Microphone Performance

The bidirectional microphone of the SteelSeries Arctis 5 was tested by connecting it to the Asus ROG STRIX X99 Gaming motherboard. It uses an integrated sound card with Realtek's ALC1150 audio codec, including a number of software tweaks for suppressing ambient noise and adding various effects. All of this has been turned off for this test in order to obtain the microphone's raw, unmodified sound. I also used an external USB sound card, Creative's cheap Sound Blaster E1 ($42), and again turned off all the software features that could affect the sound of the microphone.

To review the microphone's sound and to compare it to similar headsets, I used the Adam A7X speakers and Shure SRH840 headphones, them being studio monitors, connected to Audiolab's M-DAC, a high-quality digital-to-analog converter that functions as an external sound card when connected to a PC. Testing was done in Discord, TeamSpeak, Skype, and Audacity, and I also used Audacity to record sound from the microphone. The sound was recorded with microphone sensitivity set to 100% and was not post-processed or edited in any way.

For reference, this voice recording has been made with Rode NT-USB, a high-quality studio microphone:



This is the sound recorded by using the bidirectional microphone the SteelSeries Arctis 5 is supplied with:



This is definitely one of the better-sounding microphones attached to a gaming headset I have run across in my career thus far. As you can hear, the voice is very clear and has a certain amount of depth to it, and I didn't have any trouble with popping, crackling or anything of the sort, while recording voiceovers, streaming via Twitch and YouTube, or simply talking to my friends. It does, however, have a bit of a buzz when the sensitivity is set to 100%, which you can hear just before I start talking or in the quiet parts of the recorded sample. If you can't hear it, it means your volume isn't high enough or your speakers/headphones simply aren't precise enough to be able to reproduce it properly.

The supplied sound card is to be blamed for that. How can I be sure? Because I tried to connect the headset to a different, external USB sound card (the $50 Creative Sound Blaster E1) and the noise was gone. Take a listen:



Luckily, you can get rid of the buzzing noise with the supplied USB sound card by reducing the microphone sensitivity to about 70%. When set up like that, the microphone will still be loud enough for everything you might need it for. Here's a clip recorded with the sensitivity set to 70%:



Just for kicks, I also connected the Arctis 5 to the integrated sound card and recorded the microphone in that scenario. The amount of noise picked up from my PC is staggering, but that's something you'll almost always struggle with if an integrated sound card is used. You definitely shouldn't use the Arctis 5 that way, nor will you have to - you'll use the USB connection.



For comparison, let's take a listen of a couple of other headsets that fall into the $80-$150 price bracket. Do keep in mind that the microphone quality you hear in the samples where the headset has been plugged into an external sound card can only be achieved if you actually buy one, which will set you back another $50.














The bidirectional microphone built into the SteelSeries Arctis 5 beats all of them, especially in terms of voice dynamics. What should you do with the aforementioned buzzing noise, how will it affect you? Let's put it this way: If you don't use the headset for streaming or voiceovers, forget about it, it won't affect you at all. My friends I talked to over Discord and TeamSpeak never mentioned it all, even after I directly asked them about it - they simply didn't hear it. However, it was clearly audible when I streamed my gameplay over Twitch, which is a situation where the microphone is active all the time.

In case it does bother you, there are two ways you can help yourself: Try reducing the microphone's sensitivity to approximately 70% - you'll get rid of it almost completely without the microphone becoming too quiet to be able to use properly. Of course, there's always the option of grabbing an external USB sound card too. Do keep in mind that you'll have to use the analogue connection with a sound card other than the supplied one, so in that case, you won't be able to use the RGB lighting or any of the features of the SteelSeries Engine 3 software. Personally, I wouldn't be bothered by that, but perhaps you would be, so it's definitely worth mentioning.

As SteelSeries points out in one of their interesting blog posts (do read it if you're interested in widening your theoretical knowledge regarding microphones - it's not your usual PR drivel), a bidirectional microphone needs to be placed very close to the mouth to sound good, and it blocks out a lot of environmental noise when positioned properly. If you need even more noise cancellation, there's a feature in the driver that can help you with that, called "Noise Reduction". It works best for the noises that don't oscillate too much in frequency, but I recorded two samples where you can hear what it does to the sounds of a mechanical keyboard and a mouse.