Software

SteelSeries Engine 3 is the software package that comes along with the Arctis 7. As soon as you install it, it will check for any remaining software or headset firmware updates and make sure you're up-to-date with everything.


The user interface is easy on the eyes, very responsive, and simple to use. If you turn the "Live Preview" switch, located on the bottom of the window, to "On", everything you do in the driver will be applied to the headset right away without you having to press "Save". This is pretty nice, especially if you plan to play with the equalizer, as you'll be able to play your songs and hear the effect of the changes right away.

As far as sound settings go, we first have the surround sound trigger and its sound profiles. Turn this option off unless you want to completely ruin everything that's to be liked about the Arctis 7. Then we have a general system-wide equalizer where you'll be able to tune the way the headset sounds. It's interesting to see that it was changed slightly in one of the recent updates in that it now allows you to fiddle with slightly adjusted frequency ranges. Before, we had the option to adjust the 62.5 Hz, 250 Hz, 1 kHz, 3.6 kHz, and 12 kHz regions. Now, that's changed to 64 Hz, 180 Hz, 500 Hz, 1.4 kHz, 3.9 kHz, and 11 kHz.

In other words, one additional frequency range was added, and we got increased control of the bass (180 Hz) and low midrange (500 Hz), which earlier wasn't adjustable at all. Even though I suggest you stick with the Flat profile, you can gain a bit of extra kick to your music by manually setting the equalizer (left to right) to +3, +1.5, -1.5, -1.5, +1 and +1 dB - or something close to that if your ears find it more to their liking. Other available sound presets are Performance, Immersion, Entertainment, Music, and Voice.

I can't tell you which one to pick, as those I prefer won't necessarily be to your liking. Simply play your favorite music, play with the equalizer, and see what you like. Keep away from the Voice preset, though, as it completely kills the bass and emphasizes the mid- and high-range. This can be useful if you want to articulate someone's voice, but under no circumstances did I have trouble understanding someone or hearing the vocals in the music I was listening to.

The last sound setting is called Dynamic Range Compression. This is yet another setting you should keep turned off as it does exactly what it says - it compresses the dynamics of the audio. It crushes the variance between quieter and louder parts of whatever is playing, but that's not something you should aim to do because music producers and game developers go to great lengths to make their products sound as dynamic and lively as possible.

Then we have the microphone section. Here you can turn on Live Mic Preview, an option that will play the sound picked up by the microphone through the headphones with about a 0.5 second delay. It's there so you can check on how you sound - don't use it for anything else.

We also have the Mic Volume and Mic Sidetone sliders. The first one determines the sensitivity of the microphone. That Mic Sidetone slider is essentially a microphone-monitoring feature. When you turn it on, it will quietly play the sound of your own voice through the headphones, but with no delay. It can be extremely useful if you're one of those people who find it annoying to chat while wearing closed-back headphones. They make it harder for you to hear your own voice and can cause you to sound nasal and talk louder than necessary. By adjusting the Mic Sidetone slider, you basically make the Arctis 7 behave like it was open-back in that you'll be able to hear yourself much better and won't sound weird to your friends. I suggest going for the Low or Medium setting. When set to High, it picked up the sounds of my mechanical keyboard, which annoyed me a bit.


You can save your settings to multiple configuration profiles and can even make them automatically launch when starting a certain application.

Overall, the SteelSeries Engine 3 is a great piece of software. It offers various useful settings, is not bloated with needless features, and is a pleasure to use.