Turtle Beach Elite Pro & Tactical Audio Controller Review

About:

The Turtle Beach® Elite Pro is the first gaming headset designed from the ground-up for eSports athletes. The Elite Pro’s 50mm Nanoclear™ speakers deliver more efficient, crisper audio with less distortion for a game changing sound experience, while the Pro Gaming Microphone with TruSpeak™ Technology provides crystal clear chat so your commands are always heard. The Elite Pro also debuts Turtle Beach’s unique ComforTec™ Fit System – a revolutionary adjustment system for truly personalized comfort, including AeroFit™ Ear Cushions – where groundbreaking material technologies combine to deliver passive noise isolation with cooling comfort, and the patented ProSpecs™ Glasses Relief System – alleviating ear cushion pressure for gamers who wear glasses. Elite eSports performance, ultimate comfort…this is Elite Pro.

Do you remember the last time you looked at a box and thought, this looks like great quality, no real precedent for it, but it just looked like it was. You unpackaged it, carefully not to damage some cheap plastic wrapper for a headphone mic almost as carefully as you cared for the mic itself, well that’s the Elite Pro’s!

Having used many headsets over the years my immediate reaction was “quality comes as standard” The Leather ear cups set on spandex and filled with memory foam infused with gel just sits at the top of the quality pyramid. Even my beloved 800x were not as comfortable as the Elite Pro’s. I set about adjusting the headset for my gaming mind, instantly comfortable on the ears and a blessing not seen but also not heard, the noise cancelling just from the cups was brilliant. The headband is adjustable, something I was not convinced by pre release but again it gives just enough tension or release to make it more comfortable, even my 6 year old adjusted them to suit him, something lacking in previous headsets released.

The actual headband length passed me by at first as they sat perfectly straight out of the box, but I then noticed the subtle number on the side indicating how many notches I had it set to, a easy way to ensure you are ready for the next game first time.

But the mic connection whilst it was bigger and more solid looking than other connections gave me my first disappointment in that it moved around so easy, but hang on, it stays put when in place? Yeah my disappointment turned to satisfaction pretty fast.

Connecting the headset to the mic controller was again backing up the solid build quality, and it’s not just the fact it’s built well, it’s designed well to small details, the 3 orange lines in the connector slot into the headset connector end and align to ensure you know you’re connected and ready. The whole headset has built in indicators to spot any potential issues.

Plug into your 3.5mm jack and bang, quality sound right to your ears.

The Tactical Audio Controller (TAC) add on

Well I thought the headphones were built well, this is quality, just what we need for gaming, solid heavy base so it does not move around and the volume dial is something else. Metal top, rubber sides make for truly pleasing sound adjustments, sometimes I adjusted the sound just because I could do it so easily.

The 4  slider levels:

• Game/Chat mixer
• Background noise limiter
• Outbound mic boosting
• Mic Monitor level

Simple and precise, after some tuning I got a perfect level of sound through the headset of game to chat with minimal mic monitor so I could hear it when I spoke but not so loud it made feel like watching myself on a video and hating it.

The background noise limiter allowed me to perfectly balance my mic vs the kids and wife’s TV in the background so the other players in the chat were not distracted.

Additionally the mic boost ensured I didn’t need to shout.

I can’t stress enough how nice the TAC is and how well it works.

Right through to the detail again like the headset the volume control is obvious due to a nicely lit dial the preset and surround buttons are clear and even the mic mute button changes during use and shows red when muted.

However there are a couple of features I would have liked to see, the 800x delivers an audio description of the setting when a preset or surround mode is changed, whilst a little overpowering this would have been nice as I don’t have time to memorise them but do like to change them. I also could see no way to change the settings to game specific ones or custom ones.

Finally the major issue I had was the mic mute button, it’s small, and like the preset and surround mode it’s not as nice as it could have been.

How do they sound?

I’m torn, here, the adjustments make it so easy to get the right balance of sound but it’s not quite as many people would read it, it is not DTS digital surround sound, it’s DTS headphone X. The quality is great and for the most part it delivers an outstanding quality of sound, no issues with the sound myself, incoming game and chat audio was great no crackling, distortion or any degradation as I initially feared due to the number of wires before the sound got to the headset. The party chat did have a intermittent issue with feedback for other gamers but it was intermittent. I could not replicate this in game chat though so presume it may be a party chat issue.

Overall for me they were not far from amazing but it’s not the sound me or I fear others will have the issue with.

Summary – Wires!

As you can see from the image below wires are in abundance. Now I’m sure for tournament gaming this is perfect as wireless is banned for the most part, and as stated they are tournament headphones and TAC, but let’s be honest more general gamers will be looking at these amazing features and possibilities will attract a lot of interest. The sound quality is amazing, and overall performance and quality of build is something I have now come to expect for a premium brand like Turtle Beach, however….

Having the 800x for some time now with no mic in the way, no wires, a headset cradle makes me somewhat spoilt so for me the TAC and Elite Pro will be remembered as an amazing option for any tournaments, or gamers happy to live with the cabled lifestyle, me I like the freedom!