the other side and a tough housing and some filtering to prevent unwanted noise from being picked up.

The boom is flexible and positional, so it should be super easy to find a comfortable speaking position.

The dongle is simple enough, a small USB device that is plug and play ready.

Now onto the good stuff. The headset is typical of Turtle Beach design, with a mixture of matte finish, lightly textured plastics and a little bit of coloured trim. As with most Turtle Beach headsets, even their wireless ones, the headset in surprisingly lightweight, yet feels both flexible and strong at the same time; pretty much how you would want your headset to be!

There’s some branding on top of the durable headband. The headband has a bit of flex to it too, which should help with the overall fit of the headset.

The ear cups are mounted on sturdy adjustable joints, with each ear cup being capable of turning -10 and +90 degrees to allow a comfortable fit over your ears, as well as make them comfortable to wear around your neck between games. All the controls you’ll need are located on the bottom edge of the right ear cup, where you’ll find independent game/chat volume controls, preset control, as well as the charging microUSB and mobile 3.5mm jacks.

There’s a thick and durable padding to each ear cup, with a little Turtle Beach detailing on the rear cloth cover. The padding is a little hard at first, but it will wear in after a few days usage.

Even more padding on the headband, which adds a lot of comfort and does well to distribute the weight of the headset; it also gives the headset good grip, preventing it from sliding around.

The headband extensions have a sturdy set of notches on it and can be pushed/pulled to  adjust the length. It had a good range, making it suitable for a wide range of users, including younger gamers.

Each ear cup come mounted on a secondary pivot that allows quite a lot of inward tilt, meaning you should have no issue getting a good clean fit over your ears.

The detachable microphone plugs into the bottom of the left driver and locks firmly in place. If you don’t need it, or you just want the headset as a set of headphones for single player gaming, it’s certainly nice that you can remove this completely.