This $399 SteelSeries headset works on every platform: I tested it for a month to see if it's worth your cash

The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni is the successor to 2022’s fantastic Arctis Nova Pro. The reasoning behind adding the ‘Omni’ bit is twofold: the new headset now packs an omnidirectional microphone, but it also works on every major platform.

Now, the technical challenge of making an all-platform headset is not to be sniffed at. Gaming headsets typically come in either Xbox or PlayStation guise, due to lots of proprietary software nonsense (mostly from Microsoft) — malarkey that SteelSeries has managed to negotiate its way around.

Creating a worthy successor to the Nova Pro would’ve no doubt been a little easier. While old, the Pro is a fantastic gaming headset that still holds up today, so SteelSeries didn’t have to do much. It changed the mic, widened the connectivity, tweaked the drivers and added a little of the Nova Elite’s polish. Voilà.

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So, is this one of the best gaming headsets out there? Certainly. Keep reading my full SteelSeries Arctis Nova Omni review to find out more.

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A premium gaming headset and successor to the original Arctis Nova Pro
• What does it cost? Quite a bit: $399 / £349
• Who is it for? Competitive and/or multi-platform gamers who value sound quality
• What’s good? The sound, connectivity options, comfort, new mic and ‘zero-downtime’ battery
• What’s not? The ANC isn’t as good as SteelSeries says, and it’s pricey

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni review: Specs

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni review: The ups

From the excellent sound quality to the reams of control, plenty of connectivity options, and comfortable design, there’s a lot I love about the Arctis Nova Omni.

Killer sound quality

Obviously, the most important thing about any gaming headset is how it sounds when gaming. Thankfully, the Nova Pro Omni has sound quality in buckets, sporting 96K / 24-bit hi-res audio over Wi-Fi.

It lacks the carbon fiber drivers of the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite, but the neodymium drivers have been re-tuned from the Arctis Nova Pro for tighter bass response. Bass is indeed nice and punchy — the booms of explosions in Isonzo and the rumbles of tanks in Hell Let Loose all sounded powerful and frightening, with no distortion perceptible. You won’t get that stomach-quivering sub bass as you would from a subwoofer, but if that’s what you’re after, I’d advise the SteelSeries Arena 9 speaker system.

There’s a decent amount of mid-range resolution, with satisfying mechanical clicks and clacks to reloads in Hell Let Loose, and a thrumming timbre to car engine noise in Forza Horizon 5.

The Nova Pro Omni’s treble is impressively light and airy, giving bags of fine detail. Combined with strong spatial imaging, this helps you pinpoint enemy footsteps. I was able to hear enemies walking and reloading in Counter-Strike 2, which was enough to score me a few kills I wouldn’t otherwise have got. In Isonzo, I was able to precisely track an enemy snaking through a trench behind and around me, helping me get the jump on them and score a kill.

The sound quality makes the Nova Pro Omni pretty good for music, too. I tested the headset using my usual audio testing playlist on Qobuz, the best music streaming service for audiophiles, and had no complaints — I’d rather put $399 into the Omni than overpriced premium headphones like the $449 Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen II.

Listen along to my audio testing playlist on Qobuz.

Bags of control

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As with SteelSeries’ other high-end headsets, the Nova Pro Omni comes with a desktop USB DAC/hub. This serves as a wired connection hub, but it’s also the primary way to control your headset on-the-fly, letting you quickly adjust EQ (including a custom EQ profile), ANC and microphone settings as you game.

For more in-depth control, the SteelSeries GG app is perfect. In GG, you get greater customization over audio and mic EQ, including per-game audio presets to help you tailor your sound to individual titles. GG is slick, reliable and delivers genuine performance enhancements, and I much prefer it to the bloatware from other brands, like Asus’ Armoury Crate.

