Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max review: one of the best gaming headsets

Any conversation about the best gaming headset at the moment has to involve the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max – that's because it's the latest flagship headset from a brand that has a very good track record in the field, so we were excited to be able to try this headset out.

Here we'll tell you everything you need to know about the Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max, from the audio enhancement features available on board to the sort of battery life you can expect between charges. It should help you decide whether or not it's the headset for you.

Once you've finished reading this review, we've got plenty of other buying advice for you to check out too: our best PS5 headsets guide will direct you to the top headsets for your Sony console, while the best gaming laptops list will recommend laptops you can plug a headset into.

Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max review: price and availability

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max gaming headset is out now: check the widgets on this page for the most up-to-date pricing on this piece of hardware. 

At the time of writing this article you can pick one up for around £180 in the UK and $200 in the US. If you're shopping in the UK, you can find it at retailers including Amazon and Argos.

Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max review: design and setup

Design aesthetics are to some extent subjective, so you may have different ideas, but to our eyes the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max isn't the best-looking gaming headset we've ever come across. In terms of its appearance it's rather chunky and dull and plastic, although the Cobalt Blue variation has a little bit more of visual appeal (we're reviewing the standard black one here).

Put the headset on though and there's a big improvement. From the thick memory foam ear cushions to the soft, textured touch of the headband, this feels like a premium-level gaming headset – even if it doesn't exactly look like one. Weighing in at 380g it's pleasingly lightweight too, and we were able to get through gaming sessions lasting several hours without getting any sense of heaviness or discomfort.

For connecting to an Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC or Mac, you can use the included 2.4GHz USB-A wireless dongle for super-low latency connectivity – just plug the dongle in and your headphones will be connected in a couple of seconds. For everything else (including Android phones and iPhones) there's Bluetooth, which doesn't take too long to set up either.

While there is a USB-C to USB-A cable included in the box to charge up the headset, you can't use it for listening to audio – there's no wired connectivity option here. You don't get any desktop software for tweaking the performance of the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max headset, which is a little disappointing, but there are apps for Android and iOS that give you a certain amount of control over the sounds you're hearing and which let you set up presets for particular games.

Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max review: sound and features

We tried the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max on both an Xbox Series X and a Windows PC, testing it out with games, movies and music. In just about every aspect of audio performance the headset impressed: sound was rich, deep, detailed and immersive, from the quietest of background sound effects to the loudest of guitar riffs (although the bass did seem a touch flat at times). Whatever the Turtle Beach engineering team has done here, it really works.

There are 50mm neodymium drivers embedded in this headset, which Turtle Beach calls 'Nanoclear'. That basically means audio with a lot of clarity, and we can't argue with that. There was no audio lag that we could notice, with sounds all across the frequency spectrum reproduced sensitively. 

Turtle Beach reckons you can get around 40 hours of battery life from this device, and while we didn't quite manage 40 hours of testing, that seems like a good estimate from the hours we did put in.

The headset comes with some neat extra features. There's virtual 7.1 surround sound support for the latest consoles, and the Turtle Beach Superhuman Hearing feature for picking up the quietest of in-game sounds – we've tested this before on Turtle Beach hardware, and it works well, but only in certain situations. These features, together with the volume controls, can be easily activated from the physical buttons and dials on the left-hand ear cup.

When you need to do some chatting, the microphone stalk just pulls out of the left-hand ear cup (and you can push it back to instantly mute it). We had no complaints with the audio quality – if anything, it's a bit too sensitive – but it does feel a bit on the cheap side, and its position isn't adjustable. Still, it's the audio quality that counts most, and that's top notch.

Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max: verdict

It's audio output that matters most in any gaming headset, and in that department the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max excels. If you've been using a cheaper pair of headphones or maybe some speakers built into your monitor for gaming, you'll be wowed by the difference that this premium-level device makes. When the gaming sessions are over, the headset is great for videos and music as well.

For those of you who need something that can work across multiple devices with ease – not just the latest Microsoft and Sony consoles, but also laptops, phones, and whatever else – the appeal of this headset increases even more. Setting up the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max on just about any device is very straightforward, which means you can get up and running quickly.

There's no doubt that the Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max costs quite a chunk of cash, but you're getting a very good gaming and general-use headset back in return. While we do have one or two minor complaints about the headset – no device is perfect after all – this is undoubtedly one of the best gaming headsets you can buy right now. Your ears will thank you if you put down the money for it.

Also consider

SteelSeries is another brand you can rely on in this department, and the Arctis 7P Wireless is a top-tier product, with excellent audio performance and supreme comfort – it's particularly well suited for Sony's range of consoles.

If you're gaming on Windows then our best PC gaming headset list is well worth a look too. We'd very much recommend the Asus Rog Delta S as an all-purpose headset that can cope just as well with movies and music as it can with games. It costs a similar amount to the Turtle Beach headset reviewed here, but it switches from wireless to wired – which you may prefer, depending on the devices you're using it with.