Just when I thought it was safe, there comes a new challenger. Now to be fair, I didn’t really want to go back to Steelseries. I have had one too many of their headphone not last the duration of the typical life span of headphones for gaming. And to be honest, I don’t really have much hope for these to last either. So that plays a role too. However what I can’t deny is the issues that the Steelseries can be customized in sound and it’s profile remains on the headphone to be used on anything you plug it into. Your ps5, smartphone, steam deck, or wii all will sound off with the same custom EQ you made in your PC. Sonys H7 doesn’t do this. So what you hear is what you get. And while it sounded really nice…that EQ change I gave the Steelseries 7p+ made its sound better than the H7 and I didn’t even try all that hard to do it. So the sound quality doesn’t rest with the Sonys any longer.
Next up the comfort. Sonys did such a wonderful job with this. And at first I didn’t think this would be even worth talking about. But I was wrong. After I adjusted the Steelseries 7p+ band it truly floated on my head. By default the headphone always just fit my head out of the box. They were never floating off my head type of comfort but they were decent so I never bothered adjusting the strap. This time I did and got a amazing fit. In fact I would give the comfort a 9.5 out of 10. So what about the Sonys then? Well I would say Sony remains on top with this but not by much. I give the Sony’s at 9.7 out of 10. They get the edge for just working every time. The Steelseries does need some twist and adjustments for the first 2 seconds after putting them on, even after the strap modifications but once one it’s a float king. The Sonys never need adjustment once on your head.
The next thing you have to give Sony credit on is the interference that is useful on the ps5. You know the battery life when you connect to the ps5. The Steelseries isn’t this way. You have to rely on the color of the power button, when it actually work that is, as my other 7 Arctic headset stays red no matter how long I charge it. So forgive me but I just believe that one day this might do the same thing and it would nice if I had something like the battery life on my screen to know where I’m at. And speaking of battery life… they have the most battery life at 40 hours compared to the 30 hours of the Steel series. And that again is the benefit. (Correction…steelseries has over 60 hours of battery life even though they only advertise 30…amazing)
The steelseries comes back though with better microphone technology. The Sonys just can’t keep a close grip on things when compared to the Steelseries Mics. They just sound better and with the ability to move the mics in and out is much better than only being able to move it up, like the Sonys. And this pretty much at this point ..ties things up.
But not so fast. Sony has Bluetooth!! Being able to take a phone call if gaming and it bleed right in with the gaming sound is just so useful at times. This is something the Steelseries tries to be useful at with their dongle usb c adapter but this just isn’t as helpful as being able to do natively. And so the Sony takes back the advantage right? Well, normally to anyone else I would say yes. However the whole reason I have the Steelseries is because of the price I got them for..$109. That’s right. I went to GameStop and I believe what happens was that the clerk gave me the 7p+ but gave me the discount sale price off the regular 7p, which is cheaper normally than the 7p+. So now I have a justified price to function on the Steelseries headphone with the more expensive Sony headphone that has the ability to do Bluetooth but cost $170 on sale. And with that I have yet another tie.
So I decided to stay with the Steelseries against my better judgement. Yes this was purely because everyone else stands with Steelseries and they have all these awards. But the edge came from the stability of the products. The Sonys did stutter here and there. Not enough to believe it’s not something that will work itself out with firmware but the Steelseries with its latest firmware has already worked out its problems and never stutters or drops. So sound, price, and mics trumps the .2 advantage in comfort difference and 10 extra hours in battery life. I guess I will have wait on the reliability part to prove itself out over time. I hope I’m wrong about my concerns based on my experience prior with the Arctic 7. If not then it falls on me. For you I wouldn’t say follow my path on this. You might not get the 7p+ for the $109 like I did. And if that is the case, they would be equal in price and therefore I would always suggest the one that delivers in more features, the Sony H7.
Tech-N-Things 