Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Wireless Headphones Review

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 have a fairly conservative design for gaming headphones, especially compared to the previous Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Wireless. They have a monochrome color scheme, with a primarily black plastic construction accented with metal-finish strips surround the ear cups.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 are decently comfortable. Their headband is well-padded, and the ear cups offer enough articulation to accommodate most head shapes, but the headphones themselves are somewhat bulky and heavy. They also clamp the head very tightly, and you may experience a bit of fatigue during longer listening sessions, especially if you wear glasses. For more comfortable gaming headphones, check out the Corsair HS75 XB WIRELESS Gaming Headset.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 have a decent physical control scheme. There are dedicated scroll wheels for both media and chat volume, the latter of which can be remapped in the companion app. There's also a Bluetooth multifunction button that serves a wide variety of uses. Tapping it once pauses and plays media or answers and ends calls. Double tapping it skips media forward while an additional hold fast-forwards media. A triple tap skips tracks backward while a triple tap followed by a hold rewinds media. Unfortunately, the multifunction button isn't the most responsive, and may incorrectly register inputs. For the most part, the controls feel clicky and are fairly easy to tell apart.

Like most over-ear gaming headphones, the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 aren't very portable. Their boom microphone folds inwards and the ear cups swivel flat, which makes it a little easier to squeeze them into a bag, but their rigid headband and overall bulkiness make them quite tricky to carry around when not in use.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 don't have a case or pouch.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 are very well-built. They have a sturdy high-grade plastic construction, with solid-feeling metal ear cup hinges and faux leather-lined padding. Except for the ear cup yokes, there are no obvious weak points, and the headphones feel like they should survive minor drops and bumps.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 are very stable. Courtesy of their tight fit, they should stay in place during light to moderately intense workouts. Better still, their wireless design eliminates the risk of an audio cable snagging on something while you're on the move.

• Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 headphones
• USB charging cable
• User guide
• Turtle Beach sticker

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 have an excited V-shaped sound profile. Their overemphasized bass doesn't totally muddy the mid-range. While vocals and lead instruments are well-reproduced, they can sound a little harsh and boxy, and sibilants can have a slightly piercing quality. If that's not to your liking, their companion app features five audio presets as well as a graphic EQ to fine-tune your listening experience. If you want a pair of gaming headphones with a more neutral sound profile out-of-the-box, take a look at the Sony PULSE 3D Wireless.

These over-ears offer decent frequency response consistency. There's some pronounced variation in their treble range depending on their fit and positioning, which may be more apparent if you have thick hair or wear glasses, both of which can affect their seal.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 have passable bass accuracy. The range is overemphasized but quite flat. This should add extra thump and rumble to sound effects as well as musical genres like hip-hop and EDM. However, this can also generate a boomy quality in some mixes.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2's mid accuracy is good. The range is mostly flat, yielding full-bodied vocals and lead instruments, but the extended bump in the mid-mids and high-mids can give a bit of boxiness and harshness to the mix.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 have disappointing treble accuracy. The overemphasized low-treble makes vocals and lead instruments sound harsh, while the spike in the mid-treble gives sibilants a piercing, painful quality. Since their treble delivery is somewhat sensitive to the headphones' fit and positioning, your own experience may vary.

The peaks and dips performance is satisfactory. A bump in the high-bass generates some boominess while the recessed low and mid-mids thin out vocals and lead instruments and push them to the back of the mix. The bump in the high-mids can make some vocals and lead instruments harsh. The uneven low and mid-treble range can cause some higher notes to sound alternatively dull and piercing.

The stereo imaging performance is excellent. Their weighted group delay falls beneath the audibility threshold, resulting in tight bass and transparent treble. The L/R drivers are also well-matched overall in terms of amplitude and phase response. While there is some frequency mismatch present, it's quite minor, and objects like voices and footsteps should be accurately placed within the stereo image, generating a more immersive listening experience. That said, these results are only valid for our test unit, and your experience may vary.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 have a poor passive soundstage. It may be perceived as fairly natural, but also quite small and closed-off, as though sound is coming from inside your head.

These headphones support Windows Sonic Spatial Audio on Xbox. To use this feature on PCs that don't have Xbox Wireless technology, you'll need an Xbox Wireless Adapter.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 have great weighted harmonic distortion performance. There are no significant spikes in distortion across the frequency spectrum, resulting in mostly clean and pure audio reproduction at both moderate and high volumes.

These are the settings used to test the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2. The Xbox variant don't come with a USB wireless dongle and rely on Xbox Wireless Technology to connect to devices, so we used a Microsoft Wireless Adapter for Xbox One to pair it to our test PC for sound and microphone testing. Our results for these tests are only valid with these settings.

The noise isolation performance is poor. They block out almost no bass-range ambient noise, so you're likely to hear the rumble of bus and plane engines. They don't do much better with mid-range ambient noise, such as the chatter of nearby coworkers. Fortunately, they filter out a good amount of high-pitched background audio, so you shouldn't hear the hum of a nearby AC unit.

The audio leakage performance is poor. They leak a lot of noise, so people nearby are likely to be annoyed if you listen to your music at high volumes.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 have a flippable boom microphone.

The boom microphone delivers great recording quality. Your voice should sound clear, natural, and full-bodied, with little distortion.

The boom microphone has mediocre noise handling capability. Teammates or people on the end of a phone call may have trouble understanding you if you make a call from an especially noisy environment, like a subway station.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 have great battery performance. They provide little under 17 hours of continuous playback on a single charge, which falls slightly short of the advertised claim of 20 hours as well as the battery life of alternatives like the Razer Kaira Pro Wireless. You can extend it further thanks to their auto-off timer, which shuts the headphones off when they're not in use. If you've run out of power close to an outlet, you can still use them as they charge, which is handy since they don't support any sort of passive playback option on a wired connection.

The Turtle Beach Audio Hub companion app is great. While the app is compatible out-of-the-box with iOS and Android devices, you need to purchase an Xbox Wireless Adapter to use it on PC and Mac. It has five audio presets as well as a graphic EQ, a microphone monitor, and control remapping for their chat volume wheel and in-app 'Mode Button' button.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 have okay Bluetooth connectivity. They're compatible with Bluetooth 5.0, but not NFC or multi-device pairing. They have somewhat high latency when connected to Bluetooth-enabled PCs, but their latency on Android and iOS mobile devices is low enough to make them suitable for streaming video or movies. That said, apps and devices compensate differently for latency, so your experience may vary in the real world.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 have excellent non-Bluetooth connectivity. Latency is low enough for competitive gaming, as you shouldn't experience too much in the way of disruptive audio delay.

Note: This variant doesn't come with a USB dongle and uses Xbox Wireless technology to connect to Xbox consoles. To test latency, we used a Microsoft Wireless Adapter for Xbox One to connect the headphones to our test PC, which doesn't have Xbox Wireless technology. We can't confirm that these results are similar to their latency on Xbox consoles.

Update 01/04/2020: We updated the results for the connection to reflect that they can't be used wired.

These headphones can't be used on a wired connection. They come with a USB-C cable for charging.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 aren't compatible with PS4 consoles or PCs that don't have Xbox Wireless technology.

Note: You can purchase a Microsoft Wireless Adapter for Xbox One USB receiver to use these headphones with a PC. These headphones can also be purchased in a PC/PS4-compatible variant, which come with a USB receiver that allows you to use them with these systems out-of-the-box.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 offer full audio and microphone compatibility with Xbox One consoles via Xbox Wireless technology. They can be paired to the console like an Xbox controller and can be configured to turn on automatically when you boot up the console.

This Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 variant don't come with a wireless USB dongle, but the PlayStation variant does, allowing you to connect seamlessly with PCs and PS4 consoles out-of-the-box.