Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2 Max Headset (Hardware)
Official GBAtemp Review
Product Information:
Turtle Beach are at the forefront of gaming audio; I honestly don't remember a time when Turtle Beach wasn't an everyday name in the realm of gaming headsets, but I do remember a time when I wasn't sure about headsets and I wasn't convinced that any additional spending was truly worth it. Oh, how wrong I was in my youth, and I have definitely made up for it in the time since discovering that you do really get what you pay for, and some brands definitely know what they're doing when it comes to enhancing your gaming experiences.
Coming from a lengthy retail background, I hear the same quibbles every day, "Can't I just buy X brand because they're cheaper?" I'm here to put out a PSA here and now to say no. If you spend £449.99 of your hard-earned cash on an all-singing, all-dancing, 8K games console, why would you even consider purchasing low-end peripherals to supplement it? It's like buying the latest Ferarri only to buy the cheapest accessories you could possibly find on the sketchiest looking eBay clone sites; it's absolutely ruining your experience of the product, dulling it all down in fact, and as a direct result you won't feel the benefits of having the latest and greatest console!
Clocking in at £129.99, the Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 600 Gen 2 Max is an absolute mouthful to say out loud, but also an absolute beast when it comes to pummeling your ears with incredibly crystal clear cranium shaking audio. Touting TB's trademark "Superhuman Hearing", Mic Monitoring, Amplified Surround Sound, 48+ hour battery life, fully wireless and glasses-friendly design, the Stealth 600 G2 Max has a lot to offer. This model comes in several attractive colour schemes, including Arctic camo, Midnight Red, and Black and White.
First and foremost, connectivity comes via a small USB dongle that occupies a single USB-A socket on your device, meaning that ANY console, PC, or even home entertainment device that supports USB audio can benefit from this product. Housing a minuscule but perfectly usable slider on the USB dongle, you can flip between USB and XBOX modes, and by its very nature, it indicates what you need to have it set to in order to get maximum compatibility. You simply choose USB mode for any other devices than Xbox, and select Xbox mode, for, well, yeah; any Xbox-specific devices.
The 50mm drivers used in these cans are tuned to perfection, with a notably warm, rich bass profile that creates a vivid depth and spatially immersive sensation that is incredibly useful for games where you need to pinpoint which direction something is coming from and quickly. Among a few games I tested, I played a lot with Lego Skywalker Saga and Horizon Forbidden West, I stood still in-game and just absorbed the ambience, the subtleties of the background sound effects, and the nuances of the surround effects. Engines hum and rumble, birds tweet and flit around, footsteps are crystal clear, and the overall atmosphere in-game, regardless of game, is incredibly faithfully-replicated through the S600 G2 Max's 20Hz - 20kHz range. Boasting compatibility for Windows Sonic, Dolby Atmos and Sony 3D Audio for PS5; I was also able to enjoy these flawlessly on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, XBOX Series S, Chromebook and Windows PC, by simply plugging and playing!
The headset charges via USB-C and takes around 3-4 hours to top up, which isn't too speedy, but the 48-hour battery yield (yes I said 48+ hour battery life) is frankly obscene. Even with a modest rate of 3 hours of gaming per evening, these would give you over two weeks' worth of charge before you had to consider juicing them back up. I managed to get several 5-6 hour gaming sessions out of these, at around 60-70% volume on average, across the two weeks I used these, and I have only had to charge them once, which is honestly absurd and phenomenal.
Thanks to the proprietary, Lag-free 2.4GHz wireless connection; I didn't experience any crackle, popping, stutter, lag, or cutting out even when moving around my house to really test the connection. I live in an open plan house so it was easy to transition around and try to find dead spots, and in all honesty, it took a lot to get it to even wobble. I have yet to face any audio issues with these, and they're even competing with my prized, wired, TB Recon 500's to knock them off my top spot!
These feature a flip to mute high-sensitivity, 99.95% voice accurate microphone which is ideal for keeping it up out of the way when you want to remain quiet, but perfect for quickly folding down into place when you need to communicate. A small audible beep indicates when the mic is on or off, which is a nice touch to know it's muted or unmuted without needing to physically feel around, or double-check it. The microphones arm itself features a pivoting elbow joint that not only lets the mic flip-down towards your mouth but it can now be angled in even closer to enhance your vocal audio output. In my case it swings the mic towards my chiselled jawline, sitting approximately 2 inches from the left corner of my mouth, which is honestly just about half an inch closer than without the arm tilted in towards me. It's small things like this that sound minor, but I know a lot of gamers out there will really appreciate that small detail in finessing their equipment to their exacting standards. The vocal sound quality was crisp, clear and phenomenally well-received when playing against my friends online.
Built-in are a selection of four EQ modes that best demonstrate the various intricacies that this headset has been designed to master. Bass Boost, Signature Sound, Treble Boost, and Vocal Boost give you the perfect quadfecta to cycle through without giving you too many to handle. Personally, as a massive bass head, I really dig the Bass Boost and Signature Sound modes for gaming and watching movies or listening to tunes. The treble and vocal-centric modes really do pick out the detailed sounds and vocal tones to direct your focus on the finer detail whilst deadening off any bassy low tones and rumble. Signature Sound is a nice balance of bass and clarity that I kept deviating toward, it just sounds incredibly good out of the box; give those Turtle Beach Audio engineers a pat on the back!
Overall I really like the Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 600 Gen 2 Max regardless of its convoluted naming scheme. If I had to pick a point to grumble about it would simply be that the product is made predominantly from boring black plastic that could have been spiffed up with some rubber or metal accents, but then that's where the higher-end Steath 700 Gen 2 Max situate themselves in the market: with Aerofit Gel cooled ear cushions, Bluetooth added in and Nanoclear neodymium drivers, but that will set you back an additional £50, which I wouldn't hazard to assume is entirely well worth the extra as if the TBEF600G2 Max are this good the TBEF700G2 Max could only be all the more incredible surely?
Verdict
- Absolutely banging sound throughout
- Warm deep bass and crystal clear detailing
- Fantastic compatibility
- Epic battery life and comfort
- The plastic finish looks & feels cheap
- No BT connectivity for phones/tablets
