What does it take to be one of the best cheap gaming headsets? It needs to be comfortable, provide excellent sound and audio profile customization, and be easy to use. If you’re on a budget and don’t want to spend over $100 on a gaming headset, the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 could be the one for you.
For $99, the Stealth 600 Gen 3 offers an impressive array of premium features, making it a compelling choice for casual and competitive gamers seeking quality without breaking the bank. With excellent levels of comfort, immersive audio, great battery life, and mic clarity enhanced by AI, this headset is designed to elevate your gaming experience. But at the sub-$100 price point, this headset suffers from a couple of issues worth pointing out.
Read my Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 review for the full breakdown.
Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 review: Specs
Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 review: Cheat Sheet
- What is it? A budget wireless gaming headset with immersive in-game sound and supreme comfort levels
- Who is it for? For casual and competitive gamers on a budget
- How much does it cost? The Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 is available for $99 / £99
- What do we like? The immersive sound, comfort levels, the AI noise reduction mic, great battery life, and intuitive companion app
- What don’t we like? Controls are cluttered and can feel frustrating, and the sound quality suffers at high volumes
Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 review: The ups
For a sub-$100 gaming headset, the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 packs a lot of premium features, such as immersive audio with SuperHuman Hearing, a comfortable design, a handy AI noise reduction mic, and more.
Very comfortable
When it comes to looks, the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 headset looks and feels more premium than its younger sibling, the Stealth 500 ($79). The leatherette earcups on the Stealth 500 are replaced by memory foam ones, making the Stealth 600 Gen 3 one of the most comfortable headsets I’ve tried so far. Memory foam is more breathable and negates sweat pooling in the earcups as you might experience with leatherette.
The Stealth 600 Gen 3 headset weighs 11.28 ounces, about an ounce heavier than the Stealth 600 Gen 2. The bigger battery and enhanced wireless connectivity probably contribute to this weight. It’s also worth noting the Stealth 600 Gen 3 is much heavier than the Stealth 500 (8.28 ounces). Still, I never felt like I was being weighed down, and I was comfortable wearing the headset for 11 consecutive hours.
Another thing I appreciate about the Stealth 600 Gen 3’s design is that its earcups are adjustable in height, they swivel around, and can be flattened to easily wear around your neck or carry in your backpack. By contrast, the Stealth 500’s earcups are stiff, so it’s good to see that paying an extra $20 carries substantial improvements.
Immersive audio
The Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 is compatible with nearly every platform. You can choose either the PlayStation or the Xbox model, and both will be compatible with PC and a docked Nintendo Switch too. I tested the Stealth 600 Gen 3 with my Switch and my PS5, and the sound quality was excellent on both. Thanks to the 50mm Nanoclear drivers which provide a wider soundstage, the Stealth 600 Gen 3 sounds rich and detailed, and it suffers only at the highest volume (more on that soon).
I adore how Stray sounds through the Stealth 600 Gen 3 — the sounds of that adorable cat purring and scratching are never muffled or overshadowed by the futuristic techno music which transports you into the game. Combine that with the DualSense’s adaptive triggers vibrating when the feline scratches surfaces, and you’ve got yourself a truly immersive experience.
The Stealth 600 Gen 3’s spatial audio really comes into its own in horror games like Alan Wake 2 and The Last of Us Part II Remastered. The creepy sounds in both games add to the eerie environment, and the headset excels at amplifying sounds of you walking over twigs or crunchy leaves — as if these games didn’t terrify me enough already!
The Stealth 600 Gen 3 also has a Superhuman Hearing mode, which essentially amplifies either footsteps or gunshots — both of which are crucial to succeed in stealth-based games — while reducing every other sound. This mode works well in FPS titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Hell Let Loose. I like that Turtle Beach doesn’t restrict such a cool feature to its pro headsets, like the Atlas Air ($179).
AI noise reduction mic
One of the main differences between the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2 and Gen 3 is the mic. We marked the Stealth 600 Gen 2 down for having a subpar mic, and not only has this been fixed in the Gen 3 headset, but it has also been improved upon. While the tuck-away mic remains the same physically — you can move it from side to side slightly but you can’t put it in front of your mouth — the Stealth 600 Gen 3’s mic features AI noise reduction technology.
This fancy new tech reduces background noise and makes you sound clearer on the other end, so you don’t need to worry about the mic not being close enough to your mouth. My brother didn’t report any clarity issues as we played our co-op Baldur’s Gate 3 campaign. I even recorded myself to hear how I sounded, and I was really impressed with the Stealth 600 Gen 3’s mic.
Battery life
As I mentioned before, the bigger battery probably contributes to the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3’s girth. I’m happy to sacrifice a bit of weight for more juice, and the Stealth 600 Gen 3 blows Gen 2 out of the water. Gen 2’s battery lasted for just 15 hours, whereas Turtle Beach claims that the Stealth 600 Gen 3 can last up to 80 hours on a single charge.
This number proved accurate in my testing too, as after about 40 hours of gaming, the battery had dipped to 45%. The more expensive Audeze Maxwell ($299) can last up to 80 hours too, while the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5 lasts only 60 hours. Equipped with Quick Charge technology, charging the Stealth 600 Gen 3 via a 30W USB-A to USB-C adapter for 15 minutes gives you a few hours of playback time, which is very handy!
Companion app
I enjoyed using the Turtle Beach Swarm II companion app for iOS and Android to customize the Stealth 600 Gen 3. The app is intuitive, and you don’t feel bombarded with hundreds of different settings. It lets you choose from four game presets — signature sound, bass boost, bass and treble boost, and vocal boost — and toggle SuperHuman Hearing, change the mic’s settings, and more. The app can’t compare to the one for the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5, but it seriously puts the Audeze Maxwell’s app to shame.
Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 review: The downs
Sadly, the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 fails to fix some of its predecessor’s failings, as it continues to suffer from a cluttered control scheme, and audio quality that sounds piercing at higher volumes.
Cluttered controls
When we tested the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2, we found the controls very annoying as they were pooled together on just one earcup. It’s disappointing that this issue persists with the Gen 3 headset. The right earcup has no controls, while the left earcup houses two volume scroll wheels, buttons for Quick Switch, Bluetooth, and Wireless mode, and the power button too.
This issue could have been avoided by simply placing the buttons on both earcups. Instead, using this headset has been frustrating and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve pressed the power button instead of the Bluetooth one. We’ve also seen this cluttered control scheme on the Stealth 500, and the Audeze Maxwell.
Sound quality suffers at high volumes
While the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 sounds great and produces an immersive in-game environment at most volumes, I should warn you before you crank it up really high as some frequencies sound distorted.
This was most prominent when I was playing Alan Wake 2 and I had the volume set to max to soak in the environment. When a shadow grabbed me and I had to use my flashlight to weaken him, the flashlight doing its magic sounded like screeching, making for an uncomfortable experience.
Meanwhile, listening to “Explode” by Mother Mother at the highest volume wasn’t very nice either. All the instruments sounded muddled, and the lead vocalist’s higher notes pierced my ears. This was also the case with 070 Shake’s “Skin & Bones.” I never had this issue with the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5 ($129), and you won’t face the same problem with the Sony PlayStation Pulse 3D ($99) either.
Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 review: Verdict
The Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 stands out as a formidable contender in the world of gaming headsets. With memory foam earcups that hug your ears and a lightweight frame, the Stealth 600 Gen 3 is comfortable to wear for long periods. Its 50mm Nanoclear drivers create an immersive environment and bring games to life. Additionally, the mic is powered by AI tech which makes your voice sound crystal clear, the companion app is easy to use, and it’s got a superb battery life.
While it can take a while to get a hang of the cluttered control scheme, and cranking up the volume might make you wince, there’s more than enough to love about the Stealth 600 Gen 3. And for less than $100? It’s hard to beat.
