The new Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max offers good quality, appealing sound, and high performance. However, these advantages come at a price, which the choice of materials and the microphone quality do not reflect. On the other hand, the app that comes with the headset urgently needs to be revised.
Design, quality and price
With the Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max, Turtle Beach presents a new wireless headset that ranks above the Stealth 600 Gen 2 Max and, in terms of design, finds its origins in the Stealth 600 G2. Thus, the manufacturer’s naming does not make it easy for potential buyers to keep track.
Although Turtle Beach uses the same design basis for the third offspring of the family, the quality of the materials used has also increased with the price. In general, the new headset appears to be more massive and also more valuable at first glance. The material change is also reflected in the weight, which increased to 380 g compared to 294 g.
The changes are already evident in the headband. While the older model still used brittle plastic, Turtle Beach has equipped the newcomer with a smoother and slightly rubberised surface. The headband itself is now made of metal instead of plastic. This makes for a much tighter fit, which is well cushioned by the ear pads. On the other hand, the padding on the lower side of the headband remains unchanged and could therefore have been a little thicker in the new generation.
Changes have also been made to the ear cup suspensions. Here, the manufacturer has neglected to make them more stable by using metal as well. The same applies to the side covers, which are again made of plastic. As with the predecessors, the ear cups themselves can be turned inwards by almost 100 degrees and thus also adapt to any head shape in the new model. They have also grown in size, resulting in a more bulky appearance.
Special attention is paid to easily replaceable ear pads. The new headset’s ear pads are thicker and firmer than its indirect predecessor and have a gel layer that is supposed to keep the ears cool even in summer temperatures. In the test, however, no difference could be found between this and other headsets without cooling. For the surface, Turtle Beach uses a mixture of artificial leather on the sides and a fabric cover on the contact surface.
Connectivity and battery life
The Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max has several options for transferring content. Most users will connect the headset wirelessly to the respective source, whereby both PCs and Microsoft’s Xbox are supported. The headset transmits at 2.4 GHz, but the distance is disappointing at 10 m with drywall in between – even cheaper models can do better.
In addition, the headset can be controlled via Bluetooth version 4.2. This can be very helpful, as it allows phone calls to be accepted during a gaming session. The balance between the two sources can be adjusted in the app, which will be discussed in more detail later. Use via USB connection is not intended; it is only used for charging the battery and installing firmware updates.The manufacturer specifies a runtime of 40 hours, slightly less than the 600 Stealth variant. Generally, such runtimes are no longer rare and, therefore, no longer a unique selling point – HyperX states a runtime of 300 hours for its Cloud Alpha Wireless.
But even at 40 hours, it isn’t easy to verify the data. With such values, a different source device, a separate volume or even another content can lead to deviating measurements – which can significantly change the battery performance and ultimately make differences in the range of hours. However, even if the values stated by Turtle Beach are not fully achieved, the power storage should be sufficient for an entire weekend in most cases.
