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Looking for a new pair of headphones - wired or wireless - that offer great sound and have a built-in microphone? Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ reviews two gamer headphones, the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2 and the Roccat ELO 7.1 USB PC, to compare and see how they both work for games and regular computer usage. Video includes audio recording samples and lots of close-ups, along with commentary on what's great about the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2 wireless gamer headphones and what's not so great, along with his assessment of the Roccat ELO 7.1 USB wired gamer headphones to.
Check 'em on Amazon too:
Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2: https://amzn.to/34oQnTV
Roccat ELO 7.1 USB PC: https://amzn.to/2HtxXsz
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0:00
Wired or wireless, these are some great gaming headsets
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Let's check them out. Oh, oh, oh, oh
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Oh, Dave Taylor here. Sorry, Dave Taylor here, and I'm checking out some gamer headsets
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Now, when I started looking at gamer headsets, I thought, all right, they're going to be tuned for games, but overall, like, for music or anything else, they're probably not going to sound that good
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Boy, was I wrong. I have two headsets from two different brands of the same company, Turtle Beach
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If you're a gamer, you know this brand because they have a great reputation and deservedly so
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So, first off, I have these. These are the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2 Amplified Wireless headset
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So it revolves around this tiny little USB transmitter that is USB 3 and you plug it into whatever device
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you want, frankly. So this one goes into my PC, but you can also hook it up to, for example
1:06
the back of the Nintendo Switch base unit has USB, so you can plug it into that. You can plug it
1:13
into your PS4 or your PS5 when you get one. And PC Mac, even Android with the Android adapter
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So, and that adapter comes with your Android phone. I'm not talking about something from Turtle Beach
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So this particular model is super portable and super flexible. This is the PS4 model
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They also have an Xbox model that's designed more specifically for the Xbox
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but rumor has it you can use it on a PC too. Still, this is the one that I really like
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It's really fun, and it's really remarkably affordable. But the thing is, is that it has a lot of really nice smarts in it
1:50
But let's start with the driver, because the speakers, obviously that's the key
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on any of these sort of headphones, and they sound really good. There's a big, full bass
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and if you just want to listen to music, I was streaming Spotify, and boy, it sounded mighty good
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far better than you think from the price point. But obviously, it gives you a very spatial
2:12
or directional audio too, which is critical for gaming. So if you're playing and someone's sneaking up behind you
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you want to have the directionality of that audio, and both of these headsets are designed for just that
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You charge these, via USBC. It has a 15-hour battery life. They're all designed to be glasses friendly. So if you
2:32
have to wear glasses and you want to wear headphones, you're not going to actually be fighting
2:36
back and forth. They are actually rather remarkably comfortable. And once you put them on
2:42
it's a very immersive and very sort of barrier against all the ambient noise around you
2:48
which is nice. And you want to talk. You flip the microphone. It is a little bit adjustable
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And now the microphone will be working. And if I want to mute it, I just do that
3:00
And it automatically is muted. How simple is that, right? One of those great bits of UI that every device should have
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There's a ton of controls on the ear cup. Let's have a close-up because there's so much going on
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So we have USBC for charging. We have power on off. The mode button to switch modes
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And then you have microphone volume and headphones volume. So they have a built-in amplifier, so if you want to really jam that music in your ears, you can do that too
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And no one else will know. So really like these. And then the little tiny gizmo, you plug that in, and you're ready to rock and roll
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So I thought hmm I happen to have this gateway PC that I been reviewing So I going to plug it in open up the PC and then I thought you could get a sample of the audio from this microphone So I going to turn it on I going to log in get these headphones on my head
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And then I'm going to go into voice recorder. So now with voice recorder, once it's established its connection, usually takes a couple of seconds
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But then we can actually, I'll cut to the audio of the computer recording off of the microphone
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so you can hear what that sounds like. And let's see if we're going to get this to connect
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And really the first thing you want to do on your PC is you want to go into sound and sound settings
