SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless

Measured

Three rigs read on raw data agree on the shape. Against an HD 600 on the same rig, oratory1990 (GRAS) shows the 3.5–5 kHz band 3–5 dB lower and the 7–9 kHz band 2–6 dB higher depending on the connection; RTINGS (B&K 5128) shows about −4 dB and +7.6 dB; GadgetryTech (KB006x) about −6 dB and +8 dB on the stock pads. RTINGS sums it up: "peaks and dips in the high-mids to mid-treble can cause instruments to sound either distant or aggressive, and sibilants either dull or piercing, depending on the pitch." TechPowerUp measures "a boosted treble with a substantial 8 kHz peak"; SoundGuys reads "The narrow 8kHz peak, and high-end roll-off beginning around 10kHz".

vs. listeners — The peak's height is the moving part. oratory1990's wired file shows the smallest 8 kHz rise and his Bluetooth files a larger one, while Les Numériques found the response unchanged across connections. Pads matter more: on GadgetryTech's rig a popular aftermarket pad cuts the 7–9 kHz peak from about +8 dB to +3 dB, and a deeper pad fills the 4 kHz dip and lifts everything above 5 kHz. RTINGS' summary label calls the treble "Slightly Underemphasized (-2 dB)" even though its raw curve carries the biggest peak of the three — a band average that nets the dip, the spike and the roll-off above 10 kHz against each other.

Measured

TechPowerUp measures "a noticeable dip in the 3–4 kHz region" and recommends correcting it, "as that will open up the sound even more and add attack and presence to it"; SoundGuys reads "a slight dip around 4kHz". On the raw curves the 3.5–5 kHz band sits 3–6 dB below an HD 600 on all three rigs. Tom's Hardware, listening against an HD 800 S, notes that "the lower-mids got a little cramped", and Major Hardware found the vocals "a bit more muddy" than Sony's WH-1000XM4.

Measured

Normalised at 500 Hz, the 80–150 Hz band sits about 6–8 dB above an HD 600 on oratory1990's and RTINGS' rigs and about 7 dB above an HD 6XX on GadgetryTech's, with sub-bass extending well below the Sennheisers. SoundGuys measures "a slight emphasis in the bass range (around 100Hz)"; TechPowerUp calls the bass and midrange tuning "reasonably neutral" on its HEQ-compensated rig.

vs. listeners — RTINGS files Bass Amount as only "Slightly Emphasized (1 dB)", although its own raw curve sits several decibels above its HD 600 through the mid-bass — the label averages a broader band. Noise cancelling also changes the low end: an RTINGS commenter reports bass "almost absent" with ANC off, but oratory1990's Bluetooth measurements show the opposite, about 2.7 dB more mid-bass with ANC off than on.

Measured

RTINGS files the signature as "Warm"; Les Numériques measures a pronounced W-shaped response — lifted bass, mids and treble with the low-mids and upper-mids held back — and calls the result soft and lacking bite until equalised. TechPowerUp: "At factory defaults, the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless sounds good. After some adjustment, good quickly turns to great". Among Amazon buyers who mention sound quality, 650 are positive and 354 negative.

Measured

TechPowerUp ties the impression to the measured peak: alongside its sibilance warning it notes "you get a strong sense of hearing subtle details you've missed before, both when listening to music and playing games."

vs. listeners — Les Numériques hears the opposite from the same top end — treble lacking finesse and detail — and TwoByteThomas, eight months in, finds that "the XM5s have a cleaner, more detailed sound". Both describe the stock tuning; Head-Fi's Sproketz heard the most detail wired into an external DAC with EQ applied.

Measured

RTINGS measures channel matching rather than listening for it, and against the Razer BlackShark V3 Pro reports that "The Razer's more accurate stereo matching makes it easier to precisely locate objects like enemy gunfire in the stereo field". Les Numériques also finds direction "parfois être assez hasardeuse" (sometimes rather hit-or-miss), which it blames on the imprecise treble.

Measured

Amazon's comfort topic: 168 positive mentions against 164 negative. Heat is the one caveat reviewers share — SoundGuys finds the faux leather "heats up after an hour or two of wear" and TechRadar wishes "that the leatherette is a lot more breathable than it is" — while GamesRadar+ finds it "doesn't stick to you or make you too hot". RedditRecs, which summarises 435 Reddit reviews, lists ear discomfort from the ANC microphone nub among the top complaints, and a SoundGuys owner review reads "Anc tips stick out."

Measured

SoundGuys scores Durability / Build Quality 6.8/10, one of the lowest marks on its own card. Amazon's durability topic runs 47 positive against 85 negative. On RTINGS' comment thread an owner writes that "Those magnets are incredibly weak and fall off easily, I’ve had to get 3 or 4 sets over its lifetime." RTINGS also notes "many user reports of a high noise floor". On r/steelseries, base-station OLED burn-in is common enough that one owner writes "All my friends that have this headset more than two year all have burn in".

vs. listeners — Failure reports are real but not the majority experience, and the community says so: "I'm on almost year 4 of mine and have had 0 issues", writes one owner, and another calls theirs "built like a tank" after four years with two pad-and-headband replacements. When one owner listed a long fault list, the best-received reply was that "Most of the issues you listed has never happened to my arctis nova pro wireless so I’m confident that you have a defective headset."

Measured

SoundGuys scores the two halves separately: Noise Cancelling 7.4/10 against Isolation / Attenuation 4.9/10. TechPowerUp finds that above about 1 kHz "there's not much of a difference between ANC and blocking external sounds passively", and Les Numériques' isolation plot shows the same split — fans and engines attenuated, passive isolation carrying the higher frequencies. Tom's Hardware heard both sides itself: excellent in a quiet home office, it "didn't perform nearly as well on the streets of DTLA" as Bose. Amazon's noise-cancellation topic runs 124 positive against 158 negative.

vs. listeners — RTINGS reads the rig the other way round: "they mostly attenuate the mid and treble range, letting bass noise through like the rumble of buses". RTINGS grades passive and active isolation together, while TechPowerUp and Les Numériques separate them, so the weak passive seal SoundGuys also scored may be what RTINGS is seeing.

Measured

Launched at $349.99. On 15 October 2026 SteelSeries' own store lists it at $299.99; Amazon prices the black PC/PlayStation model at $379.99, the Xbox model at $295.50 and the PlayStation model at $285.81. GamesRadar+ notes a record low of $226.71, and one r/steelseries owner paid $120 in mid-2026 and called it "an absolute steal". Amazon's value topic runs 130 positive against 267 negative, the most negative of its eight topics. The newer Arctis Nova Pro Omni lists at $399.99 and the Arctis Nova Elite at $599.99.