I firmly believe that a good headset is worth the investment. You can find headsets out there for under $100, in supermarkets or discount stores. They’re often convenient and wireless, and I’m not going to suggest they don’t work, because they do. But so much effort goes into sound design that a premium headset helps you properly hear and appreciate the artistic intent behind the game you’re playing, film you’re watching or music album you’re listening to. You don’t need to be an audiophile to appreciate that and, so, a good headset is for a broader range of people than just the audiophiles. SteelSeries’ Arctis Nova Pro Omni is a good headset, well worth the investment.
To be clear, it is an investment. This headset retails for around $850 AUD, give or take a few tenners. That is, amazingly enough, not the most expensive headset SteelSeries has released in the Arctis Nova line, that honour goes to the Elite, which is around $500 more than the Pro Omni, But obviously, the Omni is a substantial investment, so that needs to be noted up-front.
Like other entries in the Arctis Nova Pro series, the Omni comes boxed-in with a useful DAC unit, which allows you quick control over various features while using the headset via 2.4GHz connection. It also allows you to connect up to four audio sources simultaneously, allowing you to switch between devices without ever needing to take the headset off. Which is nice because after making this kind of investment, you’ll want to use it for just about everything that you can. Those times that you can’t connect the device to a DAC, you can fall back to a Bluetooth connection as well, and thanks to its lovely, sleek profile, this is a headset you can use comfortably on the train or plane without having people judge your fashion sense.
It’s a good headset for use in public, too. Even over the inferior and relatively slow (for gaming) Bluetooth connection, the active noise cancellation (ANC) is noticeably more powerful than what you get in many competing headsets. SteelSeries claims it’s an improvement of more than 40 per cent compared to other headsets with ANC, and while I don’t know where that number comes from – I have no way of measuring if it’s actually just a 39 per cent improvement and SteelSeries is exaggerating that claim – I can confirm that the headset is better at blocking out the ambient noise on, say, a busy train, than headsets I’ve used in the past.
You’ll appreciate that because the 96kHz, 24-bit audio, delivered via 40mm Neodymium Magnetic drivers, sounds as they do buzzwordy. This is backed up with a microphone that is also designed for use in noisy areas. SteelSeries claims that it blocks out up to 96 per cent of background noise, and again, I can’t confirm that it’s not just 95 per cent background noise, but I did actually use the microphone on a work call in a café at one point, and the people on the other end of it had no idea that there was a lot of chatter around me.
Further supporting the idea that you will never want to take this headset off, SteelSeries provide a dual battery system with the Nova Pro Omni. You can charge one in the DAC while getting 30 hours of life out of the other, and then hot-swapping them as needed. It doesn’t take 30 hours to charge the battery, meaning that you effectively have unlimited battery life unless you’re on the road and don’t have the DAC with you.
As far as sound quality is concerned, the difference between the Omni is almost identical to the Elite, sharing all the same features, strengths and (negligible) weaknesses. The Elite is ever so slightly more premium in finish and perhaps a tiny bit more comfortable on the ears, though that might also be because I’ve been using the Elite for long enough now that it has better fit my ears and I just need to give the Omni more time to mould in. The material used for the cups is soft, and the weight distribution band is perfect, allowing for a headset that feels like you’re wearing nothing at all.
Ultimately, this is a gaming headset, and while SteelSeries’ software allows you an incredibly rich set of EQ profiles and balancing, if your single greatest priority is putting on a recording of an opera or symphony, you’re still going to be ever-so-slightly better off with audiophile headsets for this price point. The Omni is designed for sound effects over soundtracks, often with heavy base, while allowing you to head voice chat and dialogue over the top. For gaming, it’s difficult to argue that there’s anything better out there.
Perhaps the best way to summarise the Arctis Nova Pro Omni is that it’s SteelSeries’ solution to the one problem the Elite had when it was released last year: The price. Yes, $850 and change is still a big up-front investment, but at around 2/3rds the cost of the Elite, while offering the same basic feature set and even some improvements in areas like ANC, the Omni is actually extremely good value. Dare I say it’s even a bargain at its price? If you respect sound quality at all, then you will quickly find that you use the Pro Omni for absolutely everything involving sound.