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And as you can see here, you want to make sure that both your speakers or headphones
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and your microphone are set to Turtle Beach. And that being the case, we are ready to rock and roll
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So now I'm going to switch. And this is the audio that's being recorded on the PC
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instead of the audio from my microphone hooked up to my video camera
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So you should hear it sounds pretty darn nice. There's nothing to complain about here
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So great. Now let's go ahead and let me tell you a little bit more about the sound
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because usually I talk about sound stage and all of that sort of stuff
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So let's do that. These are actually really nice sounding headphones. You will be very happy
5:11
They are bass heavy. So if you want to listen to someone speaking
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You're going to get a lot of the sort of bass rumble of their voice
5:19
Nothing unpleasant, but it's definitely different from like little earbuds or something
5:23
This is a full solid sound. And if you listen to EDM or something, you're going to really dig these headphones, even if you're not a gamer
5:30
And of course, one of the really big use cases for these nowadays is these are great for things like Zoom or FaceTime or Microsoft Meet or Google Hangouts or anything like that
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You know, any way that you're doing like a video chat or something with this hooked up to my computer
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I can actually be the only one that hears the conversation. And when I talk, they hear me, but no one else around me necessarily has to hear me particularly a lot
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And I don't have to yell to be able to actually be heard. And I have that much greater level of privacy
6:04
So from the perspective of video conferencing, these are really cool. But fundamentally, they're really nice sound
6:12
They have a big sound stage, not as much as these, but we'll get to those in a second
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But there's a lot going on that make these sound terrific and make your music sound really good
6:22
Now, a couple of limitations. Number one, as you saw perhaps, the USB dongle is actually not exactly to spec, I don't think
6:33
or maybe it's the gateway, but this was a little hard to get in and out of the connection, which was a little annoying
6:39
I tried it on multiple devices. Everything else seems to work fine, so in fact, it's probably the gateway, but I've never had that issue before, and I've plugged other things into here without any issues
6:48
So it might just be that it's right on the very edge. And the range is okay
6:54
Now, realistically, you're probably going to be using this all while you're in the same room, so it's not like you're going to be wandering off to four bedrooms away or, you know, to go and, I don't know, go mow the lawn while you're still listening to your friend's chat
7:07
So I didn't find it had a lot of range. It suggests that it's probably a Bluetooth 4 dot something instead of Bluetooth 5
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But if you're in the same room, it works perfectly well. It's entirely functional
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So only thing left to talk about is the price. But before we get to the price, I want to talk about these
7:24
And then I'll tell you the price of both of these at the same time. So now let's switch to these other headphones
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These are a little different. They're from the same company, Turtle Beach, but it's from a different brand
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This is the RoCat E USB PC And these are super fun too And one of the things that makes them fun is they actually have a light up LED on the side I show you in a second
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But they are wired. They are not wireless now for many people they actually prefer wired and it is a really nice long eight foot cable and
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it is the same USB 3.0 plug that we saw on the adapter for this and it's just a really nice design
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It's a thick braided cable. This feels like it's going to last hundreds of years
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Probably longer than your devices will. And so I'm going to plug it in
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And that one goes right in, so no issues there. And what's really interesting about these
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is that obviously it's a different design, but the microphone is actually a separate thing
8:33
that you plug in if you want to use it. So you can just use these as an end
8:37
as an amplified wired headphones and that'll work just fine but you can also
8:44
plug in the microphone and there's a jack here plug in the right piece and now I
8:49
have it and it's ready to go so now I can do this and I'm ready to talk and
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everything there's no actual you know flip up to mute like with the other ones but
9:00
this actually might be much more functional for a lot of people it does also
9:05
have a ton of controls on the side and it has a mute button. So it's easy enough to push the button
9:11
And then you have microphone volume and you have headphones volume. And again, there's an
9:17
amp built into the headphones. So if you want to really jam it, you can definitely jam it
9:23
These feature 50 millimeter neodymium drivers. And it's a 7.1 surround sound decode
9:30
which is where these get really fun. So this gives you surround sound. So if you thought
9:35
these had a directional and spatial audio. This just goes one better. And even if you're not playing a game
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it's going to give you this huge soundstage. It's really 7.1 is what like really good TV soundbars do
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And all of that is being decoded in your headphones. It's not just stereo. It's giving you that
9:56
difference and that sort of spatial sense. And it's really pretty remarkable. So on ear controls
10:02
glass is friendly, detachable microphone. The plug is, as I said, USB3.0. It is not 3.5 millimeter. You cannot
10:12
plug it into, for example, your wireless controller for your PS4 or your Xbox, right? Actually, I don't know about the PS4
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but for the Xbox controller, you need a 3.5 millimeter. This is not that unit. This is really aimed to be a PC
10:27
headphone and of course since we're doing this let's go ahead and open up the
10:32
gateway again and by the way do check out my gateway review because I've had a lot of
10:38
fun with this okay so first off now let's watch that RGB you know do you need this
10:44
is this mission critical no is it really fun absolutely I mean who wouldn't want
10:51
these what a fun sort of thing to be able to have on your headphones is this sort of RGB lighting but more importantly
10:57
Let's go ahead and let me give you a sample of the microphone, because this one also has an excellent microphone, and it is even more inexpensive
11:06
So, first off, I'm going to go back to sound and make sure that we don't have the old one
11:11
So I'm going to go ahead and put these on, and I should be listening to music, but I'm not
11:17
Instead, I'm going to go over to recording, and this is, again, the Windows built-in voice recorder, and we're just going to start recording, and I've switched now to the audio that this microphone
11:27
is feeding and I just letting the PC do the recording And so you can hear you know it actually pretty darn impressive And it is such an enclosed environment that it really gives me a lot of acoustic shielding which is nice
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I mean, it's not active noise canceling, but you definitely have a sense of being isolated from the world around you
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which a lot of people would like to have right now. So I'm going to stop and switch back
11:56
And now, not much else to tell you about these things. They sound fantastic
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I mean, they really sound good. I thought that the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 sounded good
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until I put these on. And these, especially, if I may say so
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if I unplug the microphone because I don't need it, then these are just entirely credible headphones
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And these would be perfectly fine for really any context. You could use these with your Mac, with your PC
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You know, you can use them with anything that has that USB3 connection
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It is wired, it's an eight foot wire. You know, really lovely sound
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I was really startled by the sound, particularly at the price. So that gets us to the price
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So let's talk about the price. But before I get to the price of both these units, let me ask if I can ask you
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that was a little redundant, but let me ask you to subscribe to my channel
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So it's that little red button on the lower right, just click or tap on it and boom, you're subscribed
12:55
Thank you. Cool. Now, let's start with these. These are the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2 Amplified Wireless headphones
13:05
and they come in this beautiful white or in black, if you prefer black
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And they are 9995 at Amazon.com. Entirely reasonable price for these wireless headphones
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And then there's these, which are the RoCat, ELO 7.1 USB. And now let me just sort of slow down a little bit here
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because there's three models of the ELO. There's the ELO Air, which is the same basic headphones
13:33
but then they're wireless, and those are 8599. And then they have the RoCat ELO X stereo
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and that takes away the groovy RGB, gives you a five-foot cable instead of an eight-foot cable
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and that's only 49-99. Okay? What about these? These are the RoCat, ELO
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7.1 USB PC gamer headphones with detachable mic, and they are 699 at Amazon.com
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And I just want to say, if you're just looking for really nice headphones, these are a solid
14:11
option. And the fact that you can plug in a microphone and use that too when you need to
14:16
is just a great bonus. Would it be nice for that to have a fold-up option? Well, I guess you can
14:22
kind of fold it up and keep it out of the way if you so want. But by the same token
14:26
it would be really nice if on these headphones there was some sneaky little compartment
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And there might be one and I haven't found it, but some little sneaky compartment that you can hold the little dongle and then keep it there
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So when you tote these around or bring these to your friends, then you don't lose the dongle
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So, you know, a little bit of tweaky engineering. But overall, much to like and much to be impressed by
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And honestly, I become an instant fan of Turtle Beach gear. These are just really nice
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And with that, I hate to say it. Well, actually, I don't need to say it, but I'm going back to my music, which means I'll catch you in my next video
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