Three obstacles have long stood in the way of wireless headsets: price, latency, and batteries. They

're more expensive than wired headsets, without better sound quality. Latency over a bad wireless connection is annoying. And batteries giving out mid-match is always a game-ruiner. But wireless headsets have come a long way over the years, and if you can get over the price premium, you can buy a wireless gaming headset that solves the battery problem and exhibits not a hint of latency. Zero-hassle

Looking for a cheaper pair of cans? Check out our guide to the best (wired) gaming headsets.

. And hoo boy, it isn’t a cheap one, weighing in just below $300. We know that's a lot of cash, but there are two major considerations at play here.

First is that wireless headsets tend to be pricier than their wired counterparts in the first place, so if you’re browsing this side of the market you’ve probably set aside a reasonable chunk of money in the first place. Secondly, scrimping on wireless tech is like seeking out bargain bin dentistry—a lot more can go wrong than right. The $300 in question buys not just incredible sound, comfort and convenience, but a free pass through any potential latency and battery issues.

Specs

Price: $299 (£220) Headphone Frequency Response: 20Hz—20KHzWeight: 297g (without battery)Max Volume: 100dB* SPL @ 1kHzPorts: Wired Mode / Share Port, Chat port, mini USB FW update port Transmitter Wireless Range: 12m (40ft) straight lineLatency: Ports: Analog In, Analog Out, mini USB, Optical In, Optical Out, PowerBattery Type: Rechargeable Lithium-Ion, 1000mAhBattery Life: 20 hours per pack, typical usage Microphone Frequency Response: 100Hz—10KHzMic Pattern: UnidirectionalIndication: Red LED on mute

SteelSeries strikes gold with its Siberia 800 (formerly known as the H Wireless) by combining top-end virtual surround sound, fantastic frequency response, and comfort with a ton of extra functionality and versatility. Despite the serious financial investment, it’s a genuine one-stop shop for PC, Mac, consoles and mobile devices.

Added bonus: its manufacturer also restrained itself from overdesigning the headset like a Pimp My Ride producer’s fever dream, naming it after a Roman or Greek god, or having an e-sports gamer sheepishly endorsing it on the packaging.

The basics: the H wireless is a closed-cup, circumaural headset, which mean it totally covers your ears and seals the sound around you, using memory foam padding in this case. That’s crucial; so many manufacturers bleat about the size of their drivers, but unless the low-end frequencies those drivers generate find an enclosed space in which to resonate, that ‘thumping’ bass effect is lost. Suffice to say, these earcups have plenty of ‘thump.’

There’s also plenty of power and clarity in the mid range and precise highs. If you go in with a sound snob mindset, you will hear that the overall mix doesn’t sound as organic as high-end stereo headphones aimed at the music market, because the audio’s running through a 7.1 virtual surround sound engine. The loss in overall tonality is unnoticeable to all but those who find themselves damned to live out life on this earth as the store employees from High Fidelity, though, and those people are too busy taping Japanese import albums by the Liqorice Comfits to care.

The surround itself is excellent, in both games and movies. It’ll genuinely have you hunting down Blu-Rays with 7.1 mixes just to enjoy the flyover effects, panned ambient noises and sound cues from high above. Unlike many top-end surround cans like Creative’s Sound Blaster Recon 3D Omega, the H Wireless doesn’t come with a ‘footstep’ or ‘sniper’ mode that dulls all but the sound sources in your vicinity, but honestly we don’t feel the loss. Maybe we’re just not good enough at shooters to exploit that feature, but we find a good surround mix like this is ample assistance in locating our would-be killers by footsteps or gunshots alone.

This isn’t a particularly light headset, weighing well over 300g (more than half a pound) with one of its two rechargeable batteries fitted (more on those later). However, memory foam pads at every contact point—around both earcups and the headband—make it an exceptionally comfortable one over a long duration. There’s enough pivot and extension in the frame to accommodate any head shape and very little sound produced when doing so, which is a good indicator of build quality. The orange stitching around each cup does fray easily though, messing up an otherwise impeccable and understated aesthetic.

As with all SteelSeries models, the mic here is retractable, so you can push it back inside the left cup and out of the way when it isn’t needed, and a quick tap of the power on button on the bottom of the right cup mutes it. There’s also a volume wheel at the top of the right cup, and a rubber cover on the bottom next to the power button which conceals an aux cable connection so you can connect up your Xbox One or PS4 controller and chat if you want to use this with a console, and another connection allowing you to connect a second headset. Two-person silent gaming sessions and really low-key silent discos are go.

