The microphone is retractable into the earcup, easily adjustable, and offers an integrated mute LED so you know at a glance whether the microphone is muted or not. The microphone has a frequency response of 100 Hz to 10 kHz, and a sensitivity of -38 dB. The noise cancellation works well, keeping chat focused on just your voice. SteelSeries also offers a great chat microphone, dubbed ClearCast, which offers bi-directional noise cancellation. The headset supports Windows Sonic as well, offering spatial audio support that is included with the Xbox One and Windows 10. Although they don’t offer active noise cancellation, the over-ear design does a great job isolating the listener, allowing you to concentrate on the task at hand. The company aims for a neutral tone as well, rather than fall into the boomy bass trap that some headsets can’t escape. SteelSeries keeps a consistent audio quality across their non-Pro range, and the higher-end models only add-in features. SteelSeries leverages the same 40 mm driver found in the rest of the Arctis lineup. SteelSeries offers a couple of headsets that would connect over the 3.5 mm audio jack on the Xbox controller previously, but the Arctis 9X series is now easily their premium model in this segment. The addition of Xbox Wireless connectivity puts SteelSeries in some select company, and the expansion of this ecosystem to allow connectivity of not just controllers, but also headsets, is something only available since late 2017. That changes today, with the launch of the Arctis 9X, and brings with it official Xbox Wireless connectivity as well, which SteelSeries sent us a couple of weeks ago to get some first impressions on prior to the launch. SteelSeries is well-known in the gaming headset industry, and we’ve been fortunate enough to test out some of their products in the past, including the amazing Arctis Pro with GameDAC which is one of the best PC headsets around, but SteelSeries didn’t officially support Xbox with that model.

Arctis9x