Page 2 - Physical Look - Hardware
If you look at the Ear Force Stealth 450, you might think there is a lot of plastic. There are a few metal pieces, including some screws, but you are right -- majority of the product is hard plastic. The Stealth 450 is matte in finish, with two oval glossy areas around the ears. There are also two red glossy plastic rings around the ear pads, which will be appreciated by those in the gaming culture. Turtle Beach's name is etched in at the top, and their logos are found on the either side of the headset. These logos light up in different situations, but I will describe this behavior later. Overall, I have to say the Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 450 does well in targeting their intended audience, the gaming crowd. As this is Turtle Beach's primary market, the design choices seen in the Ear Force Stealth 450 are understandable, but they might not be loved by everyone. I do not really mind their aesthetic choices, and they are still relatively stealthy in terms of design. In addition, the size of the Stealth 450 is ninja-esque too. Tipping the scales at 240 grams, this flyweight is lighter than the last pair of wireless headphones one we reviewed, the SteelSeries H Wireless, in addition to my Hello Kitty pair, the Kingston HyperX Cloud II. This is primarily due to the plastic construction of the device, as well as the lightweight padding. Unfortunately, the plastic construction is a negative in my eyes, at least in terms of build quality. There is a bit of creaking whenever the Stealth 450 is widened to put on your head. In addition, some of the plastic joints are a tad stiff, and just do not feel polished. I would like to see a bit more metal here, especially in the extending arms, even at the cost of additional weight.
Taking a look at one of the ears, we are able to see one of the padded ear cups. A Turtle Beach logo is printed in red in the middle of each of the cups. A mesh fabric covers the sides and inside of the earmuff, and allows for adequate amounts of airflow. Underneath the fabric is standard foam. Recently, we have seen a lot of memory foam used, and this is probably because memory foam is quite comfortable. While the Ear Force Stealth 450's padding is not necessarily uncomfortable, I think memory foam would only help in increasing the overall comfort. It would also be nice to see some additional leather cups included with the Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 450, just to cater to more preferences. The oval shape of the ears mimic the oval-like shape of human ears, and it is capable of encompassing most ears as an over-the-ear style set of cans. Fit will vary from person to person, but they are at least capable to fully enclose my ears. Powering the speakers is a single 50mm driver on each side, with a frequency response from 20Hz to 20 KHz.
Holding the two drivers in place are two rotating plastic arms, and they swivel to fit users' ears. It is not a full 360 degree swivel, but it is enough to fit most head shapes. The ears are also adjustable in terms of tilt, again contouring to the user's head. The extending arms are completely plastic, and is very stiff in terms of adjustment. A tad more force is required to fully extend the headset, and I feel like this kind of wear and tear will not be good for a the headband with a plastic build. I think Turtle Beach could smooth out this action to reduce the stress when changing the head size.
Connecting the Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 450 together is the plastic headband, with a similar soft foam and mesh fabric at the top. This ensures the headband does not push down too much on your head, and I would say it is quite effective. However, the force created by the Stealth 450 on your head at the sides can be uncomfortable. I know I have a relatively big head compared to some other people, but I would expect Turtle Beach to cater to all types of gamers. Headsets like the Kingston HyperX Cloud and Cloud II are proof gaming headphones can be comfortable. The low mass overall offsets this problem a tad, but it is still noticeable after a few hours of use.
Taking a look at the Ear Force Stealth 450, there are several switches, dials, and inputs to inspect. Just to note, the photograph is taken with the headphones flipped, so the left side of the photo is the right ear, and vice versa. On the left side of the headphones, there is a single 3.5mm input. This is where the removable microphone slots in. On the right side, there are several more controls. Going by the photo, first is a button for muting the microphone. Underneath is another 3.5mm input, where you can plug in the included male-to-male audio cable to connect into a mobile device. I should note if you plug the Ear Force Stealth 450 into a mobile device, you still need to turn it on to use the headphones. Next is a micro USB input used to charge its battery. Finally, there is a spinning dial to control your microphone monitor volume. This allows you to hear your own voice through the headset, and the dial controls the volume. Of course, if you do not want this, you can turn down the volume all the way. I would like this dial to give some sort of tactile feedback to when it is fully off, as I have seen with other variable controls.
Three more controls are on the right side, but they are unfortunately not clearly visible in the photo. One is a push button, which cycles through certain equalizer presets. There are several presets, including default, bass boost, treble & bass boost, and vocal boost. Next is an additional dial is present for volume control. Finally, there is the power switch. Turtle Beach has cleverly integrated this as their logo, and it is located on the outside of the right ear. Holding it down will power it on and off, depending on the present power status. The logo is almost always emitting a white color unless it is charging. During charge mode, the LEDs stay red until it finishes charging and turns off.
While the Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 450 is wireless, they do not connect via Bluetooth. Rather, they use what the company dubs as "RF with intelligent channel switching". In layman's terms, this is just another protocol that tries to avoid interference with other electronics and their intentional or accidental electromagnetic frequencies. Thus to connect the Stealth 450 to your computer, you will use the included USB RF dongle, which is actually quite large in size. On the stick there is a single status LED, and a small hole to reset your connection if there ever is a problem. Out of the box, the headphone and receiver are already paired, so you should just be able to plug the USB stick right in.
The microphone packaged with the Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 450 is a removable omnidirectional microphone. Thus, it will pick up sounds from all directions. Doing some quick tests, it was able to pick up my mechanical keyboard in the background, but it does not pick up mouse clicks of the Func MS-2. The gooseneck holding the microphone is very flexible, but it is also capable of holding its shape. This is great as it actually holds the position you set it in, even if it is unconventional. On the flip side of the microphone is another placement of Turtle Beach's brand, just in case anyone passing by you does not see the countless other Turtle Beach logos or names.
In conclusion, the Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 450 is physically a toss-up. On one hand, its light construction and multiple controls is great to see. However, the abundance of plastic and discomfort does not help the Stealth 450's cause. With all this in mind, we now turn our eyes and ears to the audio analysis. How will the Stealth 450 perform when it comes to audio reproduction? We will put this pair of cans through its paces to see how it comes out after our APH Networks testing!
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware
3. Subjective Audio Analysis
4. Conclusion
