SteelSeries Arctis 5 2019 Edition Headphones Review

The Arctis 5 have a similar design to the Arctis 7 2019 Edition, but the headband is quite different. They still have a ski-band headband, but the frame is fully plastic and quite rigid, which gives it a cheaper look. The cups still have the same design, but there is RGB lighting around the cups’ backplates. The overall build is very simple and isn’t as flashy as other gaming headphones we’ve reviewed so far. You can also retract the microphone inside the left ear cup to give them a more casual look, but they still won’t be very outdoor-friendly. You can get this headset in an all-black or all-white design.

The Arctis 5 2019 are as comfortable as the rest of the headphones in the Arctis lineup. The cups are well-padded, and the fabric is soft and feels nice on the skin. The headband is an adjustable ski-band like most SteelSeries headsets we’ve reviewed so far and it distributes the weight of the headphones well. However, larger heads might feel the frame as there is a limit to how much you can extend the band itself. They are also a bit tight on some heads, which can become uncomfortable after a while. On the upside, you can also get leather pads on the SteelSeries website, which some may prefer.

These headphones have a very simple control scheme that is useful for games. You have a volume wheel and a mic-mute button which are very easy to use. Also, you can plug-in their dock to get more wired range and also gain access to a channel mixing knob. It has a notch that indicates you when you’re at 50/50 between game and chat audio, which is useful. However, the knob is very sensitive, and it is easy to accidentally turn it.

The Arctis 5 can be tight on some heads and don’t let much airflow through, even if their padding is made out of a porous material. You'll likely notice a difference in temperature over time, which means it might be a good idea to take the headphones off from time to time to let your ears cool off. They won’t be a good option for sports as you will sweat noticeably more than usual.

Like most gaming headphones, the Arctis 5 are not very portable. They don’t fold into a more compact format, but the cups do swivel to lay flat, which makes it easier to slide them into a bag. However, you likely won't be on the move too often with your gaming headset, so this shouldn’t be an issue. If you are, they come with a 1/8” adapter to use with your phone, which is nice.

They do not come with a case or a pouch.

The Arctis 5 feel a bit cheaper than the rest of the lineup. The headband frame of this model is made from plastic and doesn’t feel as sturdy as the Arctis 7 2019 Edition, Arctis Pro Wireless, or Arctis Pro GameDAC. However, the cups are the same and should survive a few accidental drops without too much damage. Also, the retractable microphone is malleable and feels well-made too.

The Arctis 5 are decently stable due to their tightness on the head but won’t be great for sports. They can sway around with head movements and their design is quite bulky and not intended for sports. This shouldn’t be a problem for casual gaming. Their wired design also means you should be a bit careful, as their cable get can hooked on something and could yank the headphones off your head.

• SteelSeries Arctis 5 headphones
• 8-pin USB main audio cable
• USB ChatMix Dial
• 1/8” TRRS adapter
• Manuals

Like most SteelSeries headphones, the Arctis 5 have poor frequency response consistency. In the bass range, the deviation across our five human subjects is quite wide and deep, reaching more than 8dB. This will be easily noticeable. Also, having glasses or lots of hair seems to increase the chance of experiencing a drop in bass. In the treble range, we measured a maximum variation of more than 10dB under 10kHz, which is very noticeable.

The Arctis 5 have great bass. Their low-frequency extension (LFE) is at 10Hz, which is great. Low-bass follows our neutral target curve very well. Overall, their bass is deep and thumpy and will reproduce an accurate amount of thump and rumble common to bass-heavy genres like EDM and dubstep. Mid range, responsible for the punch of bass guitars and body of kick drums, and high-bass, responsible for warmth, are both slightly overemphasized by about 2.5 and 4dB respectively. This will result in an excess boominess of the bass.

Also, their bass delivery varies significantly across users, and is sensitive to the quality of fit, seal, and whether you wear glasses. The response here represents the average bass response, and your experience may vary.

The mid range is also great. The response is decently balanced, but there is a 10dB tilt favoring the lower frequencies. The low mid is over our target curve by over 2dB, which is the continuation of the high-bass, resulting in thick-sounding vocals and leads instruments. The slight underemphasis in the high-mid will negatively affect the projection and intensity of vocals/leads.

The treble response of the Arctis 5 is very good. There’s a dip centered around 6kHz, which will have a small negative effect on the detail and articulation of vocals and lead instruments, but this will be negligible. There is also a small peak around 10kHz, which could make sibilants (S and T sounds) sharp and piercing.

Also, their treble delivery varies noticeably across users. The response here represents the average response and your experience may vary.

The imaging is great. Weighted group delay is at 0.22, which is within very good limits. The GD graph also shows that the entire group delay is below the audibility threshold, suggesting a tight bass and a transparent treble. Additionally, the L/R drivers of our test unit were well-matched in amplitude, and phase, but had a very small mismatch in frequency. This is important for the accurate placement and localization of objects (voices, instruments, video game effects) in the stereo field. However, these results are only valid for our unit, and yours may perform differently.

The Arctis 5 have a decent soundstage for closed-back headphones. The shape of the PRTF response isn’t that accurate but has a lot of activation, suggesting a soundstage that may feel relatively large but a bit unnatural. Although their closed-back enclosure results in a soundstage that may not feel as open as that of open-back headphones, they produce a pronounced dip around 10kHz that could help bring the soundstage out of the listener’s head and to the front.

The isolation performance is poor. In the bass range, where the rumble of airplane and bus engines sits, they don't achieve any isolation, which means they won’t be a good option for commuting and traveling. In the mid-range, important for blocking speech, they block about 6dB of noise, which is negligible. In the treble range, occupied by sharp sounds like S and Ts and A/C noise, they achieved about 33dB of isolation, which is good.

The SteelSeries Arctis 5 have a good leakage performance. The significant portion of their leakage is spread between 1kHz and 3kHz, which is a narrow range. The overall level of leakage is also too loud. With the music at 100dB SPL, the leakage at 1 foot away, averages at 35dB SPL and peaks at 55dB SPL, which is just above the noise floor of most offices.

The Arctis 5’s boom mic has a good recording quality. LFE (low-frequency extension) is at 133Hz, which is good. This means speech recorded/transmitted with this mic will sound deep and full. The HFE of 10kHz is also very good, which ensures detailed and present speech. However, the 10dB bump in treble, centered around 5kHz, makes speech overly bright and could sound sharp. On the upside, speech is very clear and intelligible on this mic.

The boom microphone is great at noise handling. In our SpNR test, it achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of about 36dB, which means it can separate speech from ambient noise to a great degree even in very loud and demanding situations like gaming events.

These headphones are wired and don’t have a battery.

The SteelSeries Engine is a pretty complete app that offers many options for the Arctis 5. It provides a graphic equalizer with presets, DTS surround sound, a mic live preview, and volume control for the mic. You can also save your configuration under the config tab so you can quickly switch between your different settings. It lacks some of the fancier auto-calibration features (for the surround sound) that some headsets have, but it's efficient, easy-to-use, and all the controls are under a single page, so you don't have to navigate between multiple tabs. Since the Arctis 5 have RGB lighting, you can control this setting inside the app.

These headphones are not Bluetooth-compatible. If you’re looking for a gaming headset with Bluetooth, take a look at the SteelSeries Arctis 3, the Arctis Pro Wireless or the HyperX Cloud Mix.

Thanks to their wired connection, these headphones don’t have latency when watching video content or gaming, which is great. You should not notice any delay.

Update 02/14/2022: The connection was originally reported as 1/8" TRRS. However, the connector for the headset is a Mini B 8-Pin. The results have been updated to reflect these changes.

Update 10/19/2021: These headphones have been updated to test bench 1.5. In this update, we made changes to the way we test latency. We now use a click track in our software, and we measure latency three times and average the results. Using this new methodology, we measured 111 ms of latency, higher than the previous measurement of 41 ms. We also conducted this multiple times, and each time, we measured over 100 ms of latency. We tried restarting our PC and using different USB ports, but we still received very different results from our original measurement. We have updated our review to reflect these changes.

The SteelSeries Arctis 5 have audio and mic support on pretty much every platform, but not via their USB connection. You’ll be able to use the USB cable and the channel mixing dock on PC and PS4, but you won’t be able to do so on Xbox One. It also has high latency, so your audio and visuals may not be in sync with one another. To get audio and microphone support, you’ll need to plug them into your controller using the 1/8” adapter.

The Arctis 5 come with a small dock that offers channel mixing. You can use the dock on PS4 and PCs for audio and microphone. However, you can’t use it on Xbox One.