This review is about the comparison between the Razer Kraken Ultimate and the SteelSeries Arctis 7. Both the headsets retail under the price range of 150 dollars. These headsets do have different features. To know which one is good for you to buy, go to the detailed review.

Razer Kraken Ultimate	SteelSeries Arctis 7
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Good sound quality. Robust software. “Underglow” lighting looks pretty neat. THX Spatial Audio is a decent software-driven surround.	Very Lightweight. Affordable. Fantastic sound reproduction in almost all real world tests. Wireless audio and voice chat is truly lag free. Out of this world comfort.
CONS	CONS
Somewhat expensive. Ridiculously large.	Aggressive bend in the headband and shallow cups made for some discomfort around the ears. Not really comfortable. Bass isn’t particularly powerful.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail review:

INTRODUCTION:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

This is a headset that will cost you around a hundred and twenty-three dollars and it comes with some interesting design and features. It has THX spatial sound and RGB chroma lighting, which I like the most. 

SteelSeries Arctis 7

The SteelSeries Arctis 7 are currently retailing for around 150 dollars. These headsets are extremely comfortable, the build of them feels premium, and they feel really good while wearing them on especially with the glasses. These are one of the minimalistic headsets in the market.

DESIGN:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

The Kraken Ultimate comes with the classic Razer design, a 2 meter braided USB cable which is not detachable, retractable microphone, and a pretty solid robust look and feels to it. It’s fairly understated until you plug it in at which point you get the RGB lighting on the outer ear cups. The ear cups here don’t block out a great deal of external noise but they do block out a fair amount. On the back of the ear cups, you’ve got a volume wheel and the THX audio button as well. You can also remove the ear cups if you choose so. You can replace them easily or clean them and fitting them back on again is also easy.

It has an expandable headset design and allows you to extend the headband and make it fit nicely. If you stretch the headset out, it gonna be fine. It’s also fairly robust and it looks pretty scary to stretching out all that but it actually handles it really well and it will be fine. It’s very well structured in that way. However, I am a bit disappointed because there’s literally no bend and flex in the ear cups themselves. There is no swivel mechanism.

SteelSeries Arctis 7

For the price, this headset is a pretty premium build. What I’ve honestly liked about SteelSeries is everything they do is pretty minimalistic looking. There’s no RGB lighting on it but it just does the job right out of the box. There is a basic common headband on a SteelSeries headset. The ear cups don’t actually adjust like in most gaming headsets. It’s just this band system they have and where it’s got a Velcro adjuster.

The microphone is actually built directly into the headset. They have the pull-out and push-in mechanism for the mic. The mic is retractable too, so it can be positioned in any way you want which is really nice. You can put it away when you don’t want to use it. The mic has a mute button on it, that actually turns the tip of the mic red when it’s muted.

COMFORT:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

The ear cups do have some nice design features to it that include gel ear cushions meant to be cooling and actually you do feel that when you put them on. They look like quite thick faux leather ear cups. They are reasonably deep, quite large, and reasonably comfortable too. They actually keep your ears nice and cool and don’t seem to heat them up as much as other headsets do.

You can’t tilt or turn it like other headsets I’ve tried recently, which I find disappointing because it means you can’t get it quite as comfortable. Perhaps that, it does sit nicely on the head. So far it’s not going anywhere and doesn’t clamp at the same time. It seems to strike a nice balance between being sitting on your head nicely without squashing your face. Those ear cups are padded in such a way that you can wear glasses while using them.

In the headband, you have the faux leather padding on it, and on the inside, you have a sort of mesh. There is not much padding in the headband at all which is again a drawback here. However, that not found it to be a terribly uncomfortable one. Fitting on my head hasn’t really caused any problem apart from messing up my hair. Apart from that, it is fairly sturdy.