There’s also Sonar, which is a digital audio interface to mix game audio, mic, stream and chat levels. I don’t have much use for Sonar, as I’m not a streamer and only need to monitor audio and mic levels. But it’ll be a handy tool for any streaming newbies who haven’t got the cash yet to invest in a more advanced audio interface

Wide compatibility

It’s great to see the advent of headsets that are compatible with both consoles from the two main troublemakers, Microsoft and Sony. If you own both consoles, with the Arctis Nova Omni, you won’t need to buy two headsets for switching between. The Omni can be used with both, plus Switch, PC (obviously) and a host of other platforms.

The USB-C DAC/hub is also handy here as you can plug in 3x devices for high-res Wi-Fi sound, then keep a final fourth channel for Bluetooth. You also have access to a fifth wired channel, giving a massive array of connected devices.

Effortless comfort

We always say the same thing about every Arctis Nova headset: that they’re super comfortable. They all use the same suspended headstrap, but it’s a winning formula, making the headset feel weightless and effortlessly comfortable.

It’s much preferable to the classic single padded band of headsets like the Fractal Design Scape, and miles better than Audeze’s suspended headband design, found on the Audeze Maxwell 1, Maxwell 2 and Maxwell 2 ANC. The Maxwell’s headband has very limited adjustment, meaning I have to wear it lop-sided as I fall between two levels. The Nova Pro Omni, meanwhile, can be adjusted using both the headband and earcup sliders, so I can get the fit just right.

The Nova Pro Omni’s earcups are thickly padded, using the same memory foam and vegan leather as Nova Elite. By the time I’m writing this, I’m several hours into a testing and writing session with the Nova Pro Omni, and feel no need to take them off.

SteelSeries has also tweaked the position/shape of the ANC mic near the headphone driver, to ensure it doesn’t rub on your helix — clearly a frequent-enough complaint to force a change. I’ve never had this issue, but everyone’s ear anatomy is different, so it’s nice to see the brand taking steps to address it.

Premium construction

I like that the Nova Pro Omni looks and feels almost exactly like the Nova Elite. The Nova Pro was nearly there, to be fair — the only real difference is that the volume wheel now uses the same metal as the Nova Elite, instead of the tacky plastic wheel on the Nova Pro (the same wheel as the cheaper SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 Gen 2).

Generally, this feels like a very premium headset, and a step up over the Nova 7 Gen 2. Admittedly, though, I don’t think any SteelSeries headset can quite match the high-quality materials and sleek scandi styling of the Fractal Design Scape.

No downtime

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Just like its siblings, the Nova Pro Omni features SteelSeries’ "Infinite Power System.” That’s a rather hyperbolic way of saying it comes with two batteries, one of which charges in the USB hub while you use the other in the headset.

Hyperbole or otherwise, I always love this system, as it means virtually no downtime if you’ve forgotten to charge your headset the night before a long gaming session. SteelSeries promises up to 30 hours from each battery, although mileage will naturally vary and you can expect a drop with ANC on. With ANC on and streaming over WiFi, four hours of constant use ate up around 20% battery, equating to 20 hours extrapolated.

Of course, for home use, as long as the spare battery charges faster than the in-use one drains (which it does), the specific number of hours doesn’t really matter. But it’s nice that you can get decent life out of the headset if you need to take it out and about.

Upgraded mic

The Arctis Nova Omni features a new microphone — now an omnidirectional mic (hence the name). This replaces the bi-directional mic on the original Nova Pro, and is similar to the omnidirectional mic on the Nova Elite.

The change is intended to provide a more natural timbre to your voice by picking up a wider array of vocal tones. Interestingly, it has a wider frequency pickup range than the Nova Elite’s omnidirectional mic — so, technically, vocals will sound better on the Omni. The downside is that the omnidirectional mic will pick up other voices around you (in testing, it picked up my colleague’s voice), but that’s not a big issue if you’re gaming alone.

I think the mic sounds pretty good. As you can hear in the recording above, my voice sounds clear, with a rich and natural tone in the flat EQ. Unfortunately, most of the Omni’s mic EQs aren’t worth bothering with. The Broadcast Low, Deep Voice and Balanced EQs just made me sound boomy. The Less Nasal preset worked fairly well (guess I have a nasal voice, then), but honestly, I’d just stick to the basic Flat EQ profile.

While it doesn’t quite pip the Audeze Maxwell 2’s mic, the Nova Pro Omni will be a solid choice for most gamers and amateur streamers. For anyone taking streaming seriously, though, I’d advise a higher-quality standalone mic like the Shure MV6 ($149), Shure MV7+ ($279) or Shure MV7i ($349).

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni review: The downs

The Arctis Nova Omni isn’t perfect. The ANC is OK, but only that, so it’d be remiss of me not to call out the overhyped marketing. Otherwise, it’s just a bit pricey, and I have little else to say against it.

Overhyped ANC

I admit I’m a little spoiled when it comes to ANC, owning and testing some of the best noise-cancelling headphones around. My standards are pretty high. The beef I have with SteelSeries’ recent ANC systems (here and on the Nova Elite) isn’t that they’re terrible; it’s that they’re marketed as being incredible when in actuality they’re decidedly mediocre. The same claim is being made for the Nova Pro Omni as was made about the Nova Elite: that the ANC will cut out the noise of a helicopter.

A. Frickin’. Helicopter.

As with the Nova Elite, the Nova Pro Omni’s ANC could barely cut out basic office sounds: my colleague playing music through her laptop speakers; people talking around me; keyboard noise; traffic outside the window. I’m pretty sure choppers are louder than all that. And even if this is a frequency-specific issue, I have beef with that, too — frankly, I don’t give a damn if a headset can cut the sound of a helicopter, because I’m never gaming on a heli pad. I need it to cut out, oh, say… music, voices, traffic and keyboard noise.

Like I said, the Omni’s ANC isn’t bad. It still reduces a fair amount of noise, and some ANC is better than none. It’s just not the powerhouse ANC that SteelSeries is telling you. Not in my experience.

As I write this, I’m about to test the Nova Omni’s main competitor, the Maxwell 2 ANC. Audeze also claims to have ‘class-leading’ ANC (and proof of it, apparently), so it’s not like SteelSeries is the only one hamming things up here. We’ll see.

Kinda spenny

Credit where credit is due: SteelSeries has priced the Nova Pro Omni in line with its key rival, the $429 Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC. I was a little flabbergasted by the price of the $599 Nova Elite, but the Nova Pro Omni shows SteelSeries has at least re-entered planet Earth.

To any other manufacturer, the Nova Pro Omni would be a flagship. Its sound quality, while not quite rivalling the super tight response of the Maxwell’s planar magnetic drivers, is nevertheless excellent, and it boasts all the goodies aforementioned. Aside from the carbon drivers of the Nova Elite, the Nova Pro Omni is basically just as good as the top model, and at $200 cheaper, makes much more sense.

Objectively, though, $399 is a lot of cash to drop on a headset. If you’re on a budget, I’m afraid this headset isn’t for you. Instead, check out the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5 ($129), Arctis Nova 7 Gen 2 ($199), or the older Arctis Nova Pro (usually around $229 these days).

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni review: Verdict

The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni is a Goldilocks headset. The Nova Pro is by now kinda old and a little limited, while the flagship Nova Elite is simply too pricey. The Nova Omni fits in nicely between the two, offering a blend of sound quality, gaming performance and price. I love the wide connectivity options and attention paid to the new mic, plus SteelSeries’ usual effortless comfort.

Sure, the Omni isn’t totally perfect. I’m a supreme skeptic of the ANC claims, given my personal experience with the headset. And it ain’t exactly cheap. But the ANC isn’t terrible, and top-tier products simply cost money, so both of those are fairly minor quibbles. If I had to choose only one headset from SteelSeries’ lineup to live with, it’d be the Nova Pro Omni.