While wired headsets are fine for general use, sometimes you just want to be freed from the mass of wires attached to your gaming setup. Wireless headsets are nothing new, of course, but my previous sets have had issues with noise interference or battery life. Turtle Beach’s Ear Force Stealth 450s are different.
In the box you get the headset, a microphone that can be clipped in when needed or removed to use the set as headphones, the USB wireless dongle to connect to the headset, a line-in cable to use the headset with mobile or other standard connectors and a standard USB lead for charging, plus a very short instruction booklet.
Basic setup was easy, just turn on the PC, plug in the dongle and turn on the headset. They connected together automatically and the settings changed so sound came from the headset within seconds.
However, if you want to use the surround function or ‘superhuman’ feature then you’ll need to also download the special driver for that.
I had the issue when I went to the product page on the website as clicking the link at the bottom of the page did nothing until I changed the flag in the top right corner to the US.
After this, clicking the link to the driver started an automatic download. Strangely, this creates a virtual drive to install the software, so you will need to click on this drive and then the executable file to start it. After that, right click on the speaker icon on the bottom right of your desktop and choose the Turtle Beach option to get into the settings and turn on the surround.
It’s a big faff and other headsets with surround features have been much more elegant about how they are installed and managed, but it does work once you’ve jumped through the hoops.
The detachable microphone and intuitive software (once you get it downloaded) make this new Turtle Beach headset a joy to use and while the 7.1 surround isn’t always as successful as a proper speaker set-up, it certainly provides an edge in games.