As odd as it sounds, it’s actually the transmitter that elevates the H Wireless above its peers. Firstly, it doubles as a battery charger. While one of its lithium ion batteries is powering the headset, another occupies a charge slot within the transmitter so you genuinely never have to stop using it, or even connect it to a charge cable. Considering what a hassle that can be, that dual battery design gives it a massive advantage over its peers. Astro’s A50 and Turtle Beach’s i60 both offer similar luxury to the H Wireless in sound and comfort, but simply can’t compete with the way it elegantly sidesteps the charging problem.

Its batteries cling to life for up to 20 hours, too. That’s the stated figure in SteelSeries’ own documentation, and it holds true in the real world too. Even extended max volume sessions have little effect on it. Speaking of the spec sheet, the proposed signal range is an enormous 12 meters (40 feet). In reality, that means the signal remains clean literally anywhere in this tester’s apartment.

There’s a plethora of connection options at the back of the transmitter (optical in/out in addition to USB) which means it’s fair game for just about any device you can throw at it, and includes a handy voice chat/game audio mixing feature called ChatMix. With this you can either manually adjust both levels, or let the transmitter boost the voice audio only when someone’s talking—essentially it’s working like a sidechain compressor, pushing the game audio down when someone talks and pushing it up again afterward.

There simply isn’t another wireless headset on the market that does everything SteelSeries’ Siberia 800can do—and with some considerable style, too. It’s certainly not cheap, but the variety of applications it can handle mitigates that to an extent. Above all, it lets you forget about all the drawbacks traditionally associated with going wireless. A class act.

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The best budget wireless gaming headset Bargain price Stylish design Excellent build quality Lacking midrange audio compared to the Steelseries H Wireless Shorter battery life at around 10 hours

It’s an oldie, butwireless set is as strong a package now as it was at launch in late 2013, and of course a couple years before that in its earlier incarnations. And now that it’s dropped below the $100 mark, it’s kind of a no-brainer for budget buyers.

As with every peripheral Corsair puts out, the build quality on show in these cans is extraordinary. The closed-cup design features massively oversized cups, big enough to envelop any set of ears, and thus block out distracting noise while giving the bass a little chamber to resonate in. The body’s constructed using a mixture of plastics and lightweight aluminium, keeping the overall weight low enough to maximise comfort levels. Oh, and the enormous padded headband doesn’t exactly hurt on that front, either.

Specs

Price: $90 (£78) Frequency Response: 40Hz—20kHz 5/-5dB, -10dB @ 35Hz Impedance: 32 Ohms @ 1kHz Drivers: 50mm Connector: Wireless USB Microphone type: Unidirectional noise-cancelling condenser Impedance: 2.2k Ohms Frequency Response: 100Hz to 10kHzSensitivity -37dB (+/-3dB)

There’s just one on-off switch on the right cup, and a nicely textured volume roller below it, so it isn’t bursting with inline controls like our $150 pick, but the simplicity really adds to its look.

However, like our $150 pick, The H2100 is another fuss-free setup, requiring only a single USB slot to connect its receiver. Battery life is a perfectly usable ten hours—less than our other picks, and not something to brag about on the packaging, but certainly enough to get you through any one session before those beeps kick in.

It’s in the sound quality where you start to hear the difference $200 makes—the H2100’s midrange lacks a little clarity compared to our newfound favourite, the SteelSeries H Wireless, but for the money it still offers powerful low-end and convincing positional audio that’ll immerse you in your games. You’ll feel the lack of sparkle when listening to music, but them’s the breaks at the budget end.

All things considered though, $90 is practically theft for the level of quality on offer with the Corsair H2100. They’re arguably the best-looking cans in the whole roundup, and though their sound and battery life can’t compete with the upper echelon, the downside to you when using them in the real world is minimal.

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The best mid-budget wireless gaming headset Quality construction Excellent virtual surround with DTS Headphone: X Bluetooth support Less comfortable than Steelseries H Wireless over long periods Poor wireless range with USB receiver

Turtle Beach has the console headset market pretty well sewn up, but its position in PC audio is of a relative outlier, particularly compared to familiar, reliable names such as Creative, Logitech… you know, the companies who were making headphones before you got your first PC. For context, then: the Turtle Beach Ear Force Z300is a wireless PC variation on its excellent PX4 and Stealth models for PS4 and Xbox One, respectively.

It boasts a specific surround technology called DTS Headphone: X, which is particularly good at tricking your ears into hearing a broad vertical space in addition to a wide stereo pan. When using these to listen to a 7.1 surround mix that makes use of that tech, the effect is wonderfully cinematic.

SPECS

Price: $160 (£127) Drivers: 50mm Noise Cancelling: No Microphone: Yes, detachable Inline Volume: Yes Battery life: 15 hours Design: circumaural

In fact it’s that surround sound quality, coupled with the Z300’s excellent construction, that has us singling it out from the crowd at the $150 mark (give or take a few bucks). The circumaural cups do a brilliant job of filtering out external noise while also minimising heat levels thanks to a breathable material cover over its cushioned pads. It’s extremely adjustable, and the wide design of the headband allays any sensation of its weight digging in to the top of your head.

Compared to our absolute top pick, the Steelseries Siberia 800, there is a noticeable difference in comfort levels during long sessions (largely down to the softer materials used in the Steelseries model’s contact points). There’s less between them in surround quality, though. Turtle Beach has been building surround cans for consoles for years now, and knows the algorithms needed to trick your ears into perceiving a wide space.

What’s more, it’s a really unfussy piece of hardware. Setup requires connecting a single, memory stick-sized USB receiver, and… that’s it. No long, dangling wires from the receiver to your PC as with so many other wireless setups. There are volume, mic volume, EQ options and compression on/off buttons on the earcups themselves, but the design doesn’t look busy or crowded.

Bonus feature: it’s Bluetooth compatible, so you can hook it up to your smartphone or tablet in addition to your PC. However, that plus point actually leads us onto a flaw in the Z300’s overall package. Wireless range using the USB receiver isn’t great—the bar’s set high enough that you expect to be able to continue listening anywhere in your home, and that wasn’t true for us in this case. Via Bluetooth it’s much better though, so if you have a Bluetooth receiver for your PC it’s a good idea to use that format.

Perhaps the above issue makes this a slightly controversial pick, but in addition to the tank-like build and surround sound chops of the Z300, there’s also a really handy 15-hour battery life to win you back over. As with the SteelSeries Siberia 800, we found the manufacturer wasn’t lying on the spec sheet, and that a fully charged pair really does last longer than you’d ever want to use them for in one session—comfortably three or four sessions, actually.

Competition is fierce at this price point; relative superiority between one manufacturer’s prize fighter and another is slim. But Turtle Beach is wise to pack its strengths in the console market into this PC headset, and though it’s not a perfect offering in terms of range, the surround experience will blow you away in-game.is the best wireless headset we've used at a mid-budget price.

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How we test wireless headsets and others we tested

Fact: wired headsets hugely outnumber their wireless brethren in the PC peripherals marketplace. Why? Why hasn’t the technology that unshackles us from our machine rendered wired models obsolete? Well, historically, cable-free cans have had a number of drawbacks, some of which remain today.

One: battery charge time. Ever had a wireless headset run out of charge on you mid-game, bleating its pathetic warning tone at the exact frequency that makes you want to chew through your tongue? Then you can see why some might be put off by the idea of having to manage their charge level, and even cut sessions short if their cans drain completely.

Two: latency. Particularly in cheaper wireless audio gear, latency can fluctuate and lead to a distracting slow down, speed up auditory jerkiness in whatever you’re listening to as your hardware tries to keep pace. Distracting, and annoying.

And three: price. There’s always been a considerable premium thrown on the price tag of any wireless headset, because that receiver and rechargeable battery aren’t cheap to produce. The silver lining? Manufacturers know those first two problems are deal-breakers, and have invested a lot of resources into minimising them. So today, you mostly just have to worry about price. That hasn’t changed, because all that resource investment is expensive.

If you are prepared to pay a slight premium, some incredible, zero-hassle gaming audio equipment awaits. And we think the best of the whole bunch is the SteelSeries Siberia 800. With a retail price set at $299 (though it is available for more like $260 if you shop around), it’s certainly a serious investment. But for the money you get not only the comfort level, surround sound and audio fidelity of the very best wired headsets, but a bunch of cool extras unique to itself. Two swappable lithium ion batteries? Check. Impossibly stylish transmission unit? Double check.

Of course, you might not be inclined to part with quite so much money just for the pleasure of cable-free listening pleasure. That’s fine—we’ve got you. Looking right the way down the price list, we’ve made our picks at the $150 and under $100 mark too, to help you make the right decision however much money you want to throw at this.

Testing wireless headsets

Many of the qualities you’re looking for from a wireless headset are the same you’d hope to find in any audio equipment—tone, build quality, and reliability leading the charge. As such we listen to each review model while playing different genres of game, listening to music, and watching movies with bombastic sound effects and surround mixes—think less Werner Herzog, more Chris Nolan. We also run a simple sine wave ‘swoop’ across the stated frequency response range (almost always the full 20Hz-20KHz these days), and in the case of surround headsets we’ll listen to positional audio tests like DTS Headphone-X test. There’s also our old favorite, the Virtual Barber Shop. YouTube’s compression does limit the overall sound quality, but it’s still a great way of separating the wheat from the chaff in surround sound earphones.

There are a few wireless-specific elements we need to test for, too: battery life, charge time, range and latency. The former is pretty self-explanatory, though in addition to an ‘everyday use’ battery life test we also run the headset at full volume to discover how quickly the charge drains under those conditions. To ascertain charge time, we… well, we charge the headsets and note how long it takes.

Range and latency are trickier to test in a scientific manner. However, having a good old walk around the house gives a good indication of range, and latency ultimately comes down to perception. With all that taken into account after several days of use, we’re in a good place to make the call on a headset.

Competitors

The wireless market’s considerably smaller than its wired counterpart—most of the big players in USB/3.5mm gaming headsets have a wireless option, but usually just the one. As such the current market competitors list is a bit slim. The range expands when you look as far as console-specific wireless cans, but in the interest of ensuring full compatibility we’ve stuck to officially supported PC models.

Plantronics .Audio 995

Oddly, Plantronics doesn’t have a bespoke wireless gaming headset; this .Audio 995 is designed for office and multimedia use but is about as close to gaming spec as the manufacturer gets sans cables. It has a good rep for comfort and sound quality, and an appealing price at around $45, but as it’s designed for use when you’re on the clock rather than on the ranked servers, it’s best to look elsewhere.

Sades Stereo 7.1 Surround Pro

Don’t be taken in by the sub-$30 price tag. Online customer reviews tell a woeful story involving nonexistent driver support, defective mics, and even suggestions that this is a ‘grey market’ model which isn’t authorised for sale to the United States.

Creative Sound Blaster Recon 3D Omega

Edged out of ‘best overall’ contention by a fraction. Despite fantastic surround sound and comfort levels, the Recon 3D soundcard creates a lot of cable clutter and its headset’s admittedly strong battery life can’t compete with SteelSeries elegant swappable battery solution.

Turtle Beach Ear Force i60

The last word in luxury in all aspects… if you’re a Mac user. Full functionality is possible but not guaranteed on Windows, and though it’s very nearly worth the risk, there are other options of the same or higher quality which make it a moot point.

Astro Gaming A50

Another candidate that missed out by a whisker for ‘best overall.’ Flawless sound, bomb-proof build quality, and a few minor niggles such as unpredictable battery life, and a strangely short charge cable.

Logitech G930

Looks and feels the part, offering great surround sound too. However, many users report problems with stutter or random disconnections. Battery life isn’t great for the price, either.

Creative Sound Blaster Evo

Ticks the basic sound/build quality boxes, but is let down by mediocre battery life and develops noisy joints over time. Oddly, mic sound quality is extraordinarily good. Go figure.

Creative Sound Blaster Evo ZxR

More expensive than the Evo, and with more functionality to show for it. However, being built around the same basic design, it suffers the same physical problems. And, look, we don’t want to get personal, but it’s really ugly.

Razer Adaro Bluetooth

As the name suggests, this is a Bluetooth-only set, and not really intended with the PC gamer at the front of the queue. Good sound quality and range, but lacking the extras we take for granted in the gaming market and if you don’t have a Bluetooth receiver on your PC—well, forget it.

Future testing

For now, the Steelseries Siberia 800is our favorite wireless gaming headset. The wireless end of PC gaming audio gear offers less choice than that of wired peripherals, but it’s still a big marketplace—what’s more, it’s populated by models with incremental improvements and price hikes from the same manufacturers. As such, we haven’t tested every single model available, but done our best to seek out the cream of the crop. And from that cream, we’ve cherry-picked a) the absolute best options available right now, and b) a really odd, food-themed mixing of metaphors.

It’s also a marketplace that moves fast—so we’ll be keeping our eye on it and updating it as promising new models are released.

A note on affiliates: some of our stories, like this one, include affiliate links to stores like Amazon. These online stores share a small amount of revenue with us if you buy something through one of these links, which helps support our work evaluating PC components.

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