SteelSeries Arctis 9X Wireless Gaming Headset Review: Completely Wireless without Dongles and Adaptors

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So SteelSeries brand is one of the greatest headsets in the gaming market. In the SteelSeries brand, there are many good gaming headsets like Arctis 3, Arctis 7, 1st gen, and 2nd gen, and now in this post, I write about SteelSeries Arctis 9X and X stands for Xbox. SteelSeries Arctis 9X is a completely wireless gaming headset that has no dongles or adapters and it will be compatible with the new generation of Xbox series X and Xbox series S. In this blog post, I write about,

If you like gaming headsets, I like to recommend my previous blog post about the 10 Best Wireless Gaming Headsets for Glasses Wearers.

1. SteelSeries Arctis 9X: Price

First of all, let’s check out the price tag of this wireless gaming headset. SteelSeries Arctics 9X is retail at 219$ and you can get it on the SteelSeries Arctis website. SteelSeries Arctics 9X is the main design for the Xbox and this headset is also compatible with PC and mobile phones.

2. SteelSeries Arctis 9X: Full Requirements

• Speaker Size  –  40 mm Neodymium drivers
• Headphone Frequency Response  –  20–20000 Hz
• Sound Output Mode  –  Stereo
• Headphone Volume Control  –  On-Ear Cup
• Headphone Impedance  –  32 Ohm per channel
• Headphone Sensitivity  –  98 dB
• Headphones Form Factor  –  Full size
• Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) –  <3%
• Earpad Material   –  Cloth
• Microphone Frequency Response  –  100–10000 Hz
• Microphone Type  –  Boom Microphone
• Microphone Pattern  –  Bidirectional
• Microphone Impedance  –  2200 Ohm
• Microphone Location  –  Retractable
• Wireless Range   –   20 ft, 6 m
• Battery life    –    20 hours
• Bluetooth version  –  4.1

3. SteelSeries Arctis 9X: Design

SteelSeries Arctis 9X follows the exact same design language with green color from the previous SteelSeries Arctis headsets. This gaming headset also has a simple design and a build quality that does not have flashy RGB colors because these lights just drain the extra battery life. 

Even if it has simple build quality, the materials that are used for the headset are high quality. it’s a mixture of metal around the band at the top and most of the body is made from plastic. So it is given to the headset a premium look and it feels really nice. 

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The earcups can rotate to make it a little bit easier to wear around the neck comfortably when you are not using the headset like Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2 that I review in the previous blog post. So If you want to read it also you can Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2 Wireless Gaming Headset: The most glasses-friendly headset by clicking here. But unfortunately, they do not fold in which is going to make it a little bit more difficult to travel with because it is going to take up more space. 

4. SteelSeries Arctis 9X: Controls

When it comes to the controls, most of the controls are located on the back of the right ear cup. 

Firstly on the right ear cup, we can see the volume slider, mute button of the microphone, Bluetooth pairing button, and we got an indicator LED that shows us by flashing when we are pairing Bluetooth and it also flashes when we power on the headset on it shows us the battery percentage we have left.

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On the left ear cup, the only thing we have on the back of the ear cup is a little scroll wheel that we can use to adjust the balance between the game volume and the party chat volume sound levels. This is also very useful. The retractable microphone is located on the front of the left ear cup.

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5. SteelSeries Arctis 9X: Comfort

SteelSeries Arctics 9X fits perfectly around any ears and any head size. The headset is not too heavy and not too light as well. There are no pressure points anywhere and the top of the headset is just adjusted naturally. 

The top of the headband is surrounded by an elasticated band called as ski goggle suspension design of this headset. because the band itself is elasticated when we wear this it moves and adjusts to the shapes of the top of your head. 

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So this wireless gaming headset is not sliding around or has no strain on our neck even after hours of use. So we can play long gaming sessions without feeling uncomfortable. Even the gamers who wear glasses on still comfortable.

The oval ear pads also are very nice and very breathable with soft sports fabric material. The inside of the earpad has little pleather. 

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JBL Quantum ONE Review – Over-the-Ear ANC Gaming Headphone with Spatial Sound – YDDHub-

6. SteelSeries Arctis 9X: Sound Quality

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• Flat
• Bass Boost
• Smiley
• Performance

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The sound quality of this wireless headset is solid, especially for gaming and it’s always top-notch everything. The sounds are balanced and clean and nothing is overpowering or distorted. Directional audio is also spot-on as well.

When it is gaming, we can easily pick up footsteps around us with explosion sounds and other sounds with this headset. As I mentioned on the controls, there is a slider on the left ear cup to balance the game volume and chat volume. It makes life much easier, so we do not have to go into your console or game settings to balance it.

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7. SteelSeries Arctis 9X: Microphone

The microphone of the SteelSeries Arctis 9X is built into the headphone and it is retractable. If we want to use the microphone, we have to pull it out like a gooseneck design and it is also very easy to adjust into different kinds of positions. 

 

So it is a very nice feature. When you press the mute button on the controls, there is a small red light on the microphone itself that lights up to let you know that you are muted. When the microphone retracts, it will automatically be muted as well. It is also a good feature.

 

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There are two microphone options called wireless microphone sounds and Bluetooth microphone sounds. The wireless microphone sounds have a very clean and impressive sound. Because The Arctis 9X microphone has a bidirectional design for noise Cancelling that is the same one used by aircraft carrier deck crews. I recommend this as one of the best microphones in the wireless headset market. 

 

But when it comes to the Bluetooth microphone sounds over the Bluetooth connection, we can pair it to phone recording. There are major differences between wireless microphone sounds and Bluetooth microphone sounds. We can clearly hear and understand a wireless microphone is better than a Bluetooth microphone. 

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8. SteelSeries Arctis 9X: Battery Life

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• Green Light  – 100% – 50%
• Solid Yellow  –   49% – 20%
• Solid Red     –    19% – 10%
• Blinking Red –      9% –  1%

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9. SteelSeries Arctis 9X: Connections

SteelSeries Arctis 9X hasn’t wireless dongles and adapters and it pairs through Xbox or PC completely wirelessly. SteelSeries Arctis 9X is compatible with the new Xbox series S and Xbox series X gaming consoles as well. 

If we want to connect a brand new controller we have to press the pairing button on the headset and then press and hold the power button. When we hold it down, it will pair within around five seconds. It also turns on the Xbox console when just powering on the headset. That is a great feature of this wireless gaming headset. 

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• When we play games on Xbox and have a pair on a mobile phone, if we get a phone call, we could still take calls and still be playing at the same time with Xbox.
• When playing games, we can balance the audio to talking to our friends well with Discord on our phones.
• We can play music with Spotify from our mobile phones while playing games. 

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10. Summery 

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The sound quality is great and all over wireless with the built-in EQ, we can customize as we want. 20 hours of battery life is awesome as well and when we play with this headset around three to four hours a day gave us throughout the week with a single charge.

There are no adaptors or dongles for connecting. But we can connect the headset to the Xbox or PC within just around 4 or 6 seconds with holding pairing. So this is a fully wireless headset. We also can connect Bluetooth with two devices and balance audio at once with Xbox and phone.

Yes, SteelSeries Arctis 9X is expensive with this price tag. So as I mentioned above in this summary, this is not bad for a high-end premium wireless gaming headset when taken comfortably and with sound quality and. It has plenty of features for this price tag. 

So this is the end of the full review of the SteelSeries Arctis 9X wireless gaming headset. Thank you for reading this article and if you enjoy this blog post please share it with your gaming friends. If you want to read more about gaming articles, stay in tune with us.

Thank you very much!