Page 2 - Physical Look - Hardware and Software
At first glance, the Turtle Beach Atlas Air may not look too different from other gaming headsets, but upon a longer linger, you will notice a few unique areas. Starting with the similarities, it has a familiar headphone design, with a matte black finish to prevent marks from oily digits. The company's branding is displayed on each side of the headband and right above the ear cups. The outer cups have a slight sparkle from the milling finish, giving them the appearance of metal, although they are actually plastic. You might also notice some rubber bands that are around the ear cups, which Turtle Beach refers to as their "floating earcup design". This feature likely serves a functional purpose, and fortunately, these rubber bands do not detract from the overall look.
The construction of the Turtle Beach Atlas Air is generally quite strong. Despite its plastic build, it does not feel cheap. Instead, this keeps the headset light and agile. There are no signs of creaking or cracking when we pull or adjust the Atlas Air, which is another favorable aspect. The top band is plastic with an internal reinforcement of metal. Since it is just two thinner pieces that keep the whole thing together, the Atlas Air flops around a bit and wriggles around like Jello while still maintaining its shape. This does make it feel a bit flimsy, but I think this is a trade-off with reducing the weight of the Atlas Air. Other materials include a fabric suspended headband, a mesh cover, a mix of fabric and pleather on the earcups, and the aforementioned rubber bands to hold the cups.
At the top, we get a closer look at the headband on the Turtle Beach Atlas Air. It employs a suspended headband that naturally adjusts to the size of your head. It has a bit of give and elasticity, making it less stiff when adjusted. Ideally, this sort of suspension will prevent users from feeling the top of the headset. What sets the Turtle Beach Atlas Air apart is the mesh sleeve around this headband. This should help distribute the pressure from the headband while maintaining breathability. The suspended fabric is attached via hook and loop fasteners on each side, allowing you to increase or decrease the tension. The headphones are notched on the inside and provides a visual indicator of how much or little you have adjusted the headband. Additionally, the fabric is protected from fraying at the ends.
Moving to the ear cups, you can see they are covered in fabric with memory foam underneath to increase comfort. Turtle Beach has used their ProSpecs branding to indicate this should be comfortable even if you are wearing glasses. Name aside, this memory foam has a surprising amount of give, which likely makes them feel soft and plush without adding pressure on the side of your head. You can also remove these cups from the rest of the headset and swap them for other color options that are available separately. I found this athletic weave fabric to be breathable and did not get too hot under my ears after a lengthy gaming session. Internally, the Turtle Beach Atlas Air features 40mm high-precision drivers with a frequency response of 20Hz to 40kHz, which is greater than the typical human hearing range on the higher end. This wireless connection provides a 24-bit, 96kHz sampling rate. We will see how this affects sound quality later on in our review.
In terms of comfort, the Turtle Beach Atlas Air has both pros and cons. On the positive side, it lives up to the "Air" in its name with a light 301g weight. As mentioned earlier, the foam gives quite easily, making them feel both plush and supportive. You may have your own preferences between fabric and leather or leather-alternative fabrics, but I prefer fabric for its breathability. This does come at the trade-off of sound isolation and leakage, although the open-back design is a larger contributing factor.
On the other hand, the clamping force on the Atlas Air is quite light, causing the headset to slide around my ears. This issue is compounded by the headset's overall fluid movement. All in all, these are a light pair of headphones, but I would have liked to see a bit more emphasis on a better fit with a slightly higher clamping force. This will still vary from user to user, and I would recommend trying the Turtle Beach Atlas Air to get a more personal perspective.
On the left ear cup, you will find all the inputs and outputs of the Turtle Beach Atlas Air. Starting at the back, there is a power button with a small multi-color LED light nearby that illuminates while the headset is connected or charging. When connected, the LED will intermittently flash green or blue, depending on the connection mode. When charging, it will be red until fully charged. Next to this is a button to change the connection mode, switching between the wireless USB transmitter and Bluetooth 5.2.
Following this, there is a 3.5mm audio jack for use with the braided cable, which is handy as you can use the headset when it has no charge. However, note that none of these connections will operate simultaneously. Next, there is a USB Type-C port for charging. The Atlas Air remains functional while it is plugged in for charging. The last button is marked with the Bluetooth logo. While one might assume this would be used to change connection modes, it actually serves as a multi-purpose button in both connection modes, executing media commands like play and pause. Additionally, there is a large volume knob on the outer ear. It has nice grips around the edge for easy handling and moves with a notched feel, providing precise control over the volume.
At the front, there is a small 2.5mm plug to attach the microphone. This sits on a swivel, allowing users to mute or unmute the microphone by flipping it up. However, if you place the microphone close to your face and then flip the mic up to mute, it may hit your forehead. The microphone itself is uni-directional with a frequency response of 100Hz to 16kHz. The arm holding the microphone is quite flexible and stays in place once shaped. The included windscreen is an additional nice feature that helps reduce plosive sounds and enhances overall audio clarity.
As we have seen from the Vulcan II TKL Pro review, we have the updated version of Swarm II software. This utility is available from Turtle Beach's website as a 59MB executable installer. The setup process is straightforward. I did receive several updates during my review, so I know Turtle Beach is fixing issues. There are a total of five different profiles to use with the Atlas Air, and three settings pages to navigate through. These are navigable by clicking the side icons or scrolling down the page.
The first page is titled Settings, and it shows most of the general volume settings. Under the left section, Audio, we have adjustments for volume, Turtle Beach's Superhuman Hearing, Game Chat mix, Chat Boost, Waves 3D audio effects, and a toggle for "High Bandwidth Audio". Going through this list, Superhuman Hearing is used to enhance certain frequencies so users can hear emphasized effects while gaming, such as gunshots or footsteps. It negatively affects audio accuracy however, so I would avoid using it if you prefer natural sound. Next, the Game Chat mix lets you balance between your chat audio and the rest of your system sounds. When the Atlas Air is connected, it creates a second virtual channel that you can configure your chat applications to use. Chat Boost is used to also boost your chat channel when active. Waves 3D is integrated from the Waves Audio plugin, which provides the equalization and effects. When installing the drivers for the Atlas Air, Waves effects was automatically installed in Windows and it showed up under my sound settings. However, when I disabled these effects, I found sound to be more natural. Doing so also disables the Superhuman Hearing effects, so do keep this in mind.
On the right side, we have a Microphone section to adjust the sensitivity, monitoring, and noise gate levels. You can also mute the microphone through this application here, although it is probably quicker to just flip your microphone up. Finally, there is another toggle for "High-Bandwidth Microphone" at the bottom. All of these sections have reset buttons in the top right corner to let you revert that area to default settings.
The next page is titled "Equalizer", where you can choose between some preset settings or create your own. It provides ten frequencies to make adjustments to, which is a good number for granular changes. Equalizer settings are available for both output and input, which is nice to see. Personally, I kept it as their default for what Turtle Beach says should be a flat-response, but we will validate this later.
The last settings page is Additional Settings, where we have some more indicators and settings to choose. First, we have a Device Status section, which shows the current connection and status for the Atlas Air and the USB transmitter. Next, we have Power Options, which lets you choose the duration of the inactivity period before the headset automatically turns off. There is also a toggle to enable or disable battery notifications. Under Transmitter, we have the ability to increase or decrease the LED brightness. Finally, under Voice and Tone Prompts, you can change how loud the prompts.
All in all, I think Turtle Beach Swarm still might have some UX areas to clean up for use, including making profiles easier to find, but I have noticed more stability over time. Most of the issues I observed previously were fixed with updates, so I expect Turtle Beach just has some teething problems to sort out. I am glad to see continued improvements and hope this is a continued trend.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware and Software
3. Subjective Audio Analysis
4. Conclusion
