I’m lucky. I get to test many of the best gaming headsets out there for my job. That means I literally get paid to play games and listen to music. Yes, I know I have the best job in the world.
Naturally, I need to do quite a bit of research around all the products I test. I don’t read other publications’ reviews before writing my own. But, where possible, I look for online discourse to check for any common issues users are experiencing. Myself and other reviewers often don’t have the luxury of using products for long periods of time, so we can sometimes miss chronic issues that the general public will end up having some way down the line. This isn’t always possible, of course, as we’re often testing products before or just after launch.
Games played for this test
Case in point: I recently put the new Audeze Maxwell 2 to the test, and had a scour of Reddit to see what users were thinking; it had been out for a few weeks, so were there any pain points I needed to devote time to investigating?
During my research, I noticed a fair number of comparisons being made between today’s ultra premium headsets. The Maxwell 2 was repeatedly being weighed up against the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite and, interestingly, the much cheaper Fractal Design Scape — which often made discussions thanks to its excellent sound quality.
Well, it just so happens that the bulk of my headset testing takes place at the ultra-premium end of the market, including all of the above. So I thought I’d put together a rundown of my comparisons of them all. I added in another contender, though — the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro, which offers many of the Elite’s benefits at a much lower price.
Without further ado, here are some of Reddit’s favorite ultra-premium headsets compared and, most importantly, my winner.
The contenders
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Pete Wolinski
This test includes four high-end gaming headsets. The audiophile-geared Audeze Maxwell 2; the extravagantly-priced SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite; the ultra-premium SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro; and the beautiful Fractal Design Scape.
I’ve tested all of these headsets extensively. See that dashing gentleman in the image gallery above? Yeah, stop swooning. That’s me! Wearing each of these headsets. I’m Pete, senior reviews editor here at Tom’s Guide. I’ve been a PC gamer for well over two decades, so I’ve used more than a few headsets in my time.
Price
First, let’s talk about money. And there’s a clear loser here: the Arctis Nova Elite, which costs a whopping $599. As I mentioned in my SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite review, while it’s a brilliant headset with some awesome features, there’s no way it’s worth that money.
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In the middle are the Nova Pro and Maxwell 2, and both are solid in terms of bang for buck — especially the Nova Pro, which can be found for around $299 at Amazon as I write this. From these two, it’ll be down to what you want: more connectivity features and punchier bass from the Nova Pro and its dynamic drivers; or a more refined, audiophile-esque sound from the Maxwell 2’s planar magnetic drivers.
If budget is your primary concern, the Fractal Design Scape takes the cake. It has its issues, as you’ll see throughout this article, but it offers sound quality comparable to the Nova Pro and Elite at a much more palatable price (I won’t say affordable, as $200 is still objectively a lot of money). In other words, it’s punching way above its price tag.
Winner: Fractal Design Scape
Comfort
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Three of the headsets here utilize suspended inner headbands, meaning they easily come out on top. Unfortunately, the Fractal Design Scape uses an old-fashioned single padded headband, which started to dig into my head during testing. It’s a shame because the earcups are very comfortable.
The Maxwell 2, while featuring a much-needed earcup redesign from its predecessor, the OG Audeze Maxwell, is still the biggest and heaviest of the headsets by far. And it features a very restrictive adjustment mechanism with only three levels. It’s comfortable but annoying to wear, and its large curb weight means it falls off easily if you tilt your head downwards.
The Arctis Nova Elite and Nova Pro are essentially the same headset in their core design — the differences between them almost all relate to internal hardware, connectivity and features, with one exception that I’ll cover below.
They’re both exceptionally comfortable: the low weight and suspended inner headband allow them to sit like feathers on your head, and the earcups are incredibly comfortable. The Nova Elite pads use a slightly softer-touch faux leather. But is that worth the extra $220? Nope.
Winner: SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro
Sound quality
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This is a really tricky one. All of these headsets offer excellent sound quality. It sounds like a cop out, but this’ll kinda depend on what you want. The Scape’s sound quality is fantastic, with strong tonal separation, bags of clarity in the treble and mids and decent-enough spatial audio. Plus there’s a 5-band parametric EQ to play with. Its frequency response range is a little shorter on the low-end than the other headsets here, stopping at 20Hz. Unlike the other headsets, it’s missing the super low 10-20Hz frequencies that you can feel (rather than hear) during gameplay — the rumble of tanks and artillery in war games, for example.
Both the Arctis Nova Elite and Pro sound similar, although the Nova Elite definitely edges it, thanks to its upgraded carbon fiber drivers and brass support ring for better control over bass frequencies. Still, both headsets are really very bassy. For gaming, this is great — bags of punchy bass down to 10Hz make for an immersive experience. For music, you’ll need to play around with EQ to stop bass overriding everything — especially in mid-heavy music like rock or metal. Both headsets have strong clarity up top though, especially the Nova Elite, and very good directional sound to help with enemy detection in competitive or stealth games.
In my opinion, though, the Audeze Maxwell takes the victory here. Its planar magnetic drivers can start and stop vibrating much faster than dynamic drivers, resulting in a cleaner, crisp sound with very good clarity, especially in high and mid frequencies. The trade off is a lack of power in lower frequencies — bass lacks thickness, so to speak, while sub-bass lacks that skull-shaking rumble. A lot of this can be addressed via EQ, though. In a word, the sound is more refined than the rest, making this the headset for audiophile gamers.
Winner: Audeze Maxwell 2
Microphone
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Unfortunately, gaming headset manufacturers routinely cheap out on microphones, resulting in tinny audio. I can kinda see why — after all, a headset mic primarily needs to transmit your voice in game chat, which doesn’t need to be excellent quality.
But if you’re a streamer (and high end headsets are commonly aimed at streamers), you’ll need much better quality. Unfortunately, neither the Fractal Design Scape, Arctis Nova Pro or Nova Elite will deliver that. In my testing, their mics all sounded tinny, fuzzy and far from professional-/broadcast-quality.
The clear winner is the Audeze Maxwell 2, whose microphone sounds excellent — good enough for streaming (although still not as good as a dedicated broadcast mic like the Shure MV6). Its microphone noise cancellation affects audio quality significantly, but that’s common with noise cancellation. And besides, if you’re streaming, you’ll likely be in a quiet environment.
Winner: Audeze Maxwell 2
Features
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The Maxwell 2 is the weakest in this regard, with little in the way of additional features except for its microphone noise cancellation, 2.4GHz dongle and companion app (which hosts the equalizer).
The Fractal Design Scape has some very interesting features, including a stand/charging dock that doubles as a pass-through port for the 2.4GHz dongle. There’s also a companion app with a 5-band parametric equalizer, and microphone noise cancellation (via the app).
On the features front, there’s no doubt that the two SteelSeries headsets offer the most. Both feature ANC and MNC; each comes with a USB hub/DAC for 2.4GHz connection, high-res audio streaming, device control and spare battery charging; and each pairs with both the SteelSeries GG/Sonar desktop app and the SteelSeries Arctis smartphone app.
The Nova Elite comes out on top, though, as its USB hub offers more connectivity than the Pro, with 3x Wi-Fi channels (2x PC + 1x console/PC) in addition to the headset’s Bluetooth channel. The Nova Pro, meanwhile, offers only 2x Wi-Fi channels (1x PC + 1x console/PC) and a Bluetooth channel. Again, if that’s worth $220, fair enough, otherwise the Arctis Nova Pro will suit you just fine.
Winner: SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite / Pro
Styling & build quality
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All four of these headsets offer sublime build quality, using high quality materials and premium finishes. You shouldn’t have a problem with any of them in this department. The only let down is the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro, whose dials are the same cheap plasticky components found on the $199 SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 Gen 2 — they don’t befit a $199 headset, let alone a $379 one. The Arctis Nova Elite, by contrast, features milled metal dials which are much nicer in look and feel (and I’d bloody hope so, given it costs $599).
The Fractal Design Scape easily takes home the victory here, though. The Scandi-style design looks gorgeous and is complemented by subtle, diffused RGB (which is customizable in the web-based companion software). The materials are super high quality, too, like the metal volume dial on the left earcup. On its charging dock, it just looks so good slotted into place on my desk — it’s a sure fire upgrade to any setup.
Winner: Fractal Design Scape
Battery life
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This is another tricky one, because it depends on how we define battery life. Do we mean the hours of play we get from a single charge; or do we mean how much life we get before we’re forced into downtime for charging? Both Arctis Nova headsets come with a spare battery that charges in the USB hub while you play, so when one dies you simply switch out and you’re back to playing — no downtime, despite comparatively weak battery life on paper.
I’m going to judge this section on pure battery life, full to flat. In reality, most people game at home near a power source and don’t play for +18 hours at a time (the weakest of these headset batteries lasts 18 hours — the Nova Pro). As long as a headset lasts 8-16 hours, you won’t run out during even the longest sessions and can simply charge up when you go to bed. The Fractal Design Scape’s wireless charging stand makes that especially easy.
However, battery life matters most, in my opinion, if you’re gaming on the move — when traveling, for instance. In that case, it’s all about pure runtime. The Scape’s battery lasts 40 hours with RGB off (20 with it on); the Nova Elite’s batteries last 30 hours each, 60 in total; while the Nova Pro’s batteries last around 36-44 hours total, according to SteelSeries, although, in my testing, it’s definitely on the low side (I was literally watching the battery life go down on the SteelSeries GG app, and after 3 hours of mixed use had lost 25%).
The Audeze Maxwell 2, by contrast, has them all well and truly beat, offering 80 hours — it was actually a challenge to drain the headset in my battery testing.
Winner: Audeze Maxwell 2
Reddit’s favorite premium gaming headsets: Result
Victor: Audeze Maxwell 2
We have a winner! The Audeze Maxwell 2 comes out on top with three wins versus two for the Fractal Design Scape, two for the Arctis Nova Pro and one for the Arctis Nova Elite. I honestly went into this thinking the Nova Pro would clinch it — it costs a similar amount of money as the Maxwell 2 but has that super useful USB hub and excellent sound quality.
Of course, I seriously doubt you’d have many complaints about the Nova Pro, as it’s fantastic. The Scape is also excellent for the money, with crystal clear sound and that handy charging stand, but is slightly let down by its outdated headband design and crappy mic.
The only headset I wouldn’t recommend you buy over the others is the Nova Elite. Yes, it has the most features. Yes, it sounds great. Yes, it’s very comfortable. But is any of that worth nearly $600? Not if you ask me.
The Audeze Maxwell 2’s victory is well-deserved. Sound quality is, for many, the most important aspect of a headset, and the Maxwell’s planar magnetic drivers really deliver here. Its mic is fantastic, it’s comfortable, and (although this is kinda crazy) it’s the second cheapest on this roundup. As I pointed out in my Maxwell 2 review, if you already own the OG Maxwell, there’s no need to upgrade. Otherwise, the Maxwell 2 is the best of the high-end bunch.
Disagree with me? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Or, if you have any other headsets you’d like me to compare, I’d love to hear about those too! You can find full reviews of these headsets linked below.
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