SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite | The new #1
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Quick Summary
The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite is the best overall gaming headset I’ve used. It’s also the most expensive headset I’ve ever purchased at $600 USD when I got mine.
This has market-leading detail and sound separation, but unlike a lot of “FPS-first” tuning, it also keeps deep sub-bass and bass impact.
The GameHub is incredibly versatile, with simultaneous 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth, multi-source mixing, and swappable batteries.
Comfort is good, not perfect. The weight is more reasonable than the heaviest devices, but the clamp and glasses pressure can still become problematic over time.
The main weak point is the microphone. It’s usable, but for a $600 headset, “usable” is not exactly a flex.
The ANC is almost non-existent.
The price is still absurd, but if we’re talking pure overall package for gaming, the Nova Elite is the best out.
What Comes in the Box
In the box, you get the headset, the GameHub, a second battery, three USB-C to USB-A cables, a 3.5 mm cable, a microphone pop filter, a carry bag, and the product information guide.
The bag is nice for organization, but it’s too soft to actually protect the contents.
Connectivity
The Nova Elite works with basically everything: PC, PS5, Xbox Series S|X, Switch, phones, Mac.
The GameHub is the main way to use this, and it comes with a ton of features. This connects to a PC or console using the included USB-C to A cables, or you can use your own. It then transmits that audio through the 2.4 GHz band to the headset. The GameHub can also output 3.5 mm audio, and the Nova Elite has a 3.5 mm port if you want to use it that way.
The GameHub can be plugged into three different audio sources at once and it can mix audio from two of them at the same time. And you can control which one is louder. It will always play audio from slot #1, but you can choose to mix that with #2 or #3.
All of this plays simultaneously with Bluetooth. So for a practical use, I use this on my PS5 while playing games. This allows me be on a Discord call with the Nova Elite’s mic at the same time as I'm playing and hearing the audio in game.
And if I get a phone notification, I'll hear it without it stopping the rest of my audio.
Additionally, the mic audio goes to both USB sources at the same time, but if you access the mic with a Bluetooth device, it disables it for the GameHub.
Controls
On the headset:
Power button
Mic mute button (tip of mic turns red when muted)
Volume/control wheel
Bluetooth button. This functions as a media control button also.
The control wheel is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Pressing it shifts what it controls, including volume, ChatMix, or source mix depending on context.
The GameHub adds more direct control to game/chat volume mixing, ANC adjustment, and controlling which two inputs are being mixed. However, I’ll need a separate article to fully cover everything that GameHub can do.
ANC
The active noise cancellation on the Nova Elite is very weak. This doesn’t even block out my PC fans, let alone anything else. The tonality is only very slightly shifted (image in the next section), so at least that’s not a concern.
If you’ve used non-gaming ANC headphones or even decent ANC earbuds, the Nova Elite’s ANC will seem like a joke.
Battery Life
SteelSeries lists the Nova Elite at up to 30 hours of battery life. One battery can charge in the GameHub while the other is in the headset. It takes only a few seconds to swap, and it means you almost never have to plug the headset in.
My only issue with the battery is the Bluetooth behavior. Powering the headset off with the power button only shuts down the 2.4 GHz side. Bluetooth will stay on, and because it does not auto-shut off, this ends up wasting the overwhelming majority of the power.
There is also the low-battery warning. Once it gets to about 20%, the headset starts keeps beeping every few minutes, making it borderline unusable for the final 1/5 of its battery.
Headphone Audio Quality
Headphone measurements taken with my miniDSP EARS (not industry standard).
The Arctis Nova Elite uses 40 mm carbon fiber drivers with a brass surround ring, and the headset supports up to 24-bit/96 kHz audio on PC through the GameHub.
The Nova Elite has S-tier detail and clarity, but it does not do it by gutting the low end. A lot of “competitive” gaming headsets chase positional cues by thinning out the bass and leaning hard into the upper mids and treble. The Nova Elite still pulls small details out of crowded mixes, but it keeps deep, satisfying sub-bass and better mid bass presence than other shooters focused devices that I’ve used.
It doesn’t have quite the same physical power as the Astro A50 X, so true bassheads still might not be satisfied. (Take a look at the Skullcandy PLYR 720 and Astro A50 X)
Black Ops 7 with the Nova Elite.
That tuning balance also helps them excel in music. The highs and mids are clear, smooth, and still capable of sounding a little spicy up top. However, it avoids the shrill, piercing presentation that has held back a lot of SteelSeries headsets in the past.
That steep dip from 4 to 6 kHz looks jarring, but it actually helps the Nova Elite more than it hurts it. That pullback prevents higher pitched cues like armor breaking and glass shattering from doing the same to your ears.
The soundstage is not especially wide which is to be expected from a closed back device.
The bigger win here is not stage width. It is the headset’s ability to keep individual sounds sorted out when a match gets chaotic. That sound separation is excellent, and it is one of the main reasons the Nova Elite performs so well in FPS games.
Microphone
The mic is the Nova Elite’s main weakness. That said, considering how much this costs, there’s no excuse to not just buy a real microphone.
Like almost all SteelSeries headsets, this has retractable boom mic. However, this also has a secondary on-ear mic with auto-switching when the boom mic is retracted.
The boom mic sounds very processed and compressed. If you’ve ever maxed out a bad noise reduction filter or accidentally exported audio in a low bitrate, it will sound something like this.
The default noise reduction itself is actually decent. And SteelSeries Sonar has one of the best noise reduction tools out. In fact, I’ve been using it for my main microphone in my latest videos to cleanly remove my PC fans or cars outside without hurting the overall sound too much.
The internal mic automatically activates when you push in the boom mic. But it is clearly a convenience feature, not something you would want to rely on for decent voice quality.
Software
SteelSeries has the strongest software ecosystem when it comes to gaming headsets. On PC, SteelSeries gives you Engine and Sonar. On mobile, there is the Arctis Companion app.
Sonar is loaded. You can adjust headset EQ, mic EQ, noise reduction, virtual surround, channel balance, and app-level volume routing. The main catch is that some options overlap with GameHub or Engine settings, so if you are not paying attention, you can double-EQ things and make a mess.
Comfort
I give the Nova Elite a B in comfort and an A in build quality.
My unit is 378 grams. That’s still not light, but it is far more manageable than some of the competition like the Audeze Maxwell 2 and ROG Kithara.
The ear pads are pleather with memory foam, and the headset uses a suspended inner headband. The frame is made of steel and aluminum with plastic ear cups. Even the volume wheel is metal.
The issue is there's no good way to reduce the clamping force. You can adjust the frame length which doesn't really change much. There's also the suspension headband which can decrease the clamp when set to it's lowest notch, but then it exposes the weakness of having absolutely no padding up top.
The ANC notch has been repositioned from the Nova Pro, so it never touches my ears.
Verdict
The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite is simply the best overall gaming headset out. The audio fidelity is amazing, and the GameHub is packed with features.
If you want the headset that does the most things well at the highest level, this is it.