SteelSeries Arctis 7

When you’re wearing it, it actually feels like it’s kind of just floating on your head because of the velcro adjusting band. It’s extremely comfortable wearing this headset. Because of this band, actually you never feel the top metal part of the headset pushing in your head, so it’s really comfortable in that way. As far as the ear cups, it’s a pretty basic mesh material, very squishy and soft and it does a really great job at keeping your ears cool while you’re wearing it. No need for all the big head people out there to worry, this headset is not gonna like pinching your head. This headset fits pretty nicely with the band.

The clamping force in this headset is not much. It’s not pressing against the head too much and at the same time they don’t fall off from the head easily. The ear cups are doing a great job of actually making you comfortable. Even while wearing glasses also they are so comfortable because of the soft mesh material. I actually can’t even feel it pressing against my glasses at all.

FEATURES:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

This headset has an aluminum and steel construction to make it really robust. These headsets have THX special audio certification and an active noise-canceling microphone. This headset comes with 50-millimeter drivers. Outwardly, it looks like a very stylish headset. I must say I do feel like it felt a bit cheap in the hand considering its the price. There’s a lot of plastics, alongside the metal so that aluminum and steel construction does look sturdy and you’ve got a bit of it itself on the round the ear cup.

This headset has a frequency response of 20 Hertz to 20,000 Hertz which is actually fairly low. 20,000 Hertz as a top-level is usually what you get from a wireless headset and this is a wired headset PC as well, so it’s certainly not high res in any way. It’s not 40,000, 50,000 or 96 kilohertz which is definitely the preference from me anyway and that is a disappointment.

You are getting access to a software called the Razer Synapse software with this headset. In this software, you have your sound, mixer, enhancements, equalizer, mic and last will be your lighting. You also have the profiles in the software that are Kraken music and Kraken game. You can change it as per your preference. In the sound page, there will be your volume up and down and your stereo and surround sound tests. Then you have the THX spacial sound and its calibration in the mixer. You have the bass boost, sound normalization, and voice clarity in the enhancements and different presets in the equalizer. Mic volume, mic sensitivity, and sidetone are in the mic. Then, at last, you have the brightness and customizing lighting in the lighting. You can change these all accordingly as per your preference.

SteelSeries Arctis 7

You are getting the SteelSeries Arctis 7 headset along with a wireless dongle in the box. The wireless dongle has a really easy plug-and-play experience. You need to just plug the dongle into your computer, turn on the headset and you’re ready to go. For PC it’s gonna be plug-and-play and for PS4 too this is extremely compatible with. Unfortunately, for Xbox and the Nintendo Switch, you have to plug this in with a 3.5-millimeter auxiliary cord which kind of defeats the purpose of buying a wireless headset. Actually, it’s not meant for it, if you’re looking into this for the Xbox or the Nintendo Switch.

As far as the battery life goes in Arctis 7, it is set at 24 hours of battery life. I don’t think many of us out there gaming for 24 hours straight, so if you’re really worried about it just plug it in for charging when you’re done and you’re never gonna have a problem.

In the SteelSeries Engine 3 software when you click right on the Arctis 7, that’s actually gonna bring up the audio adjustments. You have the DTS software on and off button there. It doesn’t sound like 7.1 surround sound but it works pretty well, so I do have that on. You can change the bass, equalizer, the dynamic range compression, it just shows you this kind of the different things that you can do with it. It is a little customizable when it comes to that. Then you can set up different configurations whether you want to have a default one, or a gaming one, or for movies or one for listening to music whatever it is you can do that.

MICROPHONE:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

You can use the sidetone on the microphone quite easily to hear your own voice if you do find your blocking out too much and you can’t hear yourself talking. The mic in these works really well for active noise cancellation. It’s not great but it works pretty well at this price range.

SteelSeries Arctis 7

The sound of the mic is a little bit nasally but for 150 dollars wireless headset you’re kind of bound to have a little bit that kind of sound to it. I’ve had $200 to $300 headsets that sound worse than this. Overall, I think the audio of the mic is pretty decent and I really haven’t had any of my friends complain about how I sound through this mic. They all said I sounded pretty good. This headset does have some kind of noise suppression when it comes to background noise while you’re gaming. But I have noticed it a little bit that they do pick up the keyboard sound and that’s a deal-breaker for you. Still, this sounds good at this price range.

SOUND:

Razer Kraken Ultimate

It sounds very tinny. What I’ve experienced so far playing different games the audio to be quite underwhelming and numerous on different occasions. However, the THX spatial awareness is very good and the surround sound for that is very good which I found on playing the usual games. I can hear a lot more and very accurately and work out the direction of gunfire, footsteps, incoming vehicles, those sorts of things really easily. I could hear everything better than the friends I was playing with as well. So, the spatial surround sound is really good.

However, I am just really underwhelmed by the sound. It’s just lacking something, it’s lacking a warmth, a depth, and a bass to it. The range is not as good as other headsets I’ve tried and I think that’s partly to do with the frequency response. It’s the same with listening to music and movies, unfortunately. You can play with the EQ in the Razer Synapse software to get a better audio experience.

SteelSeries Arctis 7

As far as the actual in-game sound on the headset for a hundred and fifty dollars wireless headset, you’re never gonna get the top to your quality of sound. Although, this has actually done a pretty good job. It doesn’t have any sort of 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound anything like that but it is DTS software compatible and it kind of does like a surround sound simulation. If you’re playing Call of Duty or any other like a shooter and you need to hear footsteps and stuff like that, it actually does a great job at adapting to that.

I don’t have a problem with it but if you’re looking for something like crazy top-tier audio sound coming out of this, then you can’t get it. This headset does not have 7.1 surround sound and technically it does have the DTS software which basically kind of simulates a 360 surround sound. It’s not like 7.1 surround sound but it does a pretty good job.

WHICH TO BUY?

In my opinion, if you are looking for a headset with a pretty good sound and good comfort, then you should buy the SteelSeries Arctis 7 because it does sound better and does have better comfort with its minimalistic design than the Razer Kraken Ultimate.

Expert Reviews of Razer Kraken Ultimate:

By ThinkComputers
Razer added active noise canceling to the microphone, which does a pretty good job of canceling out unwanted noises. The other change is that you get RGB lighting on the headset itself, which looks pretty cool.

By nag.co.za
The Razer Kraken Ultimate sits firmly in the gaming headset sub-genre for peripherals, with RGB-forward design aesthetics and questionable sound quality to match. While definitely an improvement on previous iterations of the Kraken, there still isn’t…

By PCMag IN
Bottom LineThe Razer Kraken Ultimate wired gaming headset brings powerful bass, programmable lighting, and an excellent microphone to you…

By TechRadar
With an excellent upgrade to an already excellent headset, Razer has made a gaming headset that can keep you comfortable even in the longest gaming binges.

By Craving Tech
As a wired, USB gaming headset, Razer Kraken Ultimate offers great gaming experience: THX Spatial Audio, great microphone clarity and quality with active noise cancellation option, full RGB lighting, comfy thick cushion, and a good length of USB…

Expert Reviews of SteelSeries Arctis 7:

By techgearlab.com
While the Arctis 7 wasn’t one of the overall top performers, it is by far our favorite of the wireless headsets, offering the best combination of performance and price, without any major…

By TheStreamingBlog
The SteelSeries Arctis 7 is an outstanding headset that isn’t only visually pleasing, but its design is also functional which makes it an excellent gaming headset for continuous gaming sessions. The wireless range and battery life are unbeatable; plus,…

By TechRadar
On the consoles, it’s less easy to recommend the Arctis 7, due to mainly to its lack of surround-sound. The need to wire any headset to an Xbox One controller negates spending extra on a wireless headset, anyway. But the fact it works in proper wireless…

By Kitguru.net
Overall, I had a hard time deciding how to score the SteelSeries Arctis 7 gaming headset. On one hand, the audio quality is very good for a gaming headset, the mic is up there with the best I’ve heard and I genuinely believe ChatMix is one of the best,…

By PCWorld
The SteelSeries Arctis 7 might not be the best-sounding headset around, but it’s extremely comfortable and also nets you wireless audio for only $150.