SteelSeries Arctis Nova 4x Wireless Review

An entry level unit at a mid tier price.

As someone lucky enough to have a dedicated gaming space in my home, and an owner of three current-gen consoles, cable management and general clutter reduction is an ongoing saga. I like my gaming space to be neat and tidy, I hate cables, and I hate clutter. So while the the odd piece of gaming memorabilia and a few neatly placed controllers, if balanced properly, can make a space look nice, it’s really easy to over do it.

For a time I was using three different pairs of wireless headphones: one for each console. It caused my game room to be a mess of not only the headphones but their charging cables or base stations, all strewn across the cabinet that sits below my TV. Eventually, I locked them all away and switched to a single wired pair that worked well (enough) with everything, resulting in two fewer sets of cans on my TV cabinet. For a while, that was ok… but the longer I used these headphones the more I hated them.

It wasn’t long before I went hunting for a wireless pair that would seamlessly work with all three consoles. Alas, this was not to be. One brand that I was particularly fond of offered models that would work with Xbox and PC, but not PlayStation… though they offered another model that worked with PlayStation and PC but not Xbox, and so on and so forth.

I continued using my wired cans, and I continued to hate them, constantly tethered either to a controller, or a mixer that requires a cable laid across the middle of the room. I looked for ages to find something that promised to work properly across all major platforms.

Enter the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 4x Wireless, a comfortable gaming headset that works with every current generation console and PC right out of the box. When I learned these thing existed I was elated. Would I soon be using a single pair of headphones across every piece of gaming hardware I own?  Well no… not really. Despite living up to the compatibility and ease of use promises made, this set of headphones just doesn’t sound as good as they should for the money you’re shelling out. 

The Arctis Nova 4x package comes with the headphones (duh), a charge cable, a male USB-A to female USB-C adapter, and a neat little dongle with a male USB-C connecter. The dongle plugs directly into the front of your PS5 or the base of your Switch in handheld mode, or — by using the included adapter — will connect to any USB-A port in your PC, Xbox, or your Switch Dock, allowing it to be neatly tucked away out of sight. Once connected, the headset — already paired with the dongle — will just work. There’s no need for additional settings or even pairing, it’s literally plug and play.

The headphones are incredibly light and rest comfortably on your head thanks to the elastic support strap that suspends the headband a centimeter or so above your head. While lightweight, they feel solid enough to be able to withstand a a reasonable amount of abuse, meaning you could comfortably shove them in a backpack if the need arose.

A black matte finish leaves no fingerprints and with just a silver SteelSeries logo on each ear these headphones have a minimalist design that’s pleasing to the eye without being overburdened by unnecessary flash like battery wasting LEDs that the wearer will hardly ever see. The earcups are padded with foam wrapped in black fabric which breathes so well that even after several hours of gaming during Melbourne’s recent heatwave, there was not a drop of gross sweat to be found. That said, the same padding on the ear cups do make an annoying sound when rubbing up against the arms of my glasses which is difficult to ignore. 

On the left ear cup a microphone is neatly hidden away so subtly you could be forgiven for thinking the Arctis Nova is not a gaming headset and might even get away with using it out and about. While its long list of compatibility options includes mobile usage, the dongle is still required so really, why would you bother? Each earcup has various dials and buttons for typical functions such as volume, chat/game audio mix, power, and a mute button. These of course work without issue and are easy to access, however there’s some weird logic when it comes to their positioning.

With the microphone on the left earcup, it would make sense to me that the same earcup would house all microphone applicable controls. This is true for the microphone mute button, but not with the game/chat volume mixer which is instead on the right earcup. As a result whilst spreading democracy in Helldivers 2 this past week I kept finding myself intuitively adjusting the master volume dial which is on the microphone side when I intended to adjust the chat mix. This is obviously not a major issue and of course wasn’t an ongoing problem after some getting used to, but it is a design choice that seems weird to me.

Regretfully, once powered on straight out of the box the audio quality of the Nova 4x wireless is pretty awful and it left me with a nasty first impression. For me, sound quality is very important be it in a gaming, movie, or music setting so I put a lot of value in headphones that have excellent sound. So when I experienced the barely there bass, flat mid range and ear piercing high range of this SteelSeries unit I immediately jumped online to find out how much these things were selling for. Exclusive to JB Hi-Fi in Australia, the Arctis Nova 4x is $249 AUD at the time of writing.

Resisting the urge to start writing this review in that very moment, and holding on to hope that some EQ adjustments would turn these into my go to headphones, I unplugged the dongle from my Xbox and connected it to my PC. After downloading the SteelSeries GG software I jumped straight into the EQ settings and within a few minutes I was able to make some improvements to the sound. My tweaks resulted in bass and low range that you can actually notice and the mid and high ranges were clearer without being piercing.

I must emphasise though that while I could get the EQ settings close to how I like my headphones to sound, I couldn’t get it exactly where I wanted it. I like quite a lot of bass in my audio and I found that when adjusting the low range sliders in the EQ I had to choose between either almost enough but not quite enough bass, or hideous levels of distortion. Of course I chose the former over the latter and as stated, while not perfect for my liking, it was close-ish.

This brings me to another gripe with the Arctis Nova 4x. For a headset that (rightfully) spruiks its wide range of compatibility options, the fact that the headset doesn’t have any onboard EQ options seems quite insane to me. A user without a PC that picks one of these up to just use on a console is, like me, going to be very disappointed with their first impression of audio when using the factory preset EQ levels. That same user discovering that the EQ setting can only be adjusted via connection to a PC is going to be furious. A simple button on the headphones to cycle through the four EQ presets would have gone a very long way even though those four presets aren’t all that great either. 

I must say though that the noise cancelling microphone on this unit is excellent. As stated, a lot of my time with this headset was spent gaming during a heatwave meaning that a ceiling fan above me was set to high almost constantly, not to mention an air conditioner in the next room, and a TV on in another room. Through all that not once did any of my gaming buddies complain about unintended noise. Further, try as I might to annoyingly (but realistically) mouth-breathe into the microphone, my friends were unperturbed.

Though its definitely not all doom and gloom. The best feature by far of the Arctis Nova 4x is its battery life. An advertised 36 hours of use from a full charge held up in my testing, so it won’t be often that you’ll find yourself out of juice. Should that happen though, a quick 15-minute charge will be enough to get you back into the fray for around six hours. For those not overly picky when it comes to sound quality, the battery life alone is a major selling point of this unit. 

While offering a good build quality, a comfortable fit, pleasing aesthetic, and excellent compatibility, the Arctis Nova 4x just doesn’t offer the sound quality I would expect for its $249 AUD price tag and a the lack of an EQ selector on the device is an oversight that I can’t get past. If you’re desperate for a set of cans that will work with everything and the leap to the next price point of $400 for the better models from SteelSeries is out of your reach, the Arctic Nova 4x would be a great option.

If you can, however, I’d would wait until they’re on sale. If sold at $180 or maybe even $200 AUD, these would be a good purchase but the current price tag is just a little too steep for what you’re getting for your money. As for me, I might eventually pick up an Arctis Nova Pros, which Steve reviewed a few years ago, as they seem to be much more suitable for my tastes.