I have never considered myself an audiophile, but over the years buying and reviewing headsets, I’ve learned to differentiate between cheaper and more expensive options. A lot of this comes down to look and build quality, so even a quick glance at the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni tells me I’m dealing with something premium.
That said, how a headset looks probably isn’t as important for average users compared to how it performs, and this is where things can get tricky. When reviewing this headset and the latest from Turtle Beach, I’ve started to ask the question: Are headset purchasing decisions solely based on brand loyalty instead?
When you first open your Nova Pro Omnis, you are greeted with what I call a premium unboxing experience. The headset is nestled nicely in the box, ready to be lifted out and used. It has a soft SteelSeries cloth bag, which takes up way less room when not in use, and when I need to store it away, it fits in a drawer or basket much more easily.
The sleek finish looks incredible, using good quality materials for a sturdy build. This is an all-plastic design, with a thin metal casing around the headband. The headset uses its suspension band to alleviate some of the weight when worn for long periods of time, and as per usual with SteelSeries headsets that I have used, it does a fantastic job of accommodating long gaming sessions.
Buttons for Bluetooth pairing, power, and a mute toggle are nicely positioned along the earcups, are easy to find with your fingers mid-session, and have a satisfying click when pressed. I’m happy to feel the clicky volume wheel as well, something that I really miss on a headset when the wheel movement is smooth.
The earcups are wrapped in pleather, and while it’s not great for breathability like cloth coverings, it’s great for noise cancellation. They are pretty plushy as well, which is great if you wear glasses like me.
There are a number of great features that set the Arctis Nova Pro Omni apart from some other headsets. Omniplay Mixing allows multiple channels to feed into your headset at one time, which means you can have your PlayStation audio connected to a Discord chat on your PC, and if someone calls you on the phone, you can grab that too, all while keeping all your other audio inputs going.
Like many headsets in this class, the Pro Omni includes a dual-swap battery, which means you can use one battery while the other charges in the base station, and they can be easily and quickly swapped for uninterrupted gameplay experiences.
The headset sports 40mm dynamic Hi-Res Neodymium Magnetic Drivers designed to support 96kHz/24-bit audio with a 10Hz – 40kHz frequency response. This is over the head of many reading – myself included – but details some might find beneficial.
As we have noted in other tech reviews on the site, we are focused on the user experience. What’s actually happening technically within each headset is best left to be discussed by people with knowledge of how the various things work together to create the output.
In my personal experience, gaming headsets always have a unique, not very natural microphone quality. Rarely is it ever bad, and rarely have I had complaints, but you can tell when a microphone quality isn’t quite what you want it to be. This was not a problem with the Arctis Nova Pro Omni.
The microphone quality here is phenomenal, and while I wouldn’t say it’s exactly like my natural voice, it’s the closest I have ever gotten to it from a medium or high-end headset. It was the first time in quite a long while that someone on my Call of Duty squad asked what headset I was using. That’s gotta say something, at least I think so.
What I’ve enjoyed even more is the headset’s noise reduction options. Generally, these can have a major impact on mic quality when you begin trying to reduce other noises, but I felt the audio experience was really great, even with these various noise reduction options toggled on.
Out of the box, the Arctis Nova Pro Omni has a pretty good audio output experience. There is a desktop application and a phone app that will allow you to toggle a range of presets, as well as dive deeper to make very slight adjustments, creating a better audio experience.
While Turtle Beach’s Super Human Hearing preset, which I could toggle right from the headset itself, was phenomenal, it took a bit more research and work to get that same audio experience with SteelSeries. That said, there are tons of presets you can find on the SteelSeries applications on PC and mobile, so it’s likely just about tinkering until you find the one that works for you.
While the adjustments might sound like a negative, it’s an audio experience where your mileage may vary. If you don’t play a ton of games where hearing every single footstep isn’t as vital, then the Arctis Nova Pro Omni is going to feel like a fantastic headset right out of the box.
Where it’s blowing the competition out of the water for me is the versatility. When we reviewed the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro 2, we talked about the confusion around which version of the headset you should purchase, and what features you might lose if you picked one variant over another.
With the included dock, which also charges your additional battery, giving you almost limitless use, the Arctis Nova Pro Omni can connect directly into a variety of different systems all at once; there is even an audio output connection slot if you care to do a bit of streaming.
Overall, the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni is a fantastic headset loaded with features at a pretty good price. The headset definitely shines when it comes to microphone quality and versatility across multiple platforms, but requires a bit of work to find that ideal audio preset for various games. I found this headset much more comfortable for long gaming sessions over the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro 2, but I don’t love the all-plastic design.
At the end of the day, comfort trumps all for me, so the Arctis Nova Pro Omni will become my daily driver, at least for now.
Adam has been writing about video games since 2014 and board games since 2018. If he's not rooting for the Toronto Maple Leafs or Toronto FC, he definitely has a controller in his hand - probably playing on a Nintendo platform - or is sitting at a table playing a board game. Adam also has firm opinions on a few key topics: there are much better board games than Settlers of Catan, and Nintendo doesn't need to compete with Sony and Microsoft.
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