Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 450 review

DTS Headphone:X has three presets; game, movies and music. It’s phenomenal for games and films, creating positional audio that feels like it truly surrounds you, but it doesn’t work as well with music. Sound becomes inconsistent, so I quickly switched back to stereo for general listening. The Superhuman hearing mode might prove useful for super-competitive gamers, with footsteps made more audible by lowering bass and increasing the emphasis on high-end notes, but it definitely isn’t for everyday use. Luckily you can toggle it on and off with a keyboard shortcut.

Turtle Beach says the headset can hop between channels to avoid wireless interference, and while I can’t vouch for that particular claim the wireless signal was very good inseed. I could walk almost to the other side of the office before the connection dropped, and even a wall or floor couldn’t stop my Spotify playlist from pumping out of the ear cups.

Overall sound quality was impressive for the money, with the two 50mm neodymium drivers managing to create some serious volume without introducing distortion. The mid-range is clean and clear, while highs are rather crisp.
There’s a slight lack of mid-range and high-end detail normally present in more expensive headphones, but this is to be expected. Bass presence was excellent, even on the natural sound preset, yet it didn’t overshadow the rest of the frequency range – a common complaint of gaming headsets. The detachable boom microphone picked up my voice clearly as well.

The Steath 450 is an excellent value wireless headset. It lacks some of the more advanced features of dedicated Bluetooth headphones, such as an in-line remote or playback controls, and styling isn’t its strong point, but it has sound quality and wireless range that perform well above its price. If you want to cut the cord but don’t want to break the bank at the same time, it’s a great choice.