Turtle Beach Stealth 700 (Gen 3) Multiplatform Gaming Headset
design
Inside the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 box you’ll find the headset itself, those two USB dongles (one for console, one for PC), a frustratingly short USB-C charging cable, and the usual paperwork. The Stealth 700 Gen 3 is a pretty chunky beast. At 408 grams it’s noticeably heavier than most wireless gaming headsets, and the sheer width of the ear cups means this isn’t something you’ll mistake for everyday headphones. Available in black, white, or a rather smart cobalt blue with copper accents, the design leans away from the aggressive gamer aesthetic Turtle Beach used to favour. There’s no RGB lighting, just a hefty, professional-looking headset.
Build quality sits in a bit of a middle ground, particularly when placed up against some of its competition. The steel-reinforced headband and metal arms feel robust and premium, but almost everything else is hard plastic. Not the cheapest feeling of hard plastic, mind you, but just lacking the upper-class edge I’ve seen with rival plastic compounds. The buttons and dials feel good however, they’re pleasantly tactile with satisfying resistance. It’s just the chassis itself that feels a little… functional?
Comfort-wise, I found the Stealth 700 Gen 3 pretty accommodating for extended sessions. The hybrid leatherette and fabric ear cushions are super plush with plenty of give meaning there’s no jaw pressure to speak of. If you’ve got a beard, you’ll notice a slight rustle against the upholstery, but less than I’ve experienced with others and it’s minor enough that you shouldn’t notice it once you’re deep in game. The headband padding is fine rather than luxurious, I can see folks with larger heads possibly finding it a touch firm but it worked alright for me.
Where the design gets interesting (and unfortunately occasionally irritating) is in the control scheme. The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 3 is covered with dials and buttons across both ear cups. On the left, you’ve got volume for your wireless source, plus a separate dial for game/chat mix. The right ear cup handles Bluetooth volume independently, alongside the power button, mode button, and that all-important CrossPlay switch. The problem I found in testing is that the game/chat mix dial is positioned exactly where a hoodie will rub against it when you move your head. I lost count of how many times I accidentally shifted my audio balance mid-game and wondered why I suddenly couldn’t hear things.
The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 3’s flip-to-mute microphone works brilliantly and I had to stop myself playing with it. I don’t know why but I found it such a smooth and satisfying mechanism, and on a practical level it means you always know where you stand. Better yet, and this is properly nifty, the USB dongles have small LED indicators that change to also reflect your mic status. So good.
performance
With 60mm Eclipse Dual Drivers (which is Turtle Beach’s marketing name for a woofer and tweeter in each ear cup) the Gen 3 Stealth 700 gaming headset delivers impressive audio for the price point. The soundstage is noticeably wide for simulated spatial audio, creating that sense of space that makes it easier to place footsteps in competitive shooters or appreciate the full audio and soundtrack mix in a RPG.
There are a few preset sound modes out of the box, but it’s the Signature Sound mode where you’ll want to live. It’s well-balanced, with enough bass presence to make explosions satisfying without drowning out the mid-range detail. Dialogue stays clear, gunshots have oomph, and you get that immersive quality that makes a headset far more engaging than a soundbar or speakers. Volume adjustments are also noticeably small stepped so you have loads of control to dial in just the right intensity.
Where things get less impressive is when you start exploring the other sound modes. Bass Boost and Treble Boost do exactly what they say they will, but both go far too aggressive, pushing into uncomfortable territory. I understand it’s what they’re trying to do, but they throw the balance too far out to be usable and enjoyable in my opinion. Vocal Boost also does what it says, voices definitely become more prominent, but at the expense of everything else in the mix. And then there’s Superhuman Hearing, Turtle Beach’s long-standing competitive gaming feature. I’m hardly a pro gamer so perhaps it’s lost on me, but for my ear it just makes everything sound tinny and horrible. Whatever processing is happening to emphasise footsteps and environmental cues strips out all the richness that makes the Stealth 700 Gen 3 enjoyable to use in Signature Sound.
The ability to have dongles plugged into both your console and PC, then switch between them with a button press on the headset, is exactly as convenient as it sounds. Press the button, hear a quick beep, and you’re listening to your other device. For anyone with a multi-platform setup, this is transformative and while perhaps not as sleek as the way the Logitech G Astro A50 X does it, it’s still highly effective. Even better, you can run Bluetooth and 2.4GHz wireless simultaneously. Want to chat on Discord or enjoy your lock-in Spotify playlist through your phone while playing on console? Done. There is a significant caveat for Mac users, though: the onboard controls don’t work over Bluetooth. You still get battery information fed through, but if you’re hoping to adjust volume or change modes wirelessly on macOS, you’re out of luck.
The microphone is a bit of a mixed bag. The AI noise reduction does a decent job of filtering out background noise and in testing, keyboard clacking and distant conversations got scrubbed out effectively enough. That said, the actual voice quality sits somewhere in the middle ground rather than broadcast ready like some of its competitors. It’s just a bit thin and hollow, as most headset microphones are. For gaming chat it’s more than adequate; for content creation you’ll probably still want a standalone microphone.
Turtle Beach says you’ll get up to a ridiculous 80 hours of battery life from a single charge of the Stealth 700 Gen 3. I can’t really verify this because I’ve not been able to play long enough to fully run it down, though that says a lot in itself. For context, assuming you play for three hours every single night, you’ll be charging the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 once a month. Not bad going. One nice quality-of-life detail too: when you power off your console, the headset follows suit automatically. It’s a small thing, but it means you’re not waking up the next morning to find you’ve drained the battery overnight because you forgot to turn the headset off.
summed up
The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 3 is fundamentally a good gaming headset and should serve a majority of gamers well. The audio quality impresses, the CrossPlay dual-dongle system works elegantly, and that 80-hour battery life means charging becomes a distant memory. These all add up to make that £180 asking price feel pretty reasonable.
But then you brush your hoodie against the game/chat dial again, remember you’ll need a separate mic for your stream audio, and feel your friend’s headset that has just a slightly more premium finish. In isolation they’re all little things but they add up and make the value proposition a little shakier.
For me however, Turtle Beach still comes out on the right side of the numbers here. It’s not an instant must-buy recommendation kind of headset, but gamers who choose the Stealth 700 Gen 3, particularly if they can nab it on sale, are going to be happy with what they get.
