Closer Examination, Build Quality, and Comfort

In terms of design, build quality, and comfort, the SteelSeries Arctis 9 Wireless is for the most part identical to the Arctis 7, which is why I can only rehash what I wrote in my Arctis 7 review and point out a few differences that are specific to the Arctis 9 Wireless.


Like any other gaming headset from the Arctis lineup, the Arctis 9 Wireless is instantly recognizable in its simplicity. SteelSeries went with a simple black color scheme with subtle decorative white details on the elastic headband, and the company's logo. The main headband is made out of steel and feels both incredibly sturdy and luxurious.


The secondary, elastic headband is the one touching the top of your head. Its tightness can be adjusted slightly by using the Velcro strap. It does a good job of evenly distributing the weight of the Arctis 9 Wireless and makes the headset exceptionally comfortable to wear.


The shape of the ear cushions is elliptical (their inner dimensions are 5 by 6.5 centimeters), and they completely surround the ears. SteelSeries covered them with a fabric used to make running shirts, which makes them as soft and breathable as possible. Thanks to that, they're superbly comfortable and much less likely to cause your ears to sweat during prolonged gaming sessions.


The ear cups have been given a fine rubber-like finish and feel very nice to the touch. They can be rotated up to 90° inwards, which makes resting the headset on a table top or hanging it around the neck easy. The joints that make it possible are smooth and silent. It would be lovely if they were also made out of metal, but the plastic SteelSeries used for the joints and ear cups feels very robust.


The right ear cup is the much busier one as far as integrated controls go. On its rear, sitting behind and above your right ear, is a smooth volume dial, as well as a microphone mute button. I find the volume dial far too sensitive, as small adjustments change the volume to a greater extent than expected. This requires some getting used to. The microphone mute button is pleasantly clicky. SteelSeries provided us with multiple ways of finding out if the microphone is active or not; you'll hear two differently sounding "beeps" dependent on its on or off state, may feel the position of the button under your thumb (if popped out, the microphone is muted), and see a bright red LED integrated into the head of the microphone—when on, the microphone is muted.


The right ear cup also contains the power and Bluetooth buttons with a small LED in-between. The power button is used to turn the headset on and off. When on, it will try to pair to its 2.4 GHz wireless dongle. You can initiate the Bluetooth connectivity manually by pressing the corresponding button—the Arctis 9 Wireless will immediately connect to a familiar Bluetooth sound source in its vicinity, such as your phone. Bluetooth mode can activate itself when the headset is turned on if you want it to behave that way. This can be adjusted in the SteelSeries Engine 3 software driver. Once a Bluetooth connection has been established, the Bluetooth button can also be used to play/pause music (single press), skip to the next song (double press), go back to the previous one (triple press), and answer or drop phone calls (single press). These two buttons have a different shape, so it's possible to tell them apart simply by touch. The power button is convex, while the Bluetooth one is concave. The color of the LED between the Power and Bluetooth buttons changes based on remaining battery life. If green, the battery charge sits somewhere between 50%–100%. Yellow means it's down to 20%–49%, and red indicates that it's currently between 10%–19%. If it's red and blinking rapidly, you have about 1%–9% of left and should start charging the headset.


There are two ports on the right ear cup. The Micro-USB port—I sincerely hope they completely move to USB-C this year—is used for battery charging and firmware updates. It has no other functionality, so you can't use the Arctis 9 Wireless as a USB headset, though you can charge and use it wirelessly at the same time. The 3.5-millimeter jack is wired as an audio output. You can connect the Arctis 9 Wireless to any wired sound source and get it to play sounds in passive mode even when its battery is depleted, but its microphone won't work. I'd say SteelSeries added this port "just in case." They'd like for you to stick to wireless usage, which becomes even more obvious when you take into consideration that an audio cable isn't supplied in the box. They even call it a "Headphone Share Jack," which means you can connect a wired pair of headphones and listen to whatever's playing on the Arctis 9 Wireless. I cannot fathom who would want to use it that way.


The dial on the left ear cup is the so-called ChatMix Dial. It's a clever little feature that lets you adjust the volume ratio between the game you're playing and the voice app you're currently using to communicate with your teammates. Turn it one way and the game will become louder and your friends quieter. Turn it the other way and the opposite will happen. If you leave it in its middle position, into which it subtly clicks into (awesome implementation as you'll never wonder if you adjusted the balance properly), it basically won't do anything; the sound balance will be like you're not using the ChatMix Dial at all. What sorcery is being used and how does this thing manage to do what it does? It's actually quite simple. When connected to your PC (ChatMix isn't supported on consoles), the Arctis 9 Wireless appears as two separate devices in Windows. One is called "SteelSeries Arctis 9 Chat" and the other "SteelSeries Arctis 9 Game." All you have to do is make the SteelSeries Arctis 9 Game your default playback device before firing up your voice chat app of choice (Discord, TeamSpeak, Skype, etc.), going into its audio settings, and selecting SteelSeries Arctis 9 Chat as the preferred playback device. By doing so, you essentially tell your OS that you use one device for voice playback and a different for playback of other sounds. The OS doesn't care that both sounds are played through the same physical device.

With all that in mind, the ChatMix Dial simply adjusts the volume ratio between what it sees as two separate playback devices. Do keep in mind that it doesn't increase or lower the absolute volume level of the sound—it just changes the volume ratio between two "devices." To adjust the volume, you still need to use the appropriate dial on the right ear cup. ChatMix Dial is one of those things you don't realize you need until you get it. It's fantastically useful, and I truly enjoyed the practicality it offered me in my everyday virtual warfare. I'm absolutely positive I'm going to miss it on other headsets, and that's as big of a compliment as I can give it.


As I've already mentioned, the built-in bidirectional microphone affixed to a rubberized arm is retractable. You can pull it out and push it back in with absolute ease using one hand. Not once did it get stuck when I was retracting it or fell out of its resting place when I didn't want it to. Owing to the way its arm is made, it also stays exactly where you put it.


When the microphone is muted, the red LED built into its head will light up. It's not too distracting, but remains very visible when activate, so you'll have no trouble figuring out if the microphone is muted or not.


The hockey puck-shaped wireless dongle blends into its surroundings nicely. The SteelSeries logo is etched into its top, and on the bottom, you'll find a PC/PlayStation switch with the "Connect" button next to it. You'll use this button if the headset does for some reason lose its connection to the dongle.


On the front of the dongle is a wide LED that glows solid white when a connection between the headset and dongle has been established, but it continuously blinks when the headset is turned off and disconnected. Since I've kept the dongle below my monitor, in my field of view, I found this behavior somewhat annoying. I'd prefer it if the LED would stay off when the headset is not being used. On the rear are two 3.5-millimeter audio ports, an auxiliary input marked as "Game In" and a line output marked as "Line Out." The Game In port can be used to play sound from an external source, while the Line Out port is what you'll use to connect the wireless dongle to a pair of active speakers to have them play the sound whenever the headset is off. As soon as you power it on, the Line Out port mutes, and the sound coming from your PC automatically starts playing through your headset. Nice!


The 1-meter long, rubberized cable extruding from the wireless dongle terminates in an angled USB connector.