Page 2 - Physical Look - Hardware and Software
The design of the Turtle Beach Stealth 500 is a new contender in their Stealth series of headphones, opting for a simple and clean design. The Stealth 500 only comes in a black color variant. Black is probably the best choice if you are only going to offer one color. Generally speaking, the Stealth 500 is covered from head to toe in black, with hints of white to accent Turtle Beach’s logo. Turtle Beach’s traditional logo is placed on the top of the headband. In terms of appearance, the Stealth 500 is quite nice, even for entry-level gaming headphones.
Aside from the swing-out microphone, nothing about this headset screams gamer, and looks completely fine for day-to-day use. The black finish on the Turtle Beach Stealth 500 looks quite clean, being quite smooth, leaving no noticeable fingerprints. Turtle Beach opted to use a white written logo on the black earcups rather than their typical logo, presenting a more sophisticated look to it. Unfortunately, the earcups on these headphones do not pivot, making for a stiffer frame. The Stealth 500 is primarily made out of plastic. The earcups use plush leatherette and memory foam cushioning, while the headband uses plastic and a stretchy fabric. Despite being almost entirely plastic, there is very little creaking or unwarranted noise made when under pressure, making the headset feel well-built and sturdy.
Starting with the ears, the cups are wrapped in a plush leatherette with a good amount of foam, at least when it comes to thickness. The foam has a sufficient amount of give without being too flimsy. The Turtle Beach Stealth 500 does not claim to have ProSpecs, but I personally found it comfortable enough while wearing glasses. Additionally, the earcups cannot rotate, making the headset a bit stiffer. As for the drivers underneath, you can see these are 40mm drivers. These drivers have a frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz. This is adequate, as it reaches both ends of the average human hearing frequency.
Looking at the headband of the Turtle Beach Stealth 500, we have a dual band design. One of the bands is made entirely out of plastic for framing, and the other is made of fabric to help cushion the headset on your head. The headband does not expand in the typical fashion other headsets do. Turtle Beach opted to have the option to adjust the fabric layer of the headband to different portions of the plastic layer. This serves to adjust how the headset will sit on your head. Personally, I find this method a bit tedious, as it requires you to manually unscrew the fabric band off of the headset to move it. At the top, we have the aforementioned fabric layer that feels soft and stretchy enough to cushion your head and alleviate any pressure you might feel if it were bare. It also helps that the headset is quite lightweight.
In terms of overall comfort, I found myself satisfied with the Turtle Beach Stealth 500. There is a sufficient amount of foam on the ears and the headband did not feel overly stiff, allowing me to keep this headset on for hours. In addition, the headset's clamping pressure is just right, not being too tight or too loose. I personally prefer the fabric material used on the earcups over PU leather, because they keep the ears a bit more breathable and less warm, but the plush leatherette does make the Stealth 500 feel a little more premium. In addition to all of this, the Turtle Beach Stealth 500 is quite light at 233g. Considering it carries the batteries and wireless components to connect to the adapter, this is really good.
On the left side of the Turtle Beach Stealth 500, you will find all of the controls and inputs of the headset. From the top to bottom, you have a dedicated volume wheel, microphone monitor volume wheel, Bluetooth button, QuickSwitch button, Mode button, USB Type-C port, and the power button. The dedicated volume wheel will adjust the volume, as you would think. Interestingly enough, when using this headset with a PC, the headset will adjust the volume independently from the PC. This will make it so you will have to adjust the volume on both your PC and the headset itself. The mic monitoring wheel allows you to monitor your voice through the headset. I would like to comment the wheels have been spaced out more compared to the previous Stealth models, with a physical nub to separate the two further. The wheels themselves have a good amount of resistance to adjust the levels at a fine level. We have a Bluetooth button next that works as a multi-function button. The QuickSwitch button is quite useful in switching between 2.4GHz and Bluetooth connection. Underneath it is the Mode button. This Mode button allows you to cycle through four different equalizer settings. This includes Signature Sound, Bass Boost, Treble and Bass Boost, and Vocal Boost. The headset will beep the corresponding numbers of times when you cycle through to tell you which mode you are in. Finally, we have the power button that turns on and off the headset, or turns on and off Superhuman Hearing.
When the headset is on, you can tap the power button to activate Superhuman Hearing, allowing you to better immerse yourself into the gaming experience. This will make hearing sounds like footsteps, gun reloads, and other important noises clearer by amplifying certain frequency ranges where these in-game noises are present. Near the power button, we have a USB Type-C input, which is used to charge the headset. Around to the front, we have a microphone that swings down from the left earcup. Since it sits integrated on the side, it automatically mutes the input when it is in this position. When you swing it out, there is a notch where swinging past this position will automatically unmute the microphone. You can then further position the mic closer to your face by folding it in, but it is barely adjustable. I find the distance quite nice as it is never in the way, but the caveat is that it may not pick up your voice in some instances.
Taking a look at the wireless USB transmitter, it is the same size as a typical USB flash drive, and comes in a matching black color. An LED can be found on the end that illuminates in a breathing green when connecting to the headset, and breathing red when connected and the mic is muted. The transmitter will not illuminate when the headset is active with the mic on. Otherwise, it is a standard male USB Type-A plug. You will not find a switch to change from Xbox compatibility to regular USB like the other Stealth models. Generally speaking, the Turtle Beach Stealth 500 will work with all devices.
The Turtle Beach Stealth 500 has some additional support software in the form of Turtle Beach Swarm II. The download file is 83.7MB in size. The functionality is quite comprehensive, offering a mini dashboard for all of the settings. These mini dashboards are Audio, Microphone, Equalizer, Device Status, Hotkeys, Power Options, Transmitter, and Voice and Tone Prompts.
Audio will allow you to adjust the master volume, alongside the Superhuman Hearing settings. Microphone will allow the user to adjust the mic sensitivity, monitoring levels, and noise gate. Thankfully, Turtle Beach includes an equalizer to help better cater the headphones to individual users. As with many equalizers, you can simply adjust it as you please, use Turtle Beach’s presets, or even make your own presets.
Next, we have device status, which informs the user of the current status of the headset as you may assume. This information includes the battery status, if the headset is up to date, and connection method. Furthermore, it provides information about the status of the transmitter. The Hotkeys dashboard allow you to bind the toggles of Volume Mute, Superhuman Hearing, Noise Gate, Mic Mute, and Mic Monitoring to any key on your keyboard or macro pad. This will make it easier if you find yourself toggling any of these settings in Turtle Beach Swarm II often. Power options allow you to adjust when the headset automatically turns off and whether or not you want notifications regarding the battery. Transmitter gives you the option to adjust the LED brightness on the transmitter. Personally, I find this to be one of the most random features, especially because the difference from 0 to 100 is so subtle. Voice and Tone Prompts adjust the notification voice and tone prompt volume. I actually find this to be a random but nice feature, as it is something I did not know I wanted to adjust. Something that did bother me was the fact that on PC, you have to open Turtle Beach Swarm II to change modes for a proper connection.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware and Software
3. Subjective Audio Analysis
4. Conclusion